June dreams

December 30th, 2017

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love the word “dreams” and encourage people all around me to dare to chase their dreams every single day. I’ve worked with many people over the past 8+ years on dreaming, and I often see that people have a hard time getting started because they judge their dreams and then don’t take even the first basic steps to move forward. Some people get hung up on thinking they have to have huge “bucket list” dreams. Or they only focus on one area of their life (Matthew Kelly suggests twelve categories for dreams in his book The Dream Manager: physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, psychological, material, professional, financial, creative, adventure, legacy and character). Or they don’t believe they can make them happen so they don’t ever say them aloud or take any steps.

I say just get started. Don’t worry about whether you think your dream is too big or too small. Don’t worry about whether you know how to measure it or not. Don’t worry what other people think. Or that you’re not sure how seemingly random dreams align with a life purpose that you haven’t found or embraced yet. Don’t focus on “dream” not being the word you would have chosen. Don’t get lost in telling yourself you don’t have enough time or money. Life is passing you by while you debate all the reasons why you disagree with this approach to dreaming. Just take steps every single day – the more steps you take, the more clear your dreams will become. Here are just a few ways that I relate dreaming…

This was a 3-mile round-trip walk to get coffee with Beth. Simple. Peaceful. Enjoying the outdoors. Finding time to talk. Creating space for conversation to happen. Time for just the two of us. Getting to be a bit of a foodie. Seeing more of our city. How many dream categories can you check off?

Rhubarb from our garden. Dreams like this first meant I had to plan and create a new garden. Creative. Physical. Financial. Material. Megan’s dream for 2017 was to “Grow at least 6 different edible plants in our garden”. Creative. Emotional. Adventure. Perfect. I get to bond with Megan while working in the garden. It gets us outside. We have to work hard. Legacy. Character. How many dream categories did this one touch on?

Some of my fitness related dreams this year were: to run two marathons; to finish these marathons with a smile on my face; and to not be saying at the finish line that I never want to do another marathon in my life. Running is very spiritual and reflective for me now. I think about so many things while running. I solve problems. I practice gratitude. I pray. It grounds me. And keeps me feeling good and mentally healthy. Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth is touted as one of the most scenic marathons in the country. Since I was born in Duluth, it was also special for me to run this one. We stayed in a small hotel near the University of Duluth, that also happened to be about 1/2 mile from a bus pick-up. You have to take a bus to the starting line…and it was a bit concerning that the day started out so humid and stuffy that I was already sweating just on the 26.2 mile bus ride to the start. Yikes. The weather really didn’t get any better from there…it stayed humid and got sunny & hot. The rain never came. Ick. I trained really well for this marathon and wanted to run a good race. At about mile 22 the hot weather was wearing me down, so I paused and had a conversation with myself. We decided that if my goal was to really finish this marathon with a smile on my face, and to not say “I never want to run another marathon”, then I had to slow down. So I slowed down. I walked a bit (ok, a lot). It was just too hot for me. It took me a few hours after the race to start feeling better…but I really enjoyed the experience. We had to drive home right after the race, but by the time we got to Hinckley I was ready to eat a monster meal at Tobies. Fantastic place!

My name on a car 🙂

My mom’s name on a wall 🙂

Unfortunately, Colleen wasn’t able to make this trip with us. But the rest of us had fun!

This is with probably 17 miles to still run in the race, and if you squint…you can just barely see the finish line down the shore of Lake Superior…almost there 😉

Lemon Drop Hill is really the only hill in this marathon. And it isn’t much of a hill. But what is unique is that you can see this hill from probably 1.5 miles away, and it looks massive from a distance…like a wall in the road. It’s an imposing sight, but the hill is just a blip and then you get to cruise downhill for a long time afterwards. I still had lots of company at mile 21…

Beth and the kids met me about halfway up Lemon Drop Hill. This was the first time I saw them all race…great to have people cheering you on. I didn’t know it, but a peer of mine at work was there to cheer on his daughter, so he found me 3 or 4 times throughout the race – that was some unexpected fun!

Part of my running journey is to spread awareness to suicide and mental health issues. I’ve made several shirts for my races, and I’ve raised money for other races too to support these causes. I get chills every single time another runner comments on my shirt. I’ve had some powerful conversations while running. This is a cathartic and healing journey for many people. As runner Lori Culnane says, “Everything you ever wanted to know about yourself you can learn in 26.2 miles”. You won’t understand that until you train for and run a marathon. Trust the journey.

My goal was to finish with a smile on my face. That looks like a smile to me 🙂

Finally I was starting to feel a bit better…beautiful day. I’m blessed to be supported by my friends and family. Dream categories: physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, creative, adventure, legacy and character. Boom. Thank you Grandma’s!

Many of my dreams focus on being a better parent, and spending time with my children. An area I feel I can always do better in. I took Megan to see Minnesota United place soccer on the 4th of July. Just the two of us. They lost but it was a good day. And Megan got a few early birthday presents…shirt and a ball…any maybe learned that when it’s just the two of us she brings more stuff home 🙂

Another dream in the works for a while. Creating an outdoor space that is mosquito free, private, a bit sheltered, where we can be near our pond and watch the backyard. It turned out great. Love it.

Brand new dreamy garden space. Close to the house. Sunny spot. This is Megan’s garden. She planted all sorts of things and was very active in keeping it watered and prepped. Having it so close to the house made it much more likely that we’d actually tend to the garden. Very glad we made this happen.

Fruits of our labor!

Indy 500

December 26th, 2017

I’ve had going to the Indy 500 on my dream list for years. With family in Indy, we had to do this sooner or later – and be part of the full experience! As a child (no matter where we lived), we watched this every year, cut drivers out of the newspaper so we could bet on them, listened to Jim Nabors sing “Back Home Again In Indiana”, waited for Mary F. Hulman to say “…start your engines!” (wow, I just watched this and these simple words still give me chills). Luckily it worked out that many others could travel and join in the fun this year too! It was an amazing trip – full of good family and many memories (Colleen had to back out of this trip at the last minute so she could get trained for her lifeguard job this summer – that was a bummer for us, but ultimately good for her). Unfortunately Aunt Beth passed away earlier this year which would have made the trip all the better, but this made for another good reason to get back together again so soon with family.

It’s hard to get to Indy from the north without driving through Purdue. We made a quick stop on campus to see some friends, eat at Triple XXX and browse at Von’s shops. It’s always great to see Ian and kids. Maybe next time we’ll get to see Wendy too 🙂

Megan is our go-to for baking anytime now, and she made a HUGE oatmeal chocolate chip cookie for Grandpa when we were in Minnesota. It survived the trip but didn’t last long once we opened it! 🙂

There’s never any doubt that we are always welcome by everyone in Indy. Uncle Tom and Aunt Becka always have their doors (and pool) wide open for us – along with a full fridge! We got to stay with cousin Natalie and Matt this time – so cool to get to know their kids so much better. Beautiful house – and some great time away to have really good conversations that we don’t usually get to have. Cousin Tom and his family were also around – but I guess managed to avoid our camera most of the time 🙂 We are so blessed to have such great family. It’s always great to see my parents – and to be in Indy for this event made it extra special. We even had extended family stop by and bring some amazing scrapbooks from my mom’s childhood – great to see and hear some fun stories!!

This is what it’s all about!

On our way into the race track…

No trip to Indy is complete without some friendly betting. Having a driver or two to cheer on really increased the excitement – especially in the final few laps!!!

We followed Uncle Tom’s lead on where to sit, where to park, when to arrive, etc, etc, etc – nothing like having a personal guide to eliminate a few worries 🙂

Lest we forget who to cheer for!

We made it! The weather forecast threatened rain for the week leading up to the race, but thankfully we had a gorgeous day – absolutely beautiful and sunny (right up until the drive home – perfect timing!).

Lots of things to keep us busy watching before the race. These dudes looked like a barrel of monkeys getting picked up. I’m still not sure the exact scenario when this would come in handy, but it makes for good entertainment 🙂

We took a tour of the infield and saw pace cars, etc coming off of the track.

And we missed the helicopter doing something near the stands but instead ended up in the perfect spot to see it land up close.

I love things like this. Waving your hat to the drivers, etc before the race began. Feeling the crowd start to come alive. Waiting go hear the roar of those engines. Not quite realizing yet how fast the cars would be traveling.

This was a lot of our view for the day. We were between turns 1 and 2. Apparently this isn’t usually where a lot of crashes happen, but we luckily (or unluckily) got to see a TON of action this year. Not that you root for crashes, but if they are going to happen then I want them in front of me! And, wow, did we see an incredible crash!

This was also part of our entertainment – watching people pick up car parts, and do fence repair crazy fast!

This is the aftermath of one of the crashes – all of the cars are forced down low while they are doing the final cleanup.

Check out the huge hole in the fence directly in front of us. That fence was perfectly fine just minutes before this picture. You can see on the huge screen that they are showing pictures of the crash still. This crash was so bad that they had to put out the red flag and stop all cars.

And here’s what made that hole in the fence…absolutely incredible that the drivers walked away…

(but first, check out the guy in the yellow shirt in this first photo – maybe he’s pointing to a huge screen, but it is so funny that he’s pointing that way while this action is happening right in front of him – hee hee).

After the Indy 500, Indianapolis turns many highways and other roads into one-way paths out of the city. Fun to be driving on the wrong side of the road!!!

Wow – what a great trip! So glad we did this! Thank you Natalie & Matt for opening your home to us, Uncle Tom & Becka for everything that weekend, and Cousin Tom – you really showed us a great time! We’ll have to do it again some time 😉

May Days

December 24th, 2017

The first three weeks of May seem to be full of Megan – which of course is a good thing!

This picture made me laugh. It was a very icy day/night/day when hundreds of people were without power…I’m sure the people in these trucks were up all night working many, many hours, but it made me laugh to see at least 8 electric company trucks in the parking lot of the Original Pancake House at the same time!

Uh…think it’s time to pick this rhubarb? A bit too seedy, huh? It still eventually made great pie! 🙂

The city approved chickens…so we immediately went out and built this in our backyard. Ha – no! This is at the annual plant sale that we go to at Birch Island Woods. 1 minute of feeding chickens is all that we need each year.

Gotta love those double rainbows.

Yes, Megan’s eyes were open. Yes, she was trying to beat me. Yes, she usually is a lot closer to the board. Yes, I whooped her this game! 🙂

Megan’s soccer team was incredible last year. They really started working together as a team in the spring and all of their hard work paid off. This was one of several tournament wins, and they went on to win the state tournament a few months later! Way to go girls!

I got to bring home some mixed reality glasses from work (watch the video at that link to see a demo). Really neat to play around with these. Instead of virtual reality, this augments your current surroundings with additional things to see. First you scan your own home, and then it can do thinks like make robots and animals come right out of your own walls, or let you pretend like you’re shooting holes in your own walls, or play a detective game where it puts clues around your own home. It’s crazy cool, and I’m sure will only get more real! It was fun to watch each of us walk around the house being attacked by aliens and robots!

Poor, sad, neglected puppy. Never gets any attention. Lives a life of misery. Boo hoo.

A month ago I chipped the corner of the mirror on the bottom edge of my bathroom medicine cabinet. I didn’t think much about that until the morning of this picture when I was moving my hand up fast and really sliced myself good. I couldn’t get it to stop bleeding, and it was an interesting struggle for me to even do a quick dart across the bathroom to even get a (thankfully red) washcloth without dripping everywhere. Ugh – I couldn’t stop it no matter how hard I tried, so I eventually got Beth’s attention and we wrapped it really well, and put multiple layers on it. My plan that morning was to go on a 15 mile run (the longest I had run in quite a while, and I was trying a new route). So we got me all bandaged up, and off I went on my run. I noticed many miles into my run that my finger was starting to bleed again. Ruh roh. This was a new route for me, but 7 miles away from my house I found a gas station. I got into their bathroom and un-bandaged my finger, and it starts bleeding a lot again. I’m rinsing it off and when I reach for paper towels to package it up again, I realize that they have NO PAPER TOWELS in this bathroom. Seriously??? Long story, short, this started out looking a bit like the aftermath of a murder scene, but I cleaned up their little white sink the best I could…and then I darted out of the store really fast…and I haven’t been back there since 🙂

One of Colleen’s dreams for 2017 was to run a 1/2 marathon. We did a 10-mile race in the fall that could have gone a lot better. And then we did a 10-mile race in early April that Colleen had hoped would go better (she finished not feeling well at all). We managed to train a bit more before our Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon but not even close to what training plans suggest (we actually only did several long runs together, and she relied on her dance endurance to cover the other runs throughout the week). I was a bit worried about that, but Colleen was very strong on race day (yahoo!), and we ended up having a great long run together. She did awesome in her first 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles)!!! We ran almost the entire way (our only long walk was really around mile 11 I think). She set a new personal record for 10-miles! She finished feeling good! I’m so proud of her for chasing this dream and making it happen! I love running with her. We get to talk and hang out with just the two of us. This is a beautiful course winding around Lake Minnetonka. I hope this is the first of many future runs and races with Colleen (and I hope the others pick it up too at some point)!

April 2017 – Indiana, Rafting, and Puppy Butts

November 9th, 2017

We started April off celebrating Chris being Student of the Month. Colleen is still a bit miffed and befuddled that this is the first time anyone in our family earned this award. Beth and I have been waiting years and years for this day to come 🙂 Ha! We are proud of ALL of our kids, and we were especially proud of Christopher as we got to get up early before school to enjoy prepackaged breakfast treats in the school cafeteria with him – makes you want to win this every month, huh?
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Not many people out jogging with me on many winter days. They are missing out! I love running through fresh fallen snow on a sunny day. Definitely wakes me up and helps me appreciate the beauty in nature each day! I have a whiteboard in a hallway at work where I write messages and questions each week for everyone to see. We’re currently on Day 4 of a 10-day series on happiness tips. Today’s message was about appreciation, and we asked the question, “When do you stop and take notice?” My favorite answer that someone wrote on the board today was, “When Dave tells me to start appreciating what I have.” If people don’t figure it out on their own then I’ll definitely help remind them! 🙂 Here’s a great 5 minute video that is a great reminder for all of us to appreciate what is around us every single day – I encourage you to watch it (outside is my recommendation) as often as it will bring you energy and happiness.
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Absolutely! Nothing is stopping my girls! Try to put them in their place – they will rise again even stronger! I sincerely hope some of our leaders are taking note. Treating everyone around us with respect is all of our responsibility.
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Speaking of no one stopping my girls…for anyone who still believes in science, scientists, and the data/evidence they produce…here’s my mad scientist at work! Changing the world and impacting lives! This is where she’s at when she’s working “in the hood”. Her happy place 🙂
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It’s one thing to have pictures of puppy butts on cards, but it’s a whole other thing to actually create a “Puppy Butt” card section. Is this that popular of a section that people ask for it and they need to categorize these cards? I wonder what occasion or anniversary is celebrated with puppy butts? Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find out someday.
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It was a big year for car purchases. First I got a new car. That let us turn my old car into “the family car” (for Colleen now). I started with a 2007 grey Mazda 3. I told the dealer I wanted the same thing but newer…so I left with a 2014 grey Mazda 3. And then (Beth’s plan all along I’m sure), since the minivan was a 2005, we dumped that and got Beth a new car too while we were there – so now we’ve somehow got three Mazda’s! The minivan was great for us…but Beth sure didn’t shed any tears saying good-bye to it
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This past year went fast. We were driving back from the Boston Marathon a year ago when we heard that Prince died. A movie theater in Chanhassen (home of Paisley Park) painted this huge mural of Prince. Pretty cool to see it up close! Maybe I didn’t appreciate Prince enough while he was around, but it’s energizing to see all those out here who were touched by him and his music.
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I also often jog under the bridge leading up to Paisley Park. People have written so many message to Prince there. They even have buckets of chalk out so you can add to it. Here’s Colleen adding to it.
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I guess it’s not too surprising that life caught up to Aunt Beth sooner than any of us wanted. But she lived her life the way she wanted to and wouldn’t have it any other way. She was amazing at striking up a conversation with just about anyone – always with a smile on her face and could make any situation funny. It was sad of course, but it also brought our family together in Indiana. It is always great to see my parents, plus so many other relatives, and I’m very lucky to still have some great friends from college nearby who made the trip to Rochester. Aunt B made her home a welcome spot for all of my friends while in college and beyond – she was their aunt too! Here’s a short message I posted on Facebook at the time, “Rest in peace Aunt Beth – you are loved and will be missed. For over 25 years I bet her $1 for every Purdue vs IU football or basketball game, mailing the same worn dollars back and forth. I remember her picking me up at college one year during the Old Oaken Bucket game – I never had so much fun loudly singing the Purdue fight song in her car as Purdue stole a win that year! I think she’s the one that taught me how to swing a baseball bat, helped me pick out my first car, and I likely had my first beer with her – heh! She watched out for me in college and beyond – always with love and open arms. I will forever miss the fun rivalry of her poor choice in Indiana sports teams 🙂 Love & miss you Aunt Beth.”

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I’m always glad when I happen upon a “sign”…did Aunt B have anything to do with this April cloud???
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We saw Mixed Match at the MSP International Film Festival. One of Beth’s advisors in her PhD program (Dr. Jakub Tolar) is key to the efforts highlighted in this film. He was there for Q&A in the theater after the film, along with one of his patients who stars in the film, and he gave a shout out to Beth in the audience – and to researchers everywhere. He is always very driven, and he challenged all of us to sign up to be possible bone marrow donors and to raise awareness to the genetic complexities in ever growing mixed races. We can all save lives (the pic is of Beth doing a simple cheek swab for the registry).
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Chris had his birthday party and invited a bunch of boys over to help celebrate. They decided to play all sorts of games after dark while running through our yard (and maybe the neighborhood). It rained recently, and I know I warned them about a few very muddy areas. It made me laugh so hard the next day to see these very deep footprints in the mud! Apparently one kid even lost his shoes at one point – ha! Fun times! Boys will be boys 🙂
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Shoe tags arrived in time for Colleen and my 1/2 marathon, and my full marathon! I love that my mom found these before my Boston marathon…I buy them every time now for doses of inspiration!
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Here’s our family at Easter. The best picture was when we had that blue fan perfectly centered over Chris’ hair. I think our wall changes as much as we do over the years!
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I’m no expert on rafting, but I’m not quite sure they are doing this right. Something seems to be missing…
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I’m glad they figured out their problem and actually got out onto water. The river was high due to lots of rain and snow melt…made for a fun day for them! Chris loves all of the activities with his troop…rafting and then Sea Base (off of the Florida Keys) this year, and dog sledding early next year. Fun!
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Jan – Mar 2017

November 5th, 2017

Alright…it’s November 2017 and I’m ready to post my first pics of 2017 (Jan – Mar 2017) 🙂

Santa, (the santas of my childhood anyway), gave me an outdoor camera this year. Fun. Nothing exciting like bears, but TONS of birds and miscellaneous creatures and objects have showed up. The pictures helped me catch up to three deer at a time draining my bird feeder overnight (those pictures were lost during my PC crashing earlier this year – and I don’t plan to recreate them!). I knew something was up when I was filling a completely empty birdfeeder EVERY day! And it helped me figure out how the mice were getting into my hot tub. Sit still long enough and you’ll learn amazing things about the habits of all the critters running around your home! And what really happens to snow tubes, etc that the kids leave out!

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Here’s Megan with some gifts – not sure why she’s so happy after getting poop for Christmas. I’m shocked she isn’t in her new Alex Morgan jersey – it felt like she wore that non-stop for days (weeks even!) after Christmas!

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I made the 2016 highlight reel for the Eden Prairie News. The way they worded it, it almost sounds like I didn’t run Boston 🙂 Here’s proof! Wow – I still feel so blessed for the insanely powerful and touching memories throughout 2016. Amazing experience – I’m so blessed to have been a part of “The Boston” and to share it with so many important people to me. Although we’d all trade back in a heartbeat the circumstances that led to that weekend, I now count that as one of the most memorable and favorite experiences of my life – that week with my parents and brother (and so many other family members and friends supporting me of course!), and then Beth joining me out there, and being part of the Samaritans – incredible all around.

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Random fun over Christmas break.

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And so it begins…how do I shut this off? It’s amazing how many letters get sent each day. And from some interesting schools that hadn’t been on our short list – e.g., Colorado School of Mines? Mimes? Makes me wonder what boxes Colleen checked on her PSAT form 🙂 PSAT forms are evil! Pause for a minute to think about how much waste mail the PSATs generate. And 99% of it is completely unread. Ugh.

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Tommy Tom’s (Kristin’s husband) ticker was having trouble, so we went through the trouble of working all day (uh…well…) to make probably 1/2 dozen 100% completely original (what?? they don’t look original?) and custom signs just for him…well, it’s the thought that counts, right? The signs must have done the trick – the surgery went well and he’s doing great many months later now!

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For several years, Chris and I have gone to Fort Snelling National Cemetery with the Boy Scouts to remove wreaths from graves (each year they have a wreath-laying ceremony to honor and remember our nation’s veterans, so we are the clean-up crew months later!). This year Megan joined us too! It is quite a daunting view when you first arrive – there are green dots on white markers as far as you can see in many directions. But then you blink and scouts arrive from all over the cities to help out. Proud to help with this one.

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The cookies taste good right? Then don’t worry about our secret steps to make them taste so good 🙂

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I wore a wrist band for several years since one of my Make-A-Wish children died. It broke on Valentine’s Day this year. “Sir Kolors” was knighted by the VWO (Vikings World Order). They are an amazing group of die-hard fans that took Andres under their wings. This article only very briefly mentions Sir Kolors, but it speaks to the good that they bring to the world. Skol Vikings! https://thearchers82.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/this-is-what-its-all-about/

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Eerily beautiful morning. Peaceful and creepy at the same time 🙂

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I’ll have to dig up a picture of what these three looked like 5+ years ago. I’m sure they haven’t changed a bit!

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Here’s what I did with that free poster that Boston Marathon participants received. I added just a few things to it. This is hanging in my office at work. It’s not just about my ego 😉 It’s a constant reminder of so many things – all related to dreaming big, chasing your dreams, and making each day count! What are YOU waiting for?

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Here’s Chris with his presentation at the science fair. Our kids may have a connection to getting easy access to Beth’s lab, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to earn their science fair project! Beth makes them work hard! Colleen, and now Christopher, have each won their age group/category for the annual science fair – way to go Chris!!! He also seemed to have a good sized crowd around his booth the whole time. He did a great job!

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Peace. Stillness. Winterly world of white.

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Our white house is occupied by someone who puts down women, minorities, disabled, etc, etc, etc in very insulting and vulgar ways. There’s no excuse for that. He does it in public and people cheer louder and defend it. It’s got stop. I will NEVER vote for someone who would ever say or think those things about my wife or daughters. It’s not ok. It’s. Not. Ok. Repeat after me, it’s not ok. It’s NOT ok. I can’t relate to the pressures and judgment that women and girls in our society are faced with every single day – but I know it’s real and more prevalent than I’ll ever see. I don’t have any stories or experiences in my life for being felt inferior, threatened, judged, assaulted, mistreated, or losing opportunities because of my gender. But I’m sure every woman/girl I know has felt this way many times in their life. As a friend posted so simply on Facebook, “#metoo is too real we all have to do better“. TODAY is the day for you to help stand up for injustice and inappropriate behavior from anyone – especially our leaders (president, film industry, business, etc). It’s not ok. Stand up for what’s right and make sure ALL those around you are treated with respect. Beth, Colleen and Megan – you are valuable, and powerful, and deserving EVERY SINGLE DAY! Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. I love you, and I’m sooooo proud of you – every single day.

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Speaking of a few of my valuable, powerful, and deserving women…

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Anyone registering early for Grandma’s Marathon got a bonus gift..here’s my jacket! And once again I was training outdoors in cold and snowy weather. I have a love/hate relationship with marathons…Grandma’s would be my 3rd one in two years. They keep me in shape, give me structure, keep me focused, keep me sane…but I’m still not quite convinced this is 100% good for me 🙂 Stay tuned to hear how this one turned out…and the one that followed it…

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Nov and Dec catch-up

October 14th, 2017

Ok…got a new computer (it’s been a pain to find and organize photos without it the way I like)…Beth’s PhD is done…I finished running my 2nd marathon of the year (4th total in the past 2.5 years)…kids are getting settled into school and sports…so I can FINALLY get around to sharing pictures from LAST November and December. Sad, I know. But hopefully I’m back now and can get these out at least once a month again. Here’s to hoping for that anyway 🙂 Yes these are from November and December of 2016. You’ll just have to wait for pics of Beth’s PhD 🙂

Last year I ran my first ever Moustache Run. This is part of Movember activities that raise money for men’s health issues. By race day there are so many creepy looking guys…and I was proudly one of them 🙂 December probably couldn’t come soon enough for Beth!

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Eden Prairie made it to the state football championship, which means we got to see the inside of the new Vikings arena for the first time. It is huge and confusing…I can’t imagine what it is like on game day and packed with people. I’m sure I sound like the old man that I’m becoming, but no thanks – watching those games on tv is fine with me.

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Look at the guilty face. Poor puppy. Orca loves scratching her back on the Christmas tree. I may join her this year 🙂

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I’m guessing this was the same night that I took the kids to be part of the cloud chorus at the mall of america (good luck finding us in this video). There were only so many rehearsals we could take of that same song so we left the chorus early…and ran into the cast from Harry Potter at the bookstore. These characters obviously took what they were doing very seriously – and I think a few were blurring the lines between living in our world and living in their own little Harry Potter worlds. They were the ones with wands and murmuring about spells, so I’ll let them believe whatever they want to.

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Genesis taught us how to make Pan de Jamon (or as I like to say, pandejamonium – sorry). So easy, and so yummy. I can eat this for days. Buen provecho! Eden Prairie has a great Venezuelan restaurant to get our arepa fix. I definitely recommend searching for a Venezuelan restaurant near you (wherever you may be)!

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Nothing makes me quite feel valued as a dad, as coming home to loving notes such as these. Warms my heart. Who doesn’t love presents at Christmas time? Let me know if you want pictures of what was inside the commode 😉

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Do you ever get tired of the annual leaf photos? Fun times. I love fall (and winter, spring and summer too I guess). But it’s hard to beat that perfect fall day!

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And it’s days like these when I miss fall even more 🙂 I don’t think we have many more years of snowball fights. How come their main play time together has the word “fight” in it? I should just be happy that they are playing together, right?

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Ok, that wraps up 2016 (whew!)…bring on the new year 😉

October catch-up

March 4th, 2017

Yikes! It just turned March, and here I am finally sharing pics from October. It’s time to get this back on track! It seems I’m still catching up from all of the posting and writing I did elsewhere as I raised money for the Boston Marathon journey last year. Here’s our current news: Megan scored 4 goals this morning in her team’s soccer win (final score was 6-5 and our team scored in the final 15 seconds for a thrilling end!). Yesterday Christopher won the 8th grade Life Sciences category of the science fair! This is the same category that Colleen won two years ago, so now the pressure is on for Megan in two years! Christopher’s basketball team took third place in the championships last weekend, by beating the same team twice in the same game! 😉 Yep, you read that right. They got a shot off in time during regulation, that sat on the rim and slowly rolled into the net. The refs said it didn’t count (Booo! Get some glasses ref!), so we went to overtime – we were down with 2 seconds to go when one of our boys got a great look on a 3-point shot and put the game away! Another thrilling ending! The prior year this team didn’t win any games, so it was nice to not have another “character building” year 🙂

Last night we watched My Cousin Vinny as a family. I never know how the older movies will land with our kinds. They all watched this one, which was fun. I typically go to IMDB to read the parental advisory beforehand so I know what to expect (and to decide if there is way too much inappropriate stuff going on). The worst thing about My Cousin Vinny was this, “34 f-words, with multiple other dirty four-letter words and three religious profanities.” We made a game of it by counting the f-words throughout the movie – by then end of the movie our count was only off by one – not bad! Last week I watched When Harry Met Sally (something about that movie always makes it enjoyable). Tonight maybe we’ll watch The Blues Brothers (“9 uses of “f–k”. 25 uses of “s–t”. Many hells and damns.” – so our game won’t quite be as much as My Cousin Vinny – too bad they swore so much in some of those movies), and I have City Slickers almost ready at the library for next week. Can you tell I was in the mood for older movies recently?? 🙂 We also recently watched Nerve – I feel like I’m still anxious and nervous days later after that one – way too realistic!

I love this picture. The colors and contrast just seemed perfect that day in October in our backyard to make for an interesting picture (see Mom – she does have braces 🙂 ). And it helps that I caught both of them in a semi-reasonable mood where they put up with my pics for a bit – that gets harder every year!
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Megan’s soccer team was at a tournament and were waiting to hear the news of whether they would advance or not. At one point they formed a circle and one of the girls suggested they pray, which turned into giggling, and ended up as duck duck goose. They were a great group and had a really fun season! Our coach is very active and constantly keeping them thinking and learning – exactly what Megan has needed!
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Here I am on my annual 30-mile bike ride. Chad is probably 6 1/2 feet tall – at one point we accidentally didn’t realize we got on the wrong bikes – took us a few miles to figure that mix-up out. Ha! Look how far the pedal is from my foot. And he looks like he is on a kid’s bike. Insane.
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Happy Birthday mom and dad. I’ll see if I can buy all these and send them your way! The next time you visit we should go back to Minnesota’s largest candy store. They have a whole aisle with candy that you probably found at the newsstand way back when.
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Going apple picking is really just an excuse to go to Minnesota’s largest candy store. You can’t do one without the other. I took two of the monkeys with me for a fun morning to beat the crowds at both places.
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Somebody loves us!
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My finance guy sends us a Boston Coffee Cake every year. We love them every year – soooo good! But this year we got two on the same day. I let him know right away and he said he had to call real quick to make sure he didn’t get charged for two cakes for all 100+ clients!!! He told me a month later that a handful of clients got two cakes for some reason due to a glitch at the Boston Coffee Cake company. Interestingly enough, it’s sort of funny math, but we discovered that two cakes go just as fast in our house as one!
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Hard to believe it is the same dog. We’re making sweaters for everyone for Christmas with all the trimmings 🙂
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Colleen and I ran the Twin Cities Medtronic 10-mile “Shortcut to the Capitol” again this year. It was a beautiful morning for the race. Started a bit chilly but the sun was out and the crowds were great. I love running with Colleen, and thankfully our names were pulled two years in a row for the lottery for this race!
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Posing for the race cameras 🙂
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10-miles all behind us at this point! Time for breakfast!
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Megan and I walking back to our car after the race. Snoopy in St. Paul.
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Colleen (and Carrie) spent all year working hard in her confirmation classes. Although this feels like a “graduation” our pastor made it clear this was only the beginning of their journey!
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Megan and her friends for Halloween.
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My goal last year was to run 1000 miles outside. I wanted to get credit using an online tool but I was really having trouble getting the apps to work together. At one point it gave me this not-so-inspriational message that I only had to do 492 miles per week to hit my goal. Uh….better start running! I have the same goal for 2017…keeps me active!
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Ok, enough for now. I’ll try to get November’s pics out soon!!! 🙂

Almost December???

November 30th, 2016

Argh – two months later on this site, and I still haven’t found my posting rhythm again. In a bit of my defense, I did post a few times to DreamyDream and/or Facebook. But I need to get regularly posting family pics again!!!

I took Chris and Megan to play Foot Golf near the end of summer. I don’t know how this “sport” will ever last – especially if they are trying to attract soccer players. It is expensive (because it is at golf courses and uses the same fairways) and relies on the softest touches because the ball rolls and rolls on hilly fairways and greens. You would never use these same light touch moves while playing soccer. It was still great to be outdoors and we had fun – and I got a hole in one on one of the holes when I couldn’t even see the cup.

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One of Megan’s dreams this year (actually, the past few years) has been to paint her room. We settled on a color that wasn’t near as dark as what she was originally thinking – but she loves it now. Sadly we painted over the stenciled pattern that Beth did so many years ago for our little babies.

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I brought the kids with me to Des Moines when I did a quick trip to run a 5k with my college roomies. It’s on my dream list to do a 5k with at least one of them each year. West Des Moines treated us well – Fong’s Pizza (and Tiki Bar) was awesome – I definitely recommend it! And on the way back we stopped at the Iowa State fair for several hours. It wasn’t near as cool as Minnesota’s state fair – not even close (sorry, don’t get mad at me east side desmoiners). But we still managed to leave there with full tummies.

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Megan and I did lots of biking over the summer and into the school year. On this trip we came across several fawns (although they started hiding behind their parents when we stopped and got the camera out). It was cool to see them walking about all covered in white spots – lucky us!

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Yikes – and here we are away from fawns and instead near trucks! I love the gloves that Megan got with a birthday gift certificate – so cute! (but don’t tell her I used that word).

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Colleen and I went to the Stomp Out Suicide 5k again this year. I think I’ve been just about every year that they’ve had it – either with Colleen, or with Kristin. We put a picture of Katherine on their memorial clothesline. Way too many photos on display. They take tons of pictures each year and somehow they’ve never ever captured me on film. Maybe next year – if they’re quick. We also released balloons in memory of Katherine. They have turned this into quite the event away from the metro area – it drew a big crowd even in rainy weather this year.

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Found this little dude on our garden fence. The wind would make him sway back and forth but he never released his grip or moved. Megan kept checking on him. Stayed there all day…but was gone by morning. We’ll just keep telling ourselves that he flew away to a warm, happy place.

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Minnesota State Fair! These two love this ride – and also the swings way up in the air. Christopher wasn’t so lucky with the water gun race game in the midway this year. But I’m sure he’ll bring more money to burn next year 🙂

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Skol Vikings!

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The girls were supposed to be in the chair behind Beth but someone on a roundtrip ride didn’t get off…so they’re back there somewhere.

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This is always our favorite stop on the way up to Grand Marais. The New Scenic Cafe consistently turns out high quality food – love their mission fig appetizer – yummy! Plus a decent beer selection doesn’t hurt anything 😉 This helps ease our transition from city to up north living. And then, of course, we hit them on the way back home a few days later.

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And then our favorite stop up in Grand Marais – the Angry Trout Cafe. Fresh veggies & fish, amazing chowder, great salads & pasta for the kids, just enough of a beverage selection, and focus on being environmentally friendly – love it every year!

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Another stop on our way up some years to Grand Marais…Gooseberry Falls. It never gets told to climb and crawl over this rough and wet terrain.
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Whoa!

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Monkey see…

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It’s hard to tell but they are way off the ground in this picture – hope those old skraggly roots hold fast!

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Our first night back up in Grand Marais…and a quick trip to Artist Point…and dipping their toes into the chilly water.

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Peace. Remember to take time for yourself and dream.

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Here’s Chris over the devil’s kettle. No one knows where the water goes – some say straight to the devils kettle!

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A day on Two Island Lake

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Megan looks surprisingly calm considering neither of Colleen’s feet are touching the ground 🙂

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And of course our trip wouldn’t be complete without a stop to take our annual picture of the kids. I think it’s been raining the past two years as we’ve done this on the way home. Still a great quick hike to end our trip!

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Still not quite complete in this picture…and the basketball hoop wasn’t up yet…but here’s a glimpse at the new patio that we are loving!!!

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Apple picking with Chris and Megan, followed by a stop at Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store!

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In its first year Megan got to pick apples from her tree. Yummy! And another dream from her list!

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Happy Sweet Sixteen Colleen! Super yummy Nothing Bundt Cake!

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I’m back

September 12th, 2016

Ok, I’m back. I was posting to www.dreamydream.com/blog for months while I trained for the Boston Marathon and raised $20,000 (thank you once again for all of the incredible support from everyone). What an adventure! Amazing! But now I need to share pics on this site from the past many months. Sorry for the overload now…and most of my comments are short…just got to get this posted!!!

Check out slick with his birthday cake 🙂 The day he turned 13 was the same day he first started wearing gel. He’s a great kid – if anything, he’s offering to help out MORE as a teenager!

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Colleen spent a week in Kentucky working on houses with an ASP (Appalachia Service Project) trip with our church. Here she is learning how to use a saw. It was a good trip for her. I still find it odd and a bit frustrating that we send people to Kentucky instead of working to help people in our own state, but I’m glad we help regardless.

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Us, and the sky, in St. Louis.

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Megan loves playing her saxophone. She is great at it and got invited to play in this special concert. Amazing how much better these instruments sound when finally one of our kids actually practices! Looks like Megan will be our first band kid.

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Something bigger than a bunny was in our yard. Fox? Coyote? Wolf?

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This is only a few days after planting our seeds. Amazing that this is how a 1000lb+ pumpkin starts!

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The universe listens so be careful what you ask for (in my case, I asked for just enough money for a fire pit and somehow Great Uncle Bill responded from beyond). You were a great man Great Uncle Bill – thanks for your service to our country and love to our family!

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Our garlic crop/harvest was our best yet this year. Here’s the Megs with a scape.

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And here’s our full harvest drying to be used later!

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Happy Marathon to me! I made a little poster/tribute with mementos from the race. Cool that my name is on the poster!

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I said just one bite…wonder who they learned that from?

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I’ll do a future post on Beth’s 3-minute-thesis. After she gave her most recent presentation, we did a quick trip through the science museum where she was presenting. Lucky (?) for us the museum staff said we just happened to be there on a rare occasion when they had the “vaults” open that are filled with tons of things rarely on exhibit. How could we miss that? We followed a path through their storage area and suddenly weren’t sure we had made the right decision. They had things in jars (e.g., deer fetus), all sorts of bones and dead things, and we even had the opportunity to put a clothespin on our nose and skin our own rat. How fun!?!?! Especially before our “date night” dinner. The best part was how excited the museum staff were to show off their crazy displays. Ick.

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Helpers?

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Ta-da!

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See what happens when you put things on your dream list? Megan’s apple tree 🙂

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Happy Mother’s Day from the kids. She got this, and on Father’s Day I got Colleen coming back from a week away at ASP.

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My favorite part of this pic is trying to figure out where the soccer ball is following the penalty kick, and wondering how it got there. Guess we’ll have to work on our wall 🙂

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Ahhh, foaming. Rabies?

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We had a great time at Niagara Falls. Our timing was perfect – 2nd to last boat of the night – it was mostly empty so we could go wherever we wanted. The boat was fun, but the cave of the winds walk and hurricane deck were even better! So glad we got rain coats and shoes for this 🙂 We’ve been talking about doing this for years on our trip – glad we FINALLY made it happen. And only one of us got pooped on by the seagulls – not bad (nope, wasn’t me, keep guessing).

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One of our favorites – Parker’s Maple Barn! And fun to have Sarah and Rose with us too. Yummy maple everything (including the coffee)! Except no fresh maple donuts for Beth this time 🙁

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We stopped by my sister’s best friend’s house – so great to see Heather and her family. Their house is hundreds of years old and the type of place where you feel like you could just hang out on their porch all day while your worries blow away in the breeze. Heather feels like such an important piece of my sister’s history and life – words never quite express everything wrapped up in that. Always so great to see her – hopefully we get to see Mike again at some point too!
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Our visit to New Hampshire involved lots of chipmonk catching, escaping, transporting and releasing. Seemed like we were in a roadrunner cartoon at times. The best was when the first chipmonk ran in the cage, ate most of the food, and for some reason wasn’t quite tripping the door to shut on him. Fun times.
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Rockport, MA is one of my favorite little artsy towns to visit. It was a beautiful day for a quick trip there, lobster rolls, chowder, a local beer, and then off to Wingaersheek beach.
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Two pics are jammed into this one. The bottom half is the girls staring at their reflection. The top half is what they are giggling at.

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Blueberry picking in Hollis, NH. I think we ate twice as much as what you can see in the first picture. Yummy!
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Throw Colleen’s name in the hat for one more person who wants the Cougar 🙂 Except we don’t have a garage big enough to fit it.
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Merrimack Brewery. I swear those aren’t all mine 🙂
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Well…we got almost everybody to cooperate for this one. Man those Clydesdales are big!!

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Love me some strawberry rhubarb pie on my birthday!
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And here’s the newest addition to our house. We have two Axolotls now. I call them Axel and Ottle, but Megan has other names for them that I can never seem to remember. We feed them each 10 salmon pellets every other day. But you have to get their attention and then drop the pellets right on their head so they can suck them down. But don’t get your fingers too close or they’ll try to suck that down too. And if they are still chewing or not ready, then you have to reach into the tank to pick up the old pellets and try again. Any volunteers to feed them the next time we’re on vacation?
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Chris in the spotlight

February 28th, 2016

It feels like I often don’t have as many pics of Chris…this time I couldn’t seem to avoid taking pictures of him 🙂

This one’s going to give me nightmares. We were moving the entertainment center – Megan was my wire monkey, disconnecting and connecting everything in tight spaces.

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We lost power for no apparent reason – perfect time to get out the lantern, hat-light, etc and play apples-to-apples.

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I loved the picture of this tree during our snow storm. So cool. Chris and Megan helped me shovel, and then we created some forts.

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it made me smile that the kids made a path for Orca so she could run to her favorite spots.

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I went with Christopher and his scout troop to remove wreaths from graves at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Look how many green dots you can see in that first photo – it looked like an insane amount of work when we first showed up. But dozens of scout troops made quick work of this in just a few hours. What a special day and service project.

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Here’s Orca’s impersonation of Colonel Sanders. She swore to me that she wasn’t the one who tore the stuffing out of her stuffed animals. Not sure that I believe her.

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Christopher kept getting better and better this season in basketball. By the end, he was grabbing lots of rebounds and scoring more. His team had a rough season, but he had fun and didn’t seem to mind. We kept hoping for that first win of the season. Their second to last game, the other team only had four players for the whole game. This was our chance! They kept it close and even got the lead. One of their four players wore glasses, and in the second half his glasses fell off and got stepped on. Megan and I were keeping score that game so we could hear his conversation with his coach. He said he could sort of see without the glasses but had trouble seeing players coming at him. Great – now they were down to 3 sighted-players. Well…despite the other team doing everything they could to help us win our first game…it went to double over time and then the first team to score wins. We sent them to the foul line…and they scored – oh well, it was still a fun season for Christopher and he learned a lot.

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Breakfast of champions! This is what Christopher has most days 😉 Mmmm – Patrick’s.

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Yikes – how did 2015 escape me without birthday questions!?!?! Here they are for all of 2016. I laughed that the ‘what would you do tomorrow?’ question was so real-time (and…today we did get Chris a haircut, we made a huge brunch at home, and Megan & I went outside and played soccer!).

COLLEEN(September):
My favorite food is…Chocolate ice cream, frozen peas, and apple sauce
My favorite book is…(haven’t been reading)
My favorite song is…Imagine Dragons
My favorite possession is…phone and Orca
My favorite thing to do is…dance
My favorite color is…yellow
When I grow up I want to be a…scientist
It would be a really good year this year if…we make it to state on varsity dance
My favorite restaurant is…Punch Pizza
My favorite video game is…(no favorite)
My favorite movie is…(no favorite)
My favorite holiday is…Christmas
My favorite season is…fall
If I could do anything tomorrow I would…go out to breakfast before church

CHRISTOPHER(April):
My favorite food is…Sticks & Stones ice cream, pasta, and Punch pizza
My favorite book is…Legend
My favorite song is…I get a Feeling; Radioactive (Imagine Dragons); Polarize (twenty one pilots)
My favorite possession is…Orca
My favorite thing to do is…read
My favorite color is…teal
When I grow up I want to be a…scientist
It would be a really good year this year if…I win a basketball game
My favorite restaurant is…Chipotle
My favorite video game is…Black Ops 2
My favorite movie is…Hobbit
My favorite holiday is…Christmas
My favorite season is…spring
If I could do anything tomorrow I would…get a haircut

MEGAN(July):
My favorite food is…Mommy’s macaroni and cheese
My favorite book is…Everest series by Gordon Korman
My favorite song is…One Direction; Radioactive (Imagine Dragons)
My favorite possession is…Boo – stuffed dog and saxophone
My favorite thing to do is…play Minecraft when Chris and Colleen play
My favorite color is…blue
When I grow up I want to be a…farmer with really big farm and tons of animals
It would be a really good year this year if…don’t have any more (Spanish) presentations
My favorite restaurant is…Noodles
My favorite video game is…Minecraft
My favorite movie is…Harry Potter (all – 8th if had to pick)
My favorite holiday is…Christmas
My favorite season is…spring
If I could do anything tomorrow I would…play soccer outside