Joel's Triathlon Sprint...

Last Sunday Joel participated in the Chisago Triathlon Sprint... which is 20 miles of biking, 1/4 mile of swimming and 3. something of running.

I think the swimming was the hardest for him - but he did really well! There were around 1300 people in the whole race...

He was number 6 in his age category.

He enjoyed it and is looking forward to doing it again next year!

Wannigan Days Weekend...

This past weekend was Wannigan Days...

On Thursday there was a talent show at the overlook, next door...


Then on Saturday there was a tug of war across the river...

Asher and I went down to the National Park Service and he made a wolf track plaster, painted a fish on a shirt, got a ladybug painted on his arm, made a dragon fly and a nature journal! He had a lot of fun!

Noah, Seth, and Talia had their Lemonade, cookies and watermelon sale! They did really well, once again!

Last night there was a parade....

This is the float from the Tri-County LifeCare Center, where Mom is a board member at...

it was a fun parade!

After the parade there were fireworks.... right over our house!!! all the boats lined up to watch from the river...

It was a great display, despite the couple of mishaps with unexpected explosions and what not!

It was a great weekend!
:) :)

Misc. Pictures....

These pictures are from the Church softball game last week. The "old guys" played against the "young guys"... they "young guys" won for the second time in one summer!

The little ones had lots of fun on the slide!

Joel and Noah both are on the "young guys" team! :)

This is from Seth and Grandpa's Ice Cream party... They both planned to make ice cream for us all! This is Talia and our cousin in law, Katie Rose! :) :)

and Noah... :)

Joel and I have been going to play volley ball with some friends every Monday night... a couple weeks ago, when we played it started pouring half way through the game! We got pretty wet! There was a beautiful rainbow after the storm...

Our Little Sunshine...

Over the past couple of weeks Sylvia has taken off with her speaking!!! It is so fun to watch and listen to her; she is adorable. I think she must be the fastest talker that we have ever had! Because what she says and how she says it is so cute, I decided I would tell you some of her phrases...

A few weeks ago, we were watching the Legend of Zorro when Sylvia woke up. Mom let her get up and sit on her lap for a little while... I think we all decided it was more fun to watch her than Zorro. She sat between Mom and Dad saying, "Wow!, Scary!, Fun!"; she was enthralled!

Meal time is kind of fun too. No matter what we are eating, as soon as everyone is at the table she says, "Pass the salt" or "Salt, Please" and after she gets the salt, she has to have pepper!

"I need water" and then she adds (if she remembers) "please".

She really likes to look at the picture frame in the kitchen that has everyone in our family in it and say all the names and point each person's face... Jennifer, Aaron's fiancee, is "Denvo"(Asher says the same thing).

"I miss Mommy"

"Mommy change me" or "I am dirty".

One of my favorite things she says is, "Yes, ma'am"... she hears everyone else saying it, and she just recently started saying "yes, Yetta" or whoever says anything to her

She also know the difference between hot and cold!! She says about the cold water in the kiddie pool, "this is cold" and about the oven or her hot food, "it's hot".

"Where's mommy?"

She loves to ask "Why?"

When Mom is cooking in the kitchen, Sylvia drags the chair over and says, "Watch"

She loves to color! Every day she finds paper and a pencil/pen/crayon and says "I color"

When she thinks it is time to get up from her nap, we generally hear her say, "done!" - she is done sleeping.

"hold me" of course!

"go outside?"

yesterday during a storm she was saying, "it's windy".

Talia taught her to say Katie Rose - it is pretty cute to hear her running around saying, "katie wose, katie wose"! :)

After hearing that Adam (Bryant) was saying my name, I taught Sylvia to say Madeline. :)

Sylvia got up from her nap today and said, "I want to go out with the kids" I thought it was kind of funny.

She says a lot more that I have forgotten... Anyways, we really enjoy her! She is a lot of fun!

Madeline Island and the 4th of July...

On Wednesday morning at 5 a.m. we all got up and left to go camping on Madeline Island for a couple of days...


We arrived in Bayfield just in time to take the 9:30 ferry... we loaded both the van and the car on the boat - which was pretty exciting especially for Asher, Tovala and Behn!

It was a beautiful morning! Actually every day we were up there it was absolutely perfect!

When the ferry first started moving, Sylvia was a little worried... but soon, it was just fun!

La Pointe was beautiful too! :) We watched a plane fly in and land on the water...

On Thursday we walked around and stopped in a few shops... visited the candy shop with the little ones... visited the coffee shop with Dad... and the homemade rug store with Mom... :)

Sylvia enjoyed it all very much!

Madeline Island beach was wonderful!! On Wednesday when we went swimming, it was freezing - we pretty much felt like an ice cube in the water! But on Thursday when we went out... it had warmed up a lot! It was perfect swimming! Dad and the boys played frisbee out on a sandbar...

Hannah and I went for a walk.... :)

Joel and Noah dug deep holes! :)

Behn chased sea gulls...

Camping was a little easier than I had anticipated... Dad reserved a whole cabin/lodge group campsite... there was a kitchen (not running water inside, but a pump outside) a stove and refrigerator. The stove made cooking much easier! When you are cooking bacon, pancakes and eggs for 12 people it takes a long time over a campfire... Dad, Mom and the three little ones slept in the porch... the rest of us set up the big tent outside.

Mom was telling us how when she went camping with her family when she was little her Mom would always bring a project for them all to work on... so Mom brought supplies for their little activity... :)

All of the meals were great! Mom did a great job planning the menus.

On Thursday evening Dad cooked ribs for our dinner! They were very good!

On Wednesday evening Dad, Mom and a few others went on a hike while we got Tovala, Asher and Sylvia ready for bed. They ended up being gone for about 2 hours... apparently they took the long trail! When they got back Dad and Behn both had blisters on their feet. :( Along with blisters they also picked about 50 tics off eachother... and from what I hear it was probably more than that!

On Friday morning (today) Hannah Joel and I got up at 5:15 to watch the sun rise... it was beautiful!

On our way back to the ferry we watched the Madeline Island 4th of July Parade... it was a lot of fun! :)

We got back on the ferry and headed back to Bayfield...

In Bayfield we walked around a little, Dad bought us all Ice Cream Cones and then we piled in the cars for the drive back home! There was only one thing that we wish could have been different (besides losing the keys to our group campsite) We really missed Nathan, Abram, Aaron & Jennifer, and Eli!!!

Happy 4th of July!!!