Sports of All Sorts!

Summer is definitely here; the weather is warm, the birds are singing, baby ducks are all over the pond - and our schedules are out of control! Thankgoodness school is almost over for the year so we'll have one less thing to get ready for.

Brendan joined soccer last week with his buddy Mason. They have such a great time together and it's a nice way for them to stay friends since they don't go to the same school or live in the same neighborhood. It was huge success, Brendan had a great time and didn't ask to go home or have Wellyn go out on the field with him one time!

We had a nice long holiday weekend here playing and catching up on some chores around the house. We missed going to Michigan, but are going there this weekend for a week to visit with everyone.

Here is Brendan doing some drawing:


Having some fun on the much loved, much used monkey bars:



Aiden is a little too small to do the monkey bars by himself, but he sure loves to swing!



Tuesday I had a new experience - getting rear-ended! Luckily the boys weren't with me and we weren't going fast so it wasn't too bad. The truck hit the metal post on our bumper where our bike rack which saved my car and did some damage to the one behind me. It was an amiable accident at least and he's paying for a new post for the rack so all is well that ends with no one getting hurt. And no damage was done before we decided to sell it.

Last Thursday was Track and Field Day at Brendans' school. It is a super crazy day with kids all over! The first through fifth graders all go out together in the morning to compete in events and try to place. Each grade has a specific color shirt in order to help keep track of them all. The kindergartners came out after their lunch and after the other grades went in for their turn. The three classes did great and had a lot of fun. Here is Brendan going through the obstacle course:


And kicking the soccer ball!


Here he is doing the dash, smiling the whole way. They did it about six times and then had them run around the track - everyone was TIRED!


That same night we were off to Aidens' last basketball class. He is so funny! He tries so hard to do everything... he is so much smaller than the other kids and gets a little distracted, but sure works hard ;) He got a little help from daddy every now and then!

 

 

Practicing the bounce pass and chest pass - mostly just the bounce pass, which might have been called the 'chin pass'!


The long weekend started off with finishing the painting in Brendans' room.


The weekend wasn't all work - we headed to our friends' house on Saturday afternoon and had a great BBQ with lots of great food and even better company. Everyone has kids now so it is so much fun. The kids were all over playing and having a blast!




Sunday brought dry paint and Brendan getting his room back. It was so nice to get it done and move everything from our room back into his! He was so excited about getting the loft set up again. He really wanted a 'lego themed room', but it is really hard to find lego blankets, etc, so he went with a construction theme. I still have a few lego-related suprises in store for him ;)



Monday we did some things around the house and went car shopping in the afternoon. We've been planning on replacing the Mountaineer for a while now and with some big driving trips coming up this summer it seemed the right time to do it. We did some research and searching to find what we wanted and were able to find 'the one' at a metro dealership. After test-driving and getting the boys stamp of approval (they really like the built-in DVD player!) we made the decision to buy! Due to it being a holiday we weren't able to actually take it home then but are going tonight to get it. Yeah!!!


Last night was Brendans' first soccer game - after just one practice! It was so much fun watching the kids run all over. They don't play positions at this age, so it's literally a swarm of boys following and kicking the ball. He tried hard and ran hard! Didn't always go the right direction or stop when the whistle blew, but he still had fun. We'll miss next weeks game due to traveling, but are looking forward to the rest of the season.


Aiden kicking the ball back and forth with friend Gracie.


The two boys, hopefully friends forever!


It will be over a week before the next post. The UP has such slow internet connections that I'll just wait until we get back to update the site. Have a great week!

Boys and Boston

So, did you think I wasn't going to post??? I have a routine when it comes to posting, usually starting on a Monday or Tuesday evening while Wellyn is playing with the boys before bed. I go through the pictures, resize them and try to summarize what we've been up to. My routine was a little off last week - obviously!

We'll start the week before and work our way forwards since that is the order the pictures loading in ;)

The boys love getting out their 'tools' and 'fixing' things. This day it was the tractor and gator. They really got into it, one of the neighbor boys even came down and helped.

 

 

Brendans' kindergarten class has been doing a unit on transportation. One of his homework assignments was to build some type of car, bus, plane, etc out of a cardboard box and bring it to school to wear in a parade. I'm not sure if I've mentioned he likes legos (hehe), but they have some new construction vehicles out so he decided he would like a bulldozer. We sorted through some boxes and found some leftover yellow paint in the basement to get us started. The boys had way more fun just painting the extra boxes than actually doing the bulldozer.

 

 

 

Here is Aidens' smiley face - the eyes kind of got connected to the smile, but still cute!

 

Last Monday Wellyn flew to Boston for a work conference, lucky dog! In between conferences, meetings, lectures he managed to fit in some sight-seeing along with some awesome East Coast food. Here is Boston Common and a statue of George Washinton.

 

I think this bridge was in You've Got Mail.

 

Then he was off to tour Fenway Park, the oldest ballpark in the USA.

 

The only picture of him in Boston...

 

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota Brendan had his transportation parade. All the kindergartners sang transportation related songs and took turns having big 'parts' in the performance. Brendan wrote a little story about a bulldozer that he read in front of everyone. He did awesome! I'll have the video of it soon, but here is a picture Aiden took ;)

 

 

Back in Boston on Saturday, Wellyn took the Freedom Trail for the majority of the day. The conference was over so he was able to take in some of the historic sites of the city.

Samuel Adams grave...

 

Thomas Paines' crypt...

 

One of the very old cemeteries...

 

Paul Reveres' grave...

 

Where Benjamin Franklins' parents are buried...

 

Statue of Paul Revere...

 

The USS Constitution...

 

One of the many cannons aboard the USS Constitution... (the boys really liked this!)

 

The sleeping quarters of the crew...


The boys really missed their dad (I did too!) so we made him some welcome home signs. They had lots of fun picking out stickers, markers and drawing all sorts of things on them.


Our future photographer took a picture of us too ;)

Sping Work, Soccer and Legos - of course!

Spring is most definitely here - yeah! The weather has been so much warmer the past week. A few days with rain, but good for growing nice green grass! Spring also brings a bunch of projects to work on. Last Saturday was cool, but sunny so we hauled a few trailer loads of black dirt to the backyard to fill in some low spots. The kids had fun helping; using their Gator and Tractor to haul dirt to the back and dump it.



And it's important to have your eyes well protected on a sunny day...


We've been thinking about getting Brendan a loft for his bedroom for a while now and came across a deal too good to pass up. Of course, a new bed means a new bedroom! Aiden has been wanting a 'bigger boy' type room since he's not a 'baby' anymore so we decided to switch their bedrooms. Aiden is moving into the 'car' painted room and Brendan wants us to paint legos on the walls of Aidens' old room. I'm not going to be painting legos on walls, but we are looking at ways to make it a cool, bigger boy room. We have the wallpaper from Aidens wall of baby jungle animals all down and are still deciding on paint colors. Here are the boys trying out the new loft right after we got it!


Tuesday night was Aidens' last soccer class. Brendan and I tagged along to cheer for him and take some photos. He did really well, all proud that he was in the spotlight ;) His favorite part of soccer is 'trapping' (stopping) the ball. He does it ALL the time!




A highlight of the night was taking a trip to Dairy Queen afterwards - a favorite for all of us!




Donna and Herb were out for a night last week on their way to Mayo and took us out to dinner. A real treat for me since I wasn't in the mood to cook ;) The boys lobbied and convinced us to go to Chilis - their new favorite restraunt. The boys were cute - trying out their big-boy manners and getting a lot of positive attention for them.

The same day, Brendan got his new Lego magazine in the mail with a building challenge in it... building something related to Spongebob - right up his alley! He and I started the legs and Herb and he did the bulk of the work designing and building the body. It turned our really cute and I'm going to send it in for the challenge.



Thursday was a dress-up day for school, Tacky Thursday. Brendan wasn't sure if he wanted to do it, but when he was going through his clothes he found the soccer socks from Aunt Stacey and thought they would be perfect. He added the shirt, some shorts and some crazy hair and he was ready to go.