Hi again!
Well we are back to Bennie. He has been having a blast in floor hockey this year. The team is very strong and have a deep bench to rely on! They are practicing 4 nights a week with one or two games per week. Ben has scored quite a few already, had has pic and name in the paper numberous times and on the evening news. In his off time he is making Uncle Don Wolf proud by working on some very complex 3D puzzles. So far he has finished the White House. He come up and asked if they made a Lego Obama and thought that would be the coup de gras for the project!

The rest of the family is doing great. I just got done doing report cards and the kids just had finals. The temp has fallen again but I doubt that we will be getting another two days off of school because of -45 degree weather! I have to admit that the surprise 5 day weekend was
fun.

Winter Fun

Hi All,
We had another great (long) weekend. We made sure that dad was home from nursing home safe and sound. He is doing great, back on his bike (shorter rides) and loving being back in his own corner of the house. He will continue to receive physical therepy at home. In the mean time he and mom are play cards (66) daily and socialize with friends and family.
We spent most of the rest of the time out and Mark and Peg's winter wonderland with our good friends Phil and Sheila. Sheila is a winter sports fanatic! Skating, cross country skiing, snowshoeing etc., it was a very active weekend. We all had a great time. Thanks M&P!

Fun With Family

Sonia, my nephew Mike's wife and their kids, Winter and Daniel were down with Jon to visit us in Rochester. We had a blast sliding, bouncing and riding at a fun place called House of Bounce. We also made a trip out to our favorite nature area, Quarry Hill. They head back up to Two Harbors tomorrow and we are heading back to the farm for another long weekend. Dad, Porky is coming home on Thursday from the nursing home where he has completed his physical therepy. He is looking forward to being back at home with mom and in his own space.
Happy New Year to everyone!

Well now we are onto "It's all about Maddie" week. Maddie had a big showoff week. First there was her last basketball game of the season. She did great but unfortunately the team did not fair as well. She has had a great time and proven to be very talented.

In other news, she was picked to play the tenor sax and then this week was invited to join the jazz band. These were two of her goals for the year.

We went out to cousin Jim-Bo's place and cut down our tree again this year. We cut the tree and then go to Lark's toy factory in Kellogg to have lunch and ride the hand-carved Merry-Go-Round. This is year number 10 for the tradition and the kids still love it as much as Chip and I do.

Ben's Lego Robotics

Hi all,
The news this week was Ben's. He has been in the Lego Robotics club at JM high school that is run by IBM. They build and then program robots to solve certain problems. They download the program into the robot and see if the robot can solve it. Their final competition was last night. There were about 125 teams of middle and high school kids entering robots in the competition. It was geek heaven!!! Ben's high school had two teams. They did really well but did not place. Ben was his team's master builder and did a wonderful job on the short term problem where they received an envelope that described the problem and then the kids had 40 minutes to rebuild and re-program their robots. The kids on Ben's team are all the same age as Ben and in 9th grade. Very cool and another instance of "I never knew" there was such a thing.

Back on Line!!

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the huge blank space in the blogging. School started and live was inturpeted! I think that our new goal is once every-other week.



Thanksgiving went great. We had about 75 people show at the annual gathering (45 years and still running strong). The turkey, stuffing and all the conservation with cousins, aunts and uncles was wonderful. We sure do miss and love our boys and girls in uniform. You were remembered in prayer and spirit. Stay safe.



The other big event of the weekend was the grand opening of Mark and Peggy's new lake house. Too much fun and wonderful hospitality! Everyone felt welcome and had an outstanding time. I have linked a photo album to make you jealous that you don't live closer! Just click on the image.