More Christmas at Bowstring pix

We managed to get everyone to sit still (sort of) for a family photograph!
Sarah with her cousins, Ella (almost 3) and Madeline (almost 6).
Grandma Gordon arranged for all of us to go on a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the forest last Thursday. We had fun singing songs and playing in the hay. Here's Noah and Lucas with one of the horses.

Aaron and Ellaina on the sleigh ride. Awww!
Today, Grandpa Gordon and Uncle Aaron drilled a few holes in the ice (which was almost a foot thick) so the kids could try their hand at ice fishing for the first time. Here's Lucas giving it try. Madeline caught a small perch!

Christmas at Bowstring

We've all been having a great time at Bowstring Lake for the Christmas holidays. Today everyone (except Erin and Sarah) went sledding at the big hill near Mosomo Point. It was the first time sledding for Madeline and Ella, and they loved it!
The sledding hill was pretty big, so Ella made her sled runs starting about halfway down. She's so silly!
Madeline and Caleb "doubled" on one sled several times. They got a little banged up, but that's all part of sledding!

Hockey's a breeze!

Noah was getting ready for his hockey game this evening, and I got to wondering how Sarah would look wearing his breezers. Well, here she is! She's had a lot of gas lately, so she gave new meaning to the word "breezers."

Beautiful weather!

Rich did more geocaching with Caleb on Dec. 13 ... it was 42 degrees, and still no snow! Noah and Lucas chose to stay home on this excursion, so we drove a few miles over to Maple Grove and found three "treasure" caches in Elm Creek Park Preserve, which has 15 miles of trails. We heard owls on the walk back to the van, and Erin had sloppy joes ready for us!

A fuzzy attempt at art ... the park horizon at dusk.

Caleb the geocacher

Caleb and I spent four hours today doing some geocaching. Put simply, this is a hobby done by people who own a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver and have access to www.geocaching.com. You visit the website, get the coordinates of a "cache" near you, and then use your GPS receiver to go on a "treasure hunt" and visit sites where other people have hidden caches. Inside, they put trinkets for kids to trade and a logbook for the adults to sign, showing they were there. Here, Caleb is holding a "travel bug," which started three years ago in Madison, Wis., and has been moved from cache to cache, including as far away as Hawaii, Alaska and Texas. We're going to drop it off in a cache in Alexandria in a couple of weeks!

Squirrel-head

Sometimes Lucas wakes up and runs around in the morning with bed-head. Erin tells him, "Lucas, it looks like a squirrel fell asleep in your hair last night!"

Thanksgiving memories

We had both sets of grandparents over for a nice Thanksgiving. Here, Erin gives her dad advice on his wonderful Turkey Day meal.

Alas, Moby the cat didn't get to sit at the table with the big people ... or the little people, for that matter!

Sarah gets up close and personal with Grandpa Gordon. She loves to lean in and put her forehead to yours.

Grandpa, Sarah and mommy. Sarah can "low crawl" and is getting lots more mobile.

Cheeeeese!!!

Mr. Webelo

Here's Noah all ready to go to his next Webelos meeting. He's in his second year as a Webelo, and will become an official Boy Scout next spring!

At the last meeting, Noah earned pins for engineering, swimming, and his outdoorsman skills.

In this photo, Noah is wearing Rich's old neckerchief clasp from 28 years ago.

Strung out on cereal

"Oh please, please, PLEASE don't take away my baby cereal."

Sarah's first Halloween!

Here's Sarah wearing the cute Halloween outfit that her nanny and Grandma Gordon bought for her. I don't think she'll be scaring anyone during trick-or-treating tomorrow night!

She says, "BOO!"

Little chompers

Sarah turned seven months old on Oct. 18! Here she's showing off her new teeth, which she likes to click together. She also swiped Dad's cell phone and is trying to figure out a way to call YOU.

Sarah's Aunt Ellaina flew in from Oregon to visit a week ago, and they got caught up on some snuggling time.

Sarah sits for photos

Erin took Sarah to Babies R Us a couple of days ago and they got snookered into a free photo session there. Sarah was a little sleepy, and since her crazy daddy wasn't there to help get her to smile, she's a bit reserved on all of her photos. Here's daddy's favorite...

Just a big hole in the ground

The old Letcher-Gordon family homestead in Richfield is no more. It was razed to the ground in late September. Here's a view (taken about a week ago) looking northeast from the intersection of 17th Ave. S. and 64th St.



This is looking north from 64th St.



Looking northwest from the driveway (visible in the foreground).

Where's Bam-Bam?

Sarah is sporting her "Pebbles" hairstyle, courtesy of her mom. Erin did her hair up like this, and the boys laughed and laughed, and Sarah giggled right along.

Sarah attended her first Twins game on Sept. 27, when Rich took her and the boys to the Metrodome ... alas, the Twins lost to Kansas City, 6-4. Sarah cried a bit during the first two innings whenever the crowd cheered, but later she got used to it and even took a little nap in the fifth and sixth innings.

A little Letcher reunion

Roger and Gloria held a mini-Letcher reunion at Bowstring last weekend, attended by Bud and Anne, Loren and Diane, Norma, Marie and Dick, Stuart, Sigrid and Thea and Stephanie, Festus and Riley. It rained a lot, but Sunday turned out to be a nice fall day, as you can see from this photo.

Sarah and her mommy!

Our little cutie enjoying her first-ever swing on a hammock.

More reunion pix

Rich and Ellaina's cousin Stuart with his wife, Sigrid, and their five-month-old baby, Thea, who was born about five weeks after little Sarah!

Aunt Marie with two of her kids, Stephanie and Stuart.

Stuart with Thea and Rich with Sarah.

Cutie patootie

Sarah-bear really likes her cloth book, "Counting Colors."

Sarah can't wait until she's old enough to try Lucas's Game-boy video game.

Six months old

Sarah's six months old (and a day) in this picture. She sits up by herself (although she falls over a lot) and likes to say "Da da da da da da da da blooh oooooh aaaaaah!" Lately she just can't get enough of her Gerber pears and applesauce! But she won't eat vegetables, just like her daddy!

Such a big girl

Mom and Dad are sure amazed at how big Sarah is on her six-month birthday! Eighteen pounds and 28 inches long ... she's going to tower over her brothers!

Rub a dub dub

Here's Sarah with Lucas and Caleb in her first bath in the big bathtub. What a bunch of stinkers!

Back to school!

The boys are back in school! Noah and Lucas are in second grade this year, and Noah is in fifth grade. They all like their new teachers.

The second photo was taken last weekend at a 40th birthday party for Erin's cousin Lynnette. Erin is holding Sarah, her sister Libby is holding Peyton and Brian is holding Zane.

Oshkosh 2006

On July 25 Rich, Roger and Noah took their first-ever trip to the EAA fly-in at Oshkosh, Wis. We saw hundreds if not thousands of aircraft, and had a great time!



From the top are Noah and Grandpa in front of a P-40 Warhawk, Noah sitting in the cockpit of a Vietnam-era OV-10 Mohawk, and Rich and Noah in front of a P-51 Mustang.

Noah's dream car

Roush Racing had a bunch of their souped-up cars at the airshow, and Rich and Noah kinda liked this blue Mustang with about 500 horsepower...

Our own magazine cover

Looks like Noah's taking Rich for a wild ride!

Our future airplane?

Rich is a member of AOPA, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Each year they refurbish an older aircraft into like-new condition and give it away to one of their members. Here, we're pictured in front of this year's giveaway airplane, a 1967 Cherokee Six 260. They've already put in a new engine, propeller and glass panel, and they're getting ready to do the paint and interior next.

Hmmm, let's see ... six seats in the airplane, for (1) Rich, (2) Erin, (3) Noah, (4) Lucas, (5) Caleb and (6) Sarah. Yep, that's about right!

B1 bomber

One of the more impressive military planes we saw at Oshkosh was the B1 Lancer. Here, Noah is standing by its landing gear.

Future Blue Angel

Noah hopes to be sitting in the cockpit of one of these in another 15 or 20 years. Blue Angel No. 7 was at the fly-in, and during the afternoon airshow we saw him give a ride to actor Harrison Ford, who was in the backseat! They pulled up so hard after takeoff, we're pretty sure ol' Harrison was nearly puking his guts out! He got about an hourlong ride before they returned. Harrison Ford is a pilot himself, in both fixed-wing and rotorcraft.