Blizzard of 2010

Well, tonight we're stuck inside because we have about 18 inches of new snow on the ground ... the most in the Twin Cities in 19 years.








Yep, that's our mailbox. Any more snow, and the newspaper guy wouldn't have a hole to stick the paper into! The mailman still hasn't arrived today, and it's about 5:30 p.m.








Our house is snowbound! Lucas helped shovel a little bit, and Caleb made a snow fort out back.












Rich has shoveled the driveway two times since the snow started late Friday night, and also made two passes with the kindly neighbor's snow blower. Gonna have to get me one of them soon!








The boys' shortcut to the bus stop has been effectively cut off!

Sarah goes sledding

Sarah and daddy went to the sledding hill at nearby Central Park for the first time this season on Friday, one day before the big snowstorm hit. Sarah had a lot of fun! We stayed for about an hour, and daddy made a few runs down the hill, too.




Wheeeeeeee!












As kids will do, Sarah quickly made a new friend at the sledding hill. They joined forces and made several tandem runs down the hill.






Yahoooo!










OK, this hawk wasn't sledding with us ... Caleb took this picture about a week ago in the neighbor's yard. The hawk and his buddies have lived around here for some time now, and have left various rabbit, mouse and bird carcasses in our yard for Max and Harley to sniff at.

Happy (Early) Thanksgiving!

Erin and Rich both have to work on Thanksgiving Day this week, but we managed to get both sets of grandmas and grandpas to visit our house last weekend for an early Thanksgiving celebration! Here's Erin "helping" Lloyd carve the turkey. (It was tast-EEE!)


Moby always thinks he's allowed to sit up at the kids' table. He looks BUSTED, doesn't he?






"Yahoo, it's time to EAT!"

Happy Thanksgiving, Part II

Kathy joined Caleb and Noah at the kids' table, since Sarah didn't feel like sitting with her brothers. Lucas spent the weekend with his father.


Sarah's got the "prayer cube" in front of her and is ready to say grace before we enjoy our turkey dinner.










Sarah with her Grandparents Gordon and Grandparents Wynne.

Hockey tournament in New Ulm

A couple of weekends ago, the entire family traveled 100 miles southwest (in a blizzard) to New Ulm, Minnesota, for Noah's first hockey tournament of the season. Alas, he suffered a concussion almost as soon as he stepped on the ice, and sat out the rest of the weekend. So no hockey pictures here ... instead, here are Caleb and Sarah beneath the big statue of "Herman the German" in New Ulm while we were out doing some geocaching.


Caleb wanted me to be sure to get a picture of him and Sarah standing atop the hill overlooking New Ulm.






Wow, Sarah really CAN fall asleep almost anywhere!

Fall is going full-speed

Noah and Caleb have had hockey practices almost nightly for the past few weeks, and they start their games this weekend. The season runs through mid-March, so you know where we'll be until then!








Sarah received her first official "homework" at preschool yesterday. She and daddy read a book about a pig and a pancake, then had to do some fun activities. We have entered a lottery to get Sarah into a STEM kindergarten (science, technology, engineering and math) next fall, and the lottery results will be announced in early February. It would be an all-day kingarten instead of the half-days she would attend if when went across the street to Edinbrook. Fingers crossed!

Trick or treat!

Dinner with the Kasonics

Erin's Aunt Gloria, Uncle John and cousin Karen flew in from Seattle on Tuesday night for a visit to Minnesota. Kathy and Lloyd were also in town, and we all met at Olive Garden in Maple Grove for a nice dinner.

Our final Twins game of 2010

Sarah took her dad to our last Twins game of the season last Sunday.




The Twins gave many of their regular players a day off in advance of their playoff series against the dang Yankees, and wound up losing 2-1 to Toronto in their final regular-season game of 2010, but we still had fun.


After the game, the Twins invited all the kids down to the field to run around the bases. Here we are at field level in the outfield!




Sarah is standing next to the distance marker in right-center field.






And Sarah comes around to score for the Twins!

City cowgirl

Special thanks to Grandma Gordon for sharing this photo she took of Sarah this past summer at great-aunt Marie's horse farm near Kelliher, MN.

Helping a buddy

Last week's 10-inch rainfall in southern Minnesota hit hard in Owatonna, where Rich's bicycling friend Steve lives with his wife, Chris. When we found out Steve's basement filled up with four feet of water, four of us drove down on Sunday to see if we could help out. When we arrived, Steve had already been hard at work dragging soaked furniture and materials out into his driveway. County bulldozers and dump trucks were going house to house to clear away the debris.


Suzanne, Julie, Steve and Rich take a break from cleaning out the basement.








The Straight River, behind Steve's house, rose 10 feet in four hours early last Thursday morning. When we were there, it had returned to its banks.


If you look close, you can see how high the water went on Steve's house. The waterline is just below the white siding.

This house is three doors down from Steve's house, and as you can see, the river punched right through the foundation of the house.






A few days ago, these four would have been under water!






Julie was stylin' in her 30-year-old moon boots!








I'm not sure just what I was thinking here.

Twins clinch A.L. Central

Rich took Noah to his first Twins game at Target Field on Tuesday night. It was a 6-4 victory for the Twins over Cleveland, and we got to see the Twins' Jim Thome hit his 589th career home run AND Twins manager Ron Gardenhire's 800th career victory. The fact that the Twins later clinched their division (and a playoff spot) only made it sweeter. Go TWINS!

Back to preschool

Sarah started her second year of preschool on Monday! She's in the Discovery 4's program this year with about 12 other children, including Sammi, a little girl who was in her class last year. Here's Sarah in the car on the way to her first day.






The traditional picture in front of the school before the first day.














It's DRESS-UP TIME!