Waterbrooke Ski Trip 2008

The Waterbrooke Youth met at the church at 4 p.m . on Friday, Feb. 15 and headed off the Trollhaugen for a weekend of skiing. We stayed at a retreat center Friday and Saturday night and skiied all day Saturday. The evenings were full of games, snacks, music videos and devotions - plus a little sleep.The weather was absolutely beautiful - thanks, God.
The gal on the right had never skied before, so I gave her some lessons on the bunny hill and left her to practice while Paul and I checked out what hill was the best to take her on next. Meanwhile, she headed off for the blue square "more difficult" slopes while we were gone with a couple of friends!!! As you can see, she survived, and actually did very well. Paul and I decided we'd always ski behind her after we found out she would just shut her eyes and go. Yowie! She didn't fall, get hurt, or hurt anyone else! Another successful student launched into the world of extreme sports.
Now these guys really do belong to the world of extreme. They spend several days a week at the snowboard park at Hyland. I was very impressed! I had a little videa, but it wasn't the right format to download here. Oh well, you get the idea.
Emery hurt his ribs two weeks ago, but that didn't stop him from trying every trick in the book. He actually came in third or fourth at a competition here a few weeks back.

This is Paul - what do you think about that form? He has only skied about 4 times now - all on Waterbrooke Youth Events. I think he is ready for the "pipe" over in the snowboard park, or maybe Lake Placid at the least! Keep reading for tidbits from the retreat center.

Crazy Olympics II

We arrived at Skonewood Retreat Center in Cushing, Wisconsin on Friday night . I organized all the "games" for the weekend, seeing as I have a mammoth file of activites lodged in my brain from 20 summers of summer ministries! We had two teams compete in the "Crazy Olympics" for the second year in a row. This is the winning team - aren't they a handsome bunch?There were a variety of non-athletic events totally planned to make each team equal in ability. We did a little floor hockey competition - but the players had to skate on newspaper.

The penalty box protected the viewers rather than competitors!
We had a few budding architects for the "build an igloo" contest. They used sugar cubes, frosting, and their fingers! Check out the results below!

They put their creations outside to firm up, and I think we forgot them there! Some hungry squirrel is going to get a treat!
Try shooting q-tips at a cup balanced on your partners head. First team to get ten hits was the winner.
Good plan, Kari - keep your eyes closed at all times!
The Flamingo Pillow fights almost ended in a trip to the ER when Maddie slipped on the concrete floor and banged her elbow. A bag of cold carrots soon made the swelling go down.
The above event was the "Marshmallow Slurp" where contestants had to basically eat the string (without swallowing) until the marshmallow landed in their mouth. Sarah - second from the left - left them all in the dust!

One of the final events was a version of the old telephone game - only the person in the back of the line had to draw the object I told them to draw on the back of the person in front of them in line. Eventually, the person in the very front had to really draw, on paper, the object they felt drawn on their back. We came to the conclusion we have no future artists in the group! A great time was had by all - really! They can't wait until next year when I pullsome more carzy stunts out of my bag of tricks.

Happy New Year

On New Year's Day we headed over to Paul's brother Mark's house for dinner. His cousin Dede from Boston was in town visiting her sister Sue (and Bob) from St. Paul. It was great to see DeDe again after staying with her last summer and enjoying the Red Sox game and a fish dinner that was out of this world. (Dede is in the front on the right next to Grandpa Roger).Another cousin came up from Mankato/Butterfield - Casey Lloyd and his wife Diann.
Casey's mom, Ruth, was Roger's sister (Paul's dad). He does play-by-play for the Mankato State basketball team on the radio.
I wish I had been able to get all the cousins in one picture together like we did at Thanksgiving at the Catlins. It's nearly impossible to get everyone's schedules to match, and here we did it just on the spur of the moment.
Jonathon (Casey and Diann's son) was here from California where he works for a television news channel. The younger generation was conspicuously absent from this event - I think they were all still sleeping in after greeting the new year!! And, of course, Christie and Alison had long ago flew the coop back to New York.
Drew and Anna (where are you, Anna?) came down from their rooms for the food and to say hi to the visiting elders. Anna taught me how to play with her online pets. Virtual pets are really very easy to take care of!
Drew has his knapsack handy to store extra treats in case of a food shortage. He is shooting up like a weed! We ended singing around the piano - the last gasp of Christmas carols - but it was great fun no matter how awful we might sound!

Hurrah - Pictures from Christmas Part II

You can see why I was disappointed with my camera phone pictures! But, something is better than nothing. Jane and Chuck's tree was beautiful in real life. I'm going to use some camera phone pictures and some that Jane sent me. Can you tell the difference?

I had the same problem taking pictures that Jane did - I tended to focus on the little boys when grabbing for the camera. They started out a little bit shy, but soon warmed up to each other.

Maddox is showing his muscles here. What a guy!
The stairs to the second floor were a very popular play spot!

The boys are all ready for bed in their cute jammies.

Matthew shared his new teddy bear with Maddox. Pat got a real deal at Cub when they were "undecorating" just before Christmas. I think you can see that family gatherings are going to be lots of fun the next few years - and you, too, can experience the joy through the wonder of blogs!

Christmas at Home

Christmas at our house was great. We came home after the Christmas Eve service at Waterbrooke for a Swedish meatball dinner and then opened presents.

Our presents seemed to have a regional flavor to them this year. The New Yorkites brought cool Adirondack gifts, and we gave Minnesota style mementos. Note the vintage North Stars hat!

On Christmas morning, the kids headed off to Vadnais Heights to spend the day with their mom and grandparents. Paul recently test drove one of these little cars and I wouldn't be surprised if someday we have one!

It was a wonderful time, and we're so glad the girls have each other near by way out there in New York. Of course, we love visiting there, too, so retirement is looking better and better!

Christmas Celebrations Part II

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I forgot to bring my camera to Jane and Chuck's on Christmas Day!!! I remembered that my new cell phone has a camera, so I took a bunch of cute pics of the little boys, but they really turned out fuzzy. I downloaded them into Verizon's Pix Place, and have had a dilly of a time trying to send them to my computer - every time I go online I get an error page - just temporary, of course. Well, we had a great time on Christmas Day - though we missed Jenna and Andy who were in Pittsburg, and Tom and Kim, Griffin and Katie who live in Illinois. Yummy food, and a fun gift exchange that Heidi and Jane planned. If you want to see some good pictures, go to the link to Jane's blog. I hope she'll share some of her pictures with me for this year!

Christmas Celebrations

Family time makes the Christmas season special! We started with the Casey Christmas on the 23rd at Paul's sister Julie's house. We had a wonderful meal provided by all and a white elephant gift exchange that was hilarious. Scroll on down to see some highlights of the day.Mark gets the fancy dusting glove that Paul and Christie found at a shop in Excelsior. I'm sure he'll use it well!
Bob stole back the froggie for his garden that lights up with changing colors. Do you even have a garden in your apartment???
Drew picked the all encompassing Snoopy boxers. I'm sure he'll wear them to gym class.
No gathering is complete without patriarch Roger and his special gal, Elaine. They are a blessing to us all.
Cousin Casey Lloyd demonstrates his cooking skills to Leslee and Roger with Mudde's string bean soup recipe handed down to his mother Ruth (Roger's sister). It was really tasty - another family tradition continues!
Drew and Dryfry entertain the troops with Christmas carols. They even recorded some so we could enjoy the music after Dryfry ran off!
Some of the cousins can get a little crazy. I'm not sure who egged them on - maybe Alison's boyfriend, Jon? He really seemed to fit right in to the mix.
Brenner found this "slippery when wet" white elephant in an antique shop. I actually opened it, but it was stolen at least 4 times before Julie ended up with the prize.
Don't count on keeping the gift you started with - too bad Christie.

The fun continues at Mark's house on New Year's Day because more cousins have arrived from Boston! Dede and Dave, plus Susan and Bob who live in St. Paul will add to the fun! Stay tuned for more eats (therefore my annual New Year's resolution continues on - lose another 20 or so. After loosing 30 this past year, and then gaining 10, I'm sure it will be a breeze - ha!)