365 Day Challenge

So I took on a bit of challenge for this new year. I hope to snap a photo of each of my lovely children each day this year in a pose that I want to save. I will highlight by month here, but will begin with the first photo of the year posted here today. Happy New Year!

Christmas 2011 Happenings

Merry Christmas!

This year brings much joy to our family! It has been so long that I have written anything and I felt quite guilty for not getting more published on here sooner! As I reflected more on this, I have realized that the adjustment to America and life here really does take an adjustment period. We returned 3 1/2 years ago, purchased our home 3 years ago. Life this year has begun to slow down more and more. Maybe this is just what it seems, but it seems like it has slowed much more than the fast paced decade and 2 years that Nathaniel and I have faced in our marriage. Yes, we recently celebrated our twelfth anniversary!

As I reflect on this past year, I can think of one of the significant changes has been in a shift of focus to the kid's and their desires to be more involved in extra curricular activities. Life seems more settled, but it definately has not fully halted in activity level. If anything we seem to be going much more now than in the past.

This summer we began lessons in swimming, gymnastics (for Eliana) and soccer teams for all. They played, Nathaniel coached the boys team and fun was had by all. We went out to Colorado to participate in my brother's ceremony of marriage. We then also travelled to the Black Hills in August with a Brazilian friend. I discovered a love for my garden and watching plants grow than any other years before.

The school year began in full tilt at the end of August. All of the children are now at the same school much to their mother's relief! No more daycare! Yea!

Eliana began full day kindergarten this year and was SO excited. Who knew that picture day and the first recess in the snow could be so anticipated! She loves school and learning. She turned 6 at the beginning of September and part of her gift from the family is ballet lessons. She has been a little ballerina all year so far and loves going to her ballet class.

Gabriel began 2nd grade this fall. He loves science, math and social studies the best and is our construction genius at home! He started cub scouts at the end of last year, and he has been involved all this year completing several badges. He loves to build with Legos and this fall took a lego class after school. Another favorite is strategy games (which he can beat his dad at - a feat that is quite difficult to do). He recently took up oragami and his top Christmas wish list item was more paper for oragami!

Joshua started 5th grade this year!!! It's hard to believe that he is nearing his teen years! He too began cub scouts last year and really love it. He will be earning his arrow of light badge coming up in February and desires to pursue becoming an eagle scout. He began soccer at school this year and is quite good at it. He also took up trumpet lessons with his uncle Wade and has done phenomenally well. He will begin playing in the school band in January.

I continue to work at Chapel Hill Academy. I love what I do and how I can share about God's love and His revelation through the academics. I completed Orton Gillingham courses two summers ago and have been using this in the classroom last year and this year. I love first grade and their love for learning!

Nathaniel continues to work at Securian in St. Paul. He hopes to move into a different role within the company at some point. His piano instruction has just blossomed this year. He added an extra night of lessons to accomodate all of his new students! Nathaniel continues to create new music. This year the Securian sound choir performed two of Nathaniel's pieces.

Memories of Brazil

The following albums were made as memories of our time in Brazil. We visited several places and want to be able to share those memories with you.

This is a city outside of Sao Paulo:

The school where we taught for four years:

The big park in Sao Paulo:

There is a large Botanical Garden on the southeastern edge of Sao Paulo. It is simply beautiful!

Nearby the garden is a gigantic zoo!

Happy Birthday!

Make your own scrapbook design

Make a Smilebox greeting

Merry Christmas! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas with family and friends!

Summer Vacation Highlights

Our July and August months flew past. We spent a lot of time outside in the Twin Cities. We travelled up north for a week in July to visit several locations. We started out on the Iron Range. Here is a rest stop where we pulled off to take a look at an old mine pit. The water area is where a mine pit has been in filled in with water. This is a mining vehicle. The kids are standing in front of the wheel. It's amazing to see it in real life as it's gigantic! They would use these vehicles to haul ore out from the mines.

Little cabin in the woods.... this was the cabin we stayed at on a beautiful lake. The kids enjoyed their time roaming out on a big rock that was next to the lake and scaring us silly. They played a "war" game with sticks and were chasing each other until we put a stop to that when they were dangerously near the water! They didn't seem to even notice the near death drops as they would run out on the rock, but we sure did!

We went on a LONG hike while we stayed at the cabin. It was a six mile hike that these troopers made! Towards the end we were all pushing to get back to the car! They made it and slept real well that night!

Here's all of us posing on the trail. I think Gabriel was the most enthusiastic of all the kids!

Following our stay in a cabin, we headed down towards Lake Superior and visited a mine on the way. We went deep underground sporting these fancy helmets. It was mighty cold in the mine, but we got to experience it the way the true miners did way back in the day! If you ever are up that way, it's a really neat ride! It's the Soudan mine- a state park.

Following our stay here, we headed to Tettegouche State Park on Lake Superior. We stayed there for two nights. One of the nights we had a mighty bad rain fall. The kids enjoyed going on hikes, visiting the lake and on the rainy day travelling all the way up north to the Canadian border. We had to stop in Grand Marais and visit the donut shop and Artist's Point! Despite the rainy cold, it was a lovely drive!

Pictures out on Artist's Point in Grand Marais:
World's Best Donut Shop:

Gooseberry Falls:

Finally, we stayed one night in a hotel in Duluth, Minnesota to recover from our camping experience! This was the most fun end to a trip as we all got clean and were able to have a blast at the water park in the hotel.
The kids loved this the most as a bell would ring and then a sudden tidal wave would pour over them as the bucket at the top of the play area would dump a ton of water out!

35 Years...

David and Nancy (Nathaniel's parents) celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary with the family in June. Here are some photos of the family. We went to Bennihanas to celebrate. There we saw quite a show with knives and spatulas as they cooked our meal on a hot flat surface in front of us. The kids were enthralled with it all, and Eliana learned to use chopsticks. Following the dinner, we went back to Auntie Lauren's to have cake and open presents with the rest of the family. The cake was in the color of the original bridemaids dresses! What a neat touch!

They were surprised with a trip from the kids and it was packaged in ones in a jar that they had to count up!

David and Nancy have raised a wonderful family and are great examples of what a Christ-centered marriage looks like. Thanks for being such a blessing!

Happy 35th!

First Camping Trip

Our very first camping trip was to the bluff area of Minnesota. We stayed at Frontenac State Park mid June. The first night we ate in Lake City, Minnesota at a little family resturant where they were having all you can eat fish. This was recorded as Joshua's all time favorite part of going camping! In addition, Joshua loved seeing record numbers of deer. In his deer tally account he has now counted ten in his life that he has seen thus far.The kids had fun and a kind gentleman offered to take our family's picture then. The boys were goof balls and had a blast walking back to the car goofing around together as only brothers can! The weather was magnificent and the kids loved sleeping in a tent. Eliana especially loved sleeping in the tent and even taking a nap in the tent. Gabriel wrote about his favorite part of camping and it was the fire! The kids loved watching, helping and best of all making smores with the fire. For those friends in Brazil that have no idea what smores are. They are basically a squishy sticky glob of sugar (marshmellow) that you melt over a campfire on a stick or metal prong. Then when they either light on fire (as most do) or are a scrumptious golden brown hue you take two pieces of graham crackers (much like a cookie) with some chocolate and slide it off between the layers of cookie and chocolate. You then have a smore sandwich and the name S'more comes from wanting "some" s' "more" more....smore.

The first night in the camp ground there seemed to be some animal trying to get into the trash recepticals and put up a mighty racket all evening long. I hardly slept, but our dear ones and Nathaniel all got a lovely night of sleep. The next morning the kids arose at 5am to the sounds of the birdies in the trees! Our solar powered children were up and at em! We decided to leave the campsite and go out onto the bluff to enjoy breakfast and not disturb fellow campers with our children's voices of exuberant joy. We discovered at that time that our milk we had frozen the day before had still not thawed and so cereal with milk was not an option. We visited Wabasha then and over the course of the morning travelled to Wisconsin to taste the cheese and visited another bluff where there is a great view of the Mississippi river valley. Overall it was a successful camping experience and the kids woud love if we could do it again.