Maddie Turns One!

Our niece, Maddie, turned one on April 27th. Her birthday party was on Memorial Day. Anthony, Heather, & Andrew came up from Nebraska, so everyone was able to be there for the festivities. We all had a really fun day! :)

Maddie helped me curl my hair. :)

Maddie

Andrew

Kim & Maddie opening presents.

Maddie's present from Uncle Todd & Nana.

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We also brought JD his present for his 12th birthday (on May 13th) but I forgot to take a picture. Sorry, JD!

Andrew is very excited about the bubble gum machine toy!

Yeah!! :)

Justin

Tyler............CHEESE!! :)

Maddie's very own...........very large.........cupcake!

Mmmmmm..............this is pretty good............

...............yes..............this is VERY good!

Maddie is having fun eating her birthday cupcake. :)

"Daddy says I look like a Smurf...................what's a Smurf?"

Purple Shamrock

At my bridal shower in March 2006, our friend, Ann Shephard, gave us a Purple Shamrock as part of our gift. This spring it has really been going to town growing & blooming. Ann........I hope you get a chance to see this picture. Thanks! :)

Monday, May 11th, was our Banquet of the Stars for the North Heights Productions. The theme this year was Black and White, so we were supposed to wear our best black & white attire or costume.

The only black & white costume I could think of was......Salt & Pepper! So that is what Todd & I went as.

We even had shaker holes in our "covers"......Todd had two holes for pepper & I had three holes for salt. Burger king crowns still come in handy.....we used them to make the "tops" of our salt & pepper shakers. :)

We had some stiff competition...........and we didn't win a prize.........but I don't think we stood a chance against a 6 or 7 year old penguin. :)

In this picture, we are on stage with the penguin, "Men in Black", The Phantom of the Opera & a Pharisee. There was also a couple that came as the Old & New Testements of the Bible.......very creative. :)

Mother's Day 2009

Last Sunday we went to Sonja's Mom's house for Mother's Day. It was a little cool, but still a pretty nice day for hanging out in the back yard. Here are some of the pictures from the day. :)

Maddie looking cute in her sunflower dress & hat.........she is holding the two giraffes from the Noah's Ark playset.

Tyler found an old football helmet in the shed and it made a good batting helmet. :)

Nice hit, Tyler!

Justin shooting a basket in Grandma A's back yard.

JD shooting a basket in a game of Horse with Uncle Eric & Justin.

(Eric, Justin & JD)

Evan & Brenden..........I'm not sure if this is a new form of fencing or what?? Looks like the old football helmet was useful again. :)

Tyler: "You watching me, Nana?" (He asked this several times.) :)

Maddie & Nana reading a book. :)

Mom gave JD his birthday present since his birthday is this Wednesday (5/13). He is going to be 12!

Looks like he got a book about U.S. Presidents & a dvd about Abraham Lincoln. JD has been interested in the Presidents since he was quite young & Abraham Lincoln is his favorite. :)

Our 3rd Anniversay ~ ~ 5/6/09

We went up to the Grand Superior Lodge again this year for our 3rd anniversary. We were prepared for it to rain because that was the forcast and it is tradition that it usually rains when we go up there. It only rained overnight the 1st night & it was sunny & around 70 degrees during the day the rest of the two days. :) We had a wonderful, relaxing time.


Todd was adventurous & suggested we take a couple of the bikes that the lodge has available and ride up to Gooseberry Falls State Park. I was surprised & excited because I have been wanting to do that for the last couple of years.

We biked the two miles up to the state park & then rode in to the visitor center to get some water for our back pack. Todd's bike seat had a little hole in it that we didn't notice until we were riding...........Todd mostly noticed because all of the water that soaked into the seat the night before when it rained, squished out while he sat & rode the bike......making the back of his pants quite wet. Oops! :)

We took some nice pictures by the upper falls.............

........and of the upper falls.........

........and Todd looking at the Highway 61 bridge............

...........and Todd displaying the middle falls..............

...............then we decided we would ride on the new Gitchi-Gami trail for a little while and see where it went. There was beautiful views of the trees & Lake Superior. We found a campsite right at the edge of a rock cliff by the lake that I thought would be a beautiful place for camping. We had been gone from the lodge about an hour and 15 minutes when we decided we'd better start back because we found a trail map sign & saw that it goes all the way to Split Rock Lighthouse & we knew we did not want to ride that far. :) We also knew that the ride back would be a lot of uphill since the first part of trail went down towards the lake.

So we turned around & started riding...............

...........and about 5 seconds later.............

.............Todd's whole bike pedal & gear mechanism that holds the chain............

..................fell off!! I tried to put the chain back on (which made my hands very dirty with grease) but we couldn't find the bolt. We had no idea where it might have fallen off & it probably rolled off of the paved trail!

It took us an hour and a half to walk out of the trail & down Highway 61 back to the lodge!

We were very warm & thirsty by the time we got back to the lodge. The guy at the front desk felt pretty bad when he asked how our bike ride was & we told him about our "adventure".

The moon over the lake was beautiful that night. :)






We always get the same room so we always have the same view.............and it is wonderful!

Our view from the balcony...........to the right.............

............to the left..............

..................and straight ahead...............beautiful! :)

Our Dramatically Musical Nephews

We went to Justin & Brenden's musicals at Westwood Community Church on Saturday, May 2nd. Brenden was in Fish Tales.....a production about being fishers of men. No one can say that our nephews lack enthusiasm when performing in their kids' productions at their church. Here is some proof in the little video clip we made on our camera because Brenden was so animated in his singing. :)





Brenden was also excited that he had a speaking part.........

..........and a singing part in a trio on one of the songs. :)

Brenden was very excited that we all came to watch him! :)

Justin's age group did a production called Kings Dreams & Schemes......a story about Daniel. I forget what his name was, but Justin was an Egyptian & thought his Egyptian eye make-up was pretty cool. :)

Here Justin was in charge of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshack & Obednego. He was trying to say King Nebuchanezzar (sp?) a couple of times in his lines & said:

"King Neba......King Neba......King never can remember his name!"

AND

"King Neba......King Neba......King never can pronounce his name!"

It was pretty funny & he did a great job! :)

Justin sitting at the feet of the king.

Brenden, Justin, Evan & Nicholas. Evan & Nicholas had fun watching their cousins in their shows. :)