Declan is a Football Player

In 3rd grade, you can be in youth football. Declan decided to try it this year. It was a rough start, but he seems to be getting the hang of it now and enjoying it.

I was all ready to take his picture when he was running with the ball and you can see what happened. Hopefully, I will get one next time when he can run with it. But I must say after he dropped the ball, he fell on top of it and they didn't loose possession.

Declan was safety in this play and just about tackled this kid to keep him from scoring. This past weekend, his team played the blue team and Declan had an awesome tackle as safety to stop the kid from scoring. He was so proud of himself.

Declan is blocking here.

D's team played the green team during half time of the high school game. He was on the line and blocking against one of his hockey buddies. They were locked and neither kid could move the other.

same thing here

Ottertail Lake

Asha is 5 months old in the photo. You can see she is already bigger than Juno just sitting. Juno is only 20 pounds at 5 years old and Asha is 35 pounds at 5 months old. I guess she might be 1/2 her size now. She loves going to the lake now that she figured out she can swim. She is just a swimming machine and loves it. She can fetch a ball in the water and everything. I have been trying to convince her to jump off the dock when we are swimming, but she just cries and won't do it yet.

The boys and I were riding the waves on our floats. The waves were pretty big with all the wind, so we were having fun.

Declan riding on Mom's back

Asha and her big head wet.

Broken Down Dam

We went for a walk to Broken Down Dam outside of Fergus Falls. The kids and Jeff have gone there before when I was working and they wanted to show me. It is a pretty little area. It is amazing how high the water have to have been in this spot to go over the dam. I guess back when this dam broke is the only time Fergus has ever been flooded.

1st day of school

Declan on the 1st day of school. He is a big 3rd grader this year. His teacher is Mr. Pearson and Declan is very excited about him.

Declan goes to Cleveland school.

Isaac is a big 1st grader this year. His teacher is Mrs. Holmes and Isaac says she is very nice.

Isaac goes to Adams school.

Our boys are growing way too fast!

Isaac's Hockey Camp

If you remember from previous posts that Declan did a hockey camp the month of June. Isaac was very mad he wasn't old enough to do that camp and just begged to go to it. So, we saw this camp was in August 2 nights a week in Moorhead and signed him up. He had a blast! He didn't know a single kid and he didn't care. He was playing hockey and loving it.

He said he learned alot at this camp, too.

the wine labels

After I got done with the last post I figured it would be easier to just take a picture of the wine bottles and put it on here. I could not get the picture at the end of the last post, so I did a new one. Here are the wine labels we had made for our wine. We like them!

10th Anniversary Celebration

Jeff and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary a week early this year. We went with Leanne and Will, friends of ours, to Vitner's Cellar and bottled the wine we made back in May. We drank wine, went to a very nice dinner at Monte's in Fargo, and had a blast.

Will is washing the bottles.

This the machine for filling the bottles with the wine. We ordered a case of the white and Leanne and Will ordered a case of the red. You get 24 bottles in the case, so we split the kinds.

Jeff is putting the cork into the bottle. Then we melt the foil on the bottle. We got to pick out our own labels also. We chose a picture of a castle and called our wine Hefe's Private Cellar Collection. It goes with the name on the wine cellar door. Leanne and Will labeled theirs Meadow Hill Collection Bin 906 and they chose a colorful vineyard label. The meadow hill is the street they live on.

Leanne bottling the wine.

me botttling the wine

Leanne and Will putting on labels.

Happy 10th Anniversary to us! So we have 12 bottles of Valpolicella (red) and 12 bottles of Gewurztraminer (white) in our wine cellar. It is really good! Actually, we have 11 of both because I brought one of each to my scrapbooking weekend last weekend.

Asha and Mowing Lawn

Isaac took this picture of Asha and me when she was 4 1/2 months old.

I love this one of Isaac and Asha.

We have a riding lawn mower for the first time in the kids' lives. They have been begging to mow lawn, but we aren't comfortable with that yet. But Jeff did give them rides on the lawnmower.

Uncle Brian and Aunt Noemie visit from Portland

Jeff's brother's family from Portland were in Fergus for a long weekend. The 4 cousins had a great time playing together. They came to our house for an afternoon and spent the day making forts and playing with flashlights in the hockey room.

Grandma Lorna wanted this picture of her 4 grandboys at the lake. Kieran is 3, Declan, Calder who is almost 6, and Isaac.

Isaac posing for a picture. He is a strange, but really funny child.

Asha watching all the action at the lake.

Nomi and Kieran

Brian and my boys were fishing. Jeff and Lorna hanging out with Asha. You can tell Isaac lost interest in the fishing part.

Declan caught this Large Mouth Bass off the dock. He was so excited! This is the biggest fish he has caught, I think. Asha was trying to figure out what that thing was and she was scared of it.

4 cousins

Declan

Me, Kieran, Calder, and Isaac at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Asha 4 months ago

Asha and Juno play all the time and are pretty good pals now.

She is huge!

Asha is a little taller than Juno at this age.

Isaac posing with both dogs.

Storybook Land/ Land of Oz in Aberdeen, SD

We went to Storybook Land in Aberdeen, SD with my brother's family and friends of his. The kids had a great time and it was a cute park.

Here are the boys by Humpty Dumpty.

All the kids on the train. Justin (my nephew), Declan holding Tyler (Brian's friends' kid), Jason (my nephew), forgot the girl's name who is also the friends' daughter, and Isaac.

Isaac going down the slide on the pirate ship

Declan going down the same slide

Now Declan is on the front of the pirate ship

Isaac

We also walked the yellow brick road for the Wizard of Oz story in the Land of Oz. This is the wicked witch's castle in the background with the boys on the cliff.

Jeff stood in front so we could show how tall the boys climbed to get on top the rock.

There was a rock climbing wall that Declan climed at least 3 times. He is doing the easy one in this picture. He tried the intermediate, but it was too hard to make it to the top. He sure is a strong kid.

There is also a Thunder Road by the park where we went mini golfing. This was a course with volcanoes. We also went for Go Cart rides and bumper boat rides. They were a lot of fun.

This picture was on our last day there. The boys were playing at a playground and we were playing with the camera. Declan's face got cut off in this picture, but I love this smile.

Isaac's smile is also very cool in this picture.

We had a fun weekend and it sure was nice to get away for a few days.