Fenway, Shea and Yankee Stadium Baseball Tour

This year our baseball tour took us to the East coast. We took an early morning flight (5:30 AM) to Boston. We went to Cheers and then to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play Toronto. Fenway was very very cool. From the outside it does not look much like a stadium. Here is a picture of the park.
Randy and I both got a Monster Dog. It was the largest hot dog I have ever seen and to tell you the truth if I did not have another hot dog until next Summer that would be OK. Here is Randy with his Monster Dog.
On Sunday we saw the Mets play Cincinnati Reds. Shea stadium was much nicer than I thought it would be. In the background you can see the construction of the Mets new stadium.
We spent some time in New York City and then Monday night we saw the Yankees play Toronto.

Long Time No Post

Has it been a month since our last post? Shame on us! We've had lots going on and the blog has gotten pushed to the bottom of the list. Here are some updated pictures of the kids. Ellie is almost 9 mths old and is such a doll. She is a great little girl. She spends lots of time wiggling and spinning around, but is not crawling yet. That will come soon enough...right now I am grateful that she is quite content to sit and play.

The picture of Micah is from his first visit to Chuck E. Cheese (or as Micah calls it Chunk E. Cheese) for his friend Amara's birthday. They had a great time playing the games and running around. Micah is having a great summer and is enjoying every minute he can be outside.

Kids at home

A couple of funny shots from home. The first is of Ellie eating an animal cracker, which Cooper just happens to love. You can tell he was just hoping to steal some from her.

The other day Micah came running out from his bedroom saying, "Mom, come quick. Get the camera and come quick." I thought, "Oh, boy, what is this child up to now?" It turns out that this is what I found and he thought we just had to have a picture of it. Like the Little People may never stand all together on the stool again. I captured the moment to humor him and he was happy about it!

Maiden Voyage

Our first trip out in the new pop-up was Father's Day weekend. It was such a fun time! Everyone did better than expected (kids and dog included!). We camped at Bent Trout Lake Campground near Barnum, MN. It is a private campground on a small but beautiful lake. We were joined by AJ's aunts, uncles, cousins (& boyfriends), grandma, and mom. There was a good storm that came through on Friday night, but Saturday was picture perfect. We were able to spend some time on the beach and in the water swimming and canoing. Sunday morning threatened rain, so we quickly took the trailer down, which is why our family picture is with it down. It ended up not raining, but we didn't want to take that risk. If we take down the pop-up in the rain, we would have to set it up at home to let it dry out to avoid yucky mold growing where we do not want it. It was such a great time and we cannot wait to make another trip out again soon.

Summer is here....

Yesterday we headed to Spooner, WI to visit my sister and brother-in-law and their kids. We had a great time at their church and then having lunch at their house. They happen to have a lot of dirt in their backyard, which the kids LOVED to play in! His is a pic of Micah and his cousin Caleb hiding beneath layers of dirt!

My Golf Trip (Adventure)

There is an annual tradition that a couple of college buddies and I have. We try and find a couple nice golf courses and take a couple of days and go golfing. This year we went to Giants Ridge Golf and Ski Resort. We stayed at the Villas at Giants Ridge which were very nice.

The first day, Sunday, we golfed the Legend. It was OK. It was scenic but the greens were in pretty bad shape. Here is a picture of hole #3 it is a par 5 476 yard hole from the blues.


But the fun did not happen until... between hole 12 and 13. You know what it is like when you get 4 college friends together. We were having fun trying to pass each other in the golf carts when Aaron almost pushed Brent and I into a tree... at that point it was on. We were back and forth while driving and then came the big hill... with a very sharp corner the bottom of it and a very steep hill or wooded embankment of impending doom. Can you see where this is going? Unfortunately Aaron could not, he was busy looking back at us making sure we were not going to pass him or try something. Then he turned around and look forward (a novel idea when driving a cart towards the wooded embankment of impending doom) once he turned around it was too late. He tried to make the corner and hit a good sized rock, which put the cart up on two wheels. Amazingly he gained control long enough to get it back on all fours just in time to hit some loose rock and put him back up on two wheels and into the embankment (it was about 35-40 degrees steep). We saw Aaron bail and thought the cart landed right on top of him but thankfully it had hit a rock and skipped over him. Scott, the passenger (who, according to Aaron may have deserved this, was also in the cart. Scott had rolled a vehicle in our college days with Aaron in the car so Aaron just called this even) Both people were safe. They hit a 8-10ft dead tree stump which shattered when they hit it and they also killed about 30-40 little saplings. Here is a picture of where the cart landed (we did not take a picture of the cart down there because we wanted to get it out of there as fast as possible so we would not get in trouble). Amazingly we got it out. It was about 25 feet into the woods on a steep hill. The cart had landed on it's side and we righted it up and actually got it out. There was only one scratch on the entire cart and it ran... until the next hole then it promptly died and started to rain. HARD



One last picture of the Legend. This is their signature hole, #17



On Monday we played the Quarry twice. We are all glad we chose to play that course twice... It was one of the nicest courses any of us had ever played. The first time through we played for individual score. Ouch is all I am going to say. When you start with a 9 on a par 5 you know it is going to be rough. Then the second time through we played two man best ball. Brent and I won last year by seven strokes. This year Brent and I only hit 5-6 fairways. We were horrible but kept it close and only lost by 3 or 4 strokes... Aaron feel free to correct me, but be accurate. When we played best ball we played from the tips (for those not familiar with golf that is the farthest tee box back) the course played 7,201 yards that way. All in all it was fun. Here are a couple of pictures of the Quarry.

Just a couple of new pics of the kids at the park the other day. We head there quite often when it is nice out. Many times we have it all to ourselves and Micah runs all over everything. He is much braver this year and sometimes even a little daring! I have to keep an eye on him. Ellie just goes along for the ride and is content to sit in the stroller and watch Micah run around.

Our new vacation home

Isn't she a beauty?! AJ and I have talked for years about getting a camper and happened to come upon a good deal recently. We love camping, but are not quite adventurous to tent it with the kiddos. Even this might be a stretch when Ellie wakes up half the campground in the middle of the night/early morning. However, we are super-excited about it...almost giddy, actually. It is a pretty basic pop-up with no bathroom or running water, but it will keep us out of the rain/bugs and off the ground. We hope to make many family memories in it!

Mill City Museum

FREE!! I love that word. We got free passes to the Mill City Museum from the Hennepin County Library's Museum Adventure Pass. AJ took the day off and we headed to check it out. We weren't sure what to expect and if it would be over Micah's head, but he had a GREAT time. There were lots of hands-on activities for him to do. The pics show him sending logs down the river and pushing a water turbine. He also ground and sifted wheat to make flour and rolled out dough in the kitchen area. He didn't want to leave even though we were an hour past lunchtime. There was a fun "Flour Tower" ride that gave the history of the flour mills in Minneapolis. AJ and I had a great time as well and found it to be very interesting.

Ellie at 5 mths

Ellie is now 5 mths old! We can hardly believe it. Thanks to her friend Avery for sharing the adorable pink dress for Ellie's dedication. And thanks to Mimi for Ellie's dedication bling. Mimi made a couple of bracelets just for Ellie and they are adorable! Ellie is growing bigger every day and is constantly changing. She is loving her rice cereal and has now tried bananas as well. She gave a few funny faces to that at first, but has grown accustomed to them. Not sure what we'll try next.....maybe pureed peas. Mmmmm good! She also rolled over this week for the first time! She went from her back to her tummy....and then didn't know what to do next! She can't get back to her back yet, so that's the next challenge.

Here is are some pics of the family. Micah loves that Ellie and she loves him right back. Aren't they cute together? The family pic is from the Sunday of Ellie's dedication. It was a great day with lots of aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, and great-grandmas there. Ellie did great and didn't cry in front of the church (which was my fear, of course!).

Ellie update

Here are a couple of new pics of Ellie. She loves her daddy and saves her best smiles for him. She also adores Micah and thinks he is the best big brother around. She is always watching him and he earns quite a few smiles as well. She is really into grabbing things and everything goes into her mouth. We can't believe that she is almost 5mths old! She just recently started rice cereal--what a messy adventure! She is ever so close to rolling over, but can't get everything to cooperate just yet. We are enjoying her more and more every day!

Ellie at 4mths

Here are some pics of Ellie at 4 months of age. It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone! She is growing and changing every day. She is becoming more and more fun and is developing her own personality. She still does not enjoy sleeping much--nights are pretty good, but she has a strong aversion to naps. She has her 4 mth doctor appt this week, so we will get all of her stats there (height, weight, etc).

Hanging out with dad...

Micah is dad's little buddy! Here are a couple of recent shots of them together. Micah loves to do special activities with dad and there are certain things that only he and dad can do together--mom and Ellie not allowed! Their favorite thing to do is "tickle and wrestle" in Micah's bedroom. They also will often run errands together or hang out in the garage or outside together. At bedtime we talk about what Micah's favorite part of the day was. Today he said his favorite part was building a snow fort with dad. He likes to be wherever AJ is and talks about when he gets bigger he can go to work with dad. Most things that we say he can't do now he says he can do "when he gets bigger". He's a bunch of fun!

Children's Museum

We made a trip to the Children's Museum today with Tim, Cathy, and William Fischer (friends from church). It was great because the 3rd Sunday of the month is free admission. However, it was a ZOO! Everybody loves free stuff and the place was packed. Micah had fun and elbowed his way in to play with the exhibits. There was a special exhibit with Bob the Builder, so he enjoyed that. Above are a few pics from the day.

55 degrees....

Was I just dreaming of a warm spring day? Not quite--that was the actual temp in our house when we woke up yesterday morning. Now we are all about cutting costs, but not quite to that extent. Our furnace had broken down on us on a very cold February day in MN. Praise the Lord for gas fireplaces and friends with warm homes! Finally, by about 7:30pm, our furnace was running again. We spent most of the day in the basement with the fireplace running and a blanket covering the door. It was very actually very cozy, and we were lucky to be able to do that. Thanks to all of you who offered to open your home to us if we would have had another night without heat. We were thrilled to crawl into our own warm beds!

Not again....

I know this is quite unbecoming for a little princess, but seriously, it happens almost every day. Ellie is the queen of blowouts! I hate to put her in her cute little pink outfits because this is what always seems to happen! Thank goodness for good stain remover! And yes, she actually is wearing a diaper and it still seems to work its way out. A few nights ago, right before bed, we did 3 diaper changes in less than 10 minutes as she kept filling them! Sorry, enough potty talk for now....

Who's who #2?

Here's more pictures of the two kids for comparison. Obviously, they no longer look very similar. Micah is above and is from when he was about 2 months old. Ellie is below at about 3 mths old. Check out those cheeks!

Grandpa....

Ellie getting some love from Grandpa...

Micah's 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Micah's 3rd birthday yesterday with a family party. Grandma and grandpa and cousins came from North Dakota and the whole King gang was here as well. Micah had a blast and enjoyed every minute of it. He is such an entertainer and is always in constant motion. The train cake was a collaborative effort by mom, dad, and grandma. Micah thought it was cool and it was the first thing he wanted everyone to see as they came in the door. Thanks to Uncle Russ for the crown and cape. Micah had the crown on before he even got out of his room this morning and the cape was on soon after. His birthday is actually tomorrow, so we will celebrate with just the four of us in our family.

Marshmallow Towers

Here is Micah and dad building a marshmallow tower during a family devotional time last week. We discussed the Tower of Babel and the importance of having God as a foundation to build our lives upon. Micah is starting to get more and more concepts and it is fun to do these types of object lessions with him. Of course, he just wanted to eat the marshmallows, which we enjoyed after the story time.

This week we signed Micah up for preschool for next fall. I can't believe that he is old enough for preschool already! We think that it will be great for him and that he will really enjoy the interaction with other kids. He loves to be out and about and sometimes gets bored hanging out with mom and Ellie. Almost every day he asks, "Mom, where are going today?" His favorite activity is to run errands with dad, while mom and Ellie stay at home. The bank is usually the requested location to go as they always give him a sucker.

Our Little Princess!

Check out our little princess! This was the happiest she had been all day, so I think she likes her boa! She can be quite the charmer when she wants to be and already has dad wrapped around her little fingers. We really enjoy the happy moments like these--they make all the many fussy times so much more bearable!

The Kids

The Kids... Here is a picture of Miach at Christmas in Duluth. He did not get to take a nap until we made him slow down from opening presents and watch a video. Before you knew it he was OUT COLD. He slept for about and hour and then went right back to being his normal old high energy Micah.















Here is a picture of Ellie in her Christmas dress at 2 months old. She is a great little princess and sleeps well at night but hates to take naps on her own. She really likes to be held during the day. We will post more Christmas pictures soon.

Who's who?

So who is who? Actually the kids don't look alike enough to get them confused, but they do have some similarities (other than the sleeper!). Right now it looks like Ellie will have blue eyes and darker hair, while Micah has brown eyes and blond hair. But Ellie still may change eye color and hair color. I'm hoping she keeps the blue eyes, but we'll see. Speaking of Ellie, she's fussing and I've got to run! P.S. The top one is Micah and the bottom one is Ellie

Micah arrested?

Micah had an exciting Saturday last week. He spent a few minutes visiting grandpa and taking a look at his cool police car. As you can see, he even got to sit in the back. Saturday evening as Micah was praying he thanked God for Grandpa's car and the lights and the siren. It was all he could talk about for several days. He now has pictures of the visit hanging in his room. A very memorable experience! AJ and I hope and pray that this is the only time he will ever sit in the back of a police car!!