Wrestling & Eating

Sam made it through a whole wrestling season without getting severely injured, which was a first! He did have a miss a few meets due to the trip to Rome followed by a bout of influenza. Overall he had a great season. 

He wrestled at 145, which is a little under his typical weight so he spent the season making sure to eat lean and healthy foods, which did the trick at keeping his weight down. As soon as the season was done, however, he did a complete 180. His last match was on Feb 22, and by bedtime that day he had already gained 7 pounds. He's working hard at bulking up for football, which can be a challenge given his teenage metabolism. That same weekend that he gained so much, he came down for breakfast disappointed that because he had lost 5 pounds in his sleep. Now he eats everything in sight, which is quite literally more than our other 4 kids combined. I made a hot dish this week, and after the rest of us each took a normal size portion, he came and put nearly half of the 9x13 pan on his dish for his "serving." His "snack" yesterday afternoon was an entire box of mac & cheese plus 3 eggs. It's too bad this ridiculous spike in egg prices didn't happen during wrestling season instead of right on its heels. I'm thankful we have a 4 year gap between him and Charlie so we're only dealing with one teenage boy appetite for now. It might be a different story when Charlie and Frank get to high school!

Roma!

Elena and Sam had the good fortune to join our former priest, Fr. Jeremy, on a pilgrimage to Rome over Christmas vacation this year along with a few cousins. Grandma Myhre joined at the very last minute as well when someone else had to back out. I don't have a lot of details other than knowing they had fun and they are now disappointed by the inferior quality food we have back in the states. Sam spent much of his time trying to catch a pigeon. Although, he didn't personally catch one, he (and several others) did order one off a menu when it was served at a restaurant. They were not impressed.

They were able to meet up with our Charlotte, our exchange student from years ago. She also happened to be in Italy at the same time! And as you can see from the video, they were able to see the Pope up close as well. 

Sam getting in a little wrestling practice on the beach.

In Assissi near St. Francis's hangout

Enjoying the best sandwiches in Rome (according to Fr. Jeremy)

Quotes

Frank: Whenever I'm old enough to change my name, I think I'll change my last name to Sippi. 

Me: Sippi?

Frank: Yeah, because then if get married and my wife is a teacher, her name will be Mrs. Sippi. 

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Elena: Charlie, can you carry Olivia upstairs? 

Charlie: Not right now. I'm making foot parmesan. (He was using a pedicure file on his foot)

Charlie: (a minute later) This is what this thing is for, right?

Olivia (in the bath): My hands are turning into old ladies!!

And just for fun, here's Charlie walking around with a baseball bat in his hoodie.

Happy New Year!

Charlie supplied us with a couple of good quotes on New Year's Eve.

For New Year's Eve we took the youngest 3 kids out for supper at the local restaurant. After the waitress took our orders, as we were waiting for our food, Charlie suddenly said, "Why are they called waiters? When you think about it, we're the waiters." Very true....

After going out, we came back home and all managed to stay up until midnight (Olivia's 5:30pm nap helped with this). At 11:59, Charlie suddenly left the room so he wasn't with us as the clock turned to the New Year. About 30 seconds after midnight, he returned and said, "Well hello there! I haven't seen you all since last year!"

These are the only pictures I took of Christmas and New Years. Lame, I know. 

Awaiting midnight. Frank was not in the mood to cuddle.

Waiting for our food in the restaurant 

One of Livi's favorite Christmas gifts: a dentist kit!

Elena and Sam are off celebrating in Rome. Sam sent a video of the fireworks at midnight. I knew it was crazy over there, but it was even celebratory than I had imagined. There were fireworks being shot off in every direction, near and far, for well over 30 minutes. With the level of safety laws here in the US, I doubt we'd ever experience anything like that here. Even the best fireworks displays here are controlled and all go off in one general direction. When I told my mom, she said it's the same in big cities in Mexico and Central America. In the past when she has asked people from Latin America what they think of Christmas in the US, they often answer that it's "triste" (sad). Celebrations weren't totally absent here at midnight, though. Someone a few blocks over shot off 2 fireworks at midnight so.....pretty close to the same thing.

A typical day in the Myhre household

 

It's always fun to see what kids come up with to pass the time. Here's Frank, operating on a clementine, which involved first dissecting it and then sewing it back together. 

(This is also a great way to confuse your siblings who will later happen upon a clementine stitched together with thread.)

Coco

I don't write about Coco much on here, but she's still around and eating everything in sight. She loves sitting on Seth more than anyone else. She doesn't sit on me much, but she really enjoys sitting on whatever I am working on. If I am reading the paper, she tries to sit on it, always right where I am reading. There can be 10 other papers in the vicinity, but she prefers the one I am reading. The computer is a popular pick for her as well. Bills, taxes, etc. are also enticing. The other day we started a new puzzle. And of course, when I started working on it, she did this. 

I couldn't push her off for fear of ruining our progress so I just waited for her to get bored and leave on her own. Luckily it didn't take long and she very carefully stepped over all the pieces as she walked away, but I've started making sure the door is shut before I work on the puzzle now! 

A few quotes!

Olivia (to Seth): Your tummy is squishy like a pillow.

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Sam: Remember you're supposed to give me a big ol' hug?

Livi: Oh, yeah!

Elena: Hey, where's my hug?

Livi: (heading into the bathroom) I'll check in here!

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Livi was going from person to person in the house asking what we were thankful for. She had pre-made drawings, mostly of our family and Coco and Jesus, so when someone said "I'm thankful for our family," she would hand them a picture of our family (it was initially missing all of the boys but she added them once Elena pointed that out). When she got to Frank, this was their conversation:

Livi: What are you thankful for?

Frank: I don't know....the whole world, I guess.

Livi: Hmmmm...I don't have that one. Here. You're thankful for your sister. 

Fall Happenings

 

Our fall was, as usual, filled with football games and hunting. We will be eating pheasant stew leftovers for supper tonight after Seth and the boys got 13 pheasants on Saturday with more to come. Sam and Charlie both shot a buck on the same night this year. It was Charlie's first so he was very excited.

Also as usual, the Minneota Vikings Football teams had a great run this year. The varsity took first in the state championship for the 3rd year in a row. Sam was able to play in the championship game at US Bank Stadium. 

Charlie's team after their last game

Section champs (Ian, RJ, Sam)

State champs!

Sophomore Football players after their win!

We were able to catch one of our nephew Alex's games when he played in Marshall. The kids had more fun playing with the steep slope of the visitors side than watching the game!

These last two are sort of random pictures. Charlie was put in charge of racking up all the pine needles under the pine tree, and  (true to Charlie fashion) instead of making a traditional hay-stack like pile, he created a nest!

And last but not least, here is a picture of me and the group of of pre-teen boys I joined for the Haunted Pathway this fall. Elena's class put on a fundraiser by creating a Haunted Trail along the walking path. They really went all out and did a great job! The main downfall was how good the turnout was, which made the line incredibly long. Charlie and his friends had room for an extra in their group so I was able to jump up closer to the front of the line. It was quite entertaining to watch these boys go down the path - they didn't get too scared until the chainsaws (one of which was run by Elena) surprised them at the very end. 

That's a wrap!

The fall musical is (finally) done! We put on Bye Bye Birdie, which I failed to notice is about 50% longer than last year's musical, Grease. Meaning it was about 50% more work. Like last year, there were times I swore I would never direct a musical at Minneota again given the challenges of directing amidst football and volleyball playoffs and hunting season. 

Our football players especially did not like the rehearsals and also claimed they would never do a play again. And then we performed. And it was a hit. And the day after our last performance several of the football players were stopping by my room, texting and emailing, begging to do another show as soon as possible.  I was reminded of having a baby - months of misery and exhaustion, followed by the undeniable reality that it all really was worth it in the end! 

Elena played the same role that I did (Rosie) when I was in the show 23 years ago. She did an awesome job and was perfect in the role. Her only disappointment was that I wouldn't let her actually slap Albert as I had done in my performances.

Our nephew RJ played the same part as Seth (bartender). Sam was Hugo, a usually boring role that he turned into one if the funniest and most popular characters in the show. When he had to play drunk, he git as close to method acting as he could get without getting drunk by spinning in circles offstage for a minute or so before walking onstage. It was very effective. I stood in for him at rehearsal once and was nauseous for 3 hours. 

We had some very talented newcomers, including our nephew, Reed. Ian took a tiny, but fun part and our niece, Laney was in the orchestra. Charlie can't wait to join next year. It's becoming quite the family affair!

The video link is at the bottom. 

We had to recreate one picture! It's even the same dress.

Here's the video:

Late Summer Activities

First, I had to share a recent quote from Olivia.  Seth was channel surfing and came across the movie Rambo and decided to watch for a bit. Olivia watched with him for a bit and then said, "That is the most sweatiest guy I've ever seen." 

The very last Friday of summer vacation, I managed to squeeze in a trip to the Ingalls Homestead with the youngest 3 kids. We've been trying to get there for 2 years and it's surprisingly difficult to find even one day in the summer where all the kids are free. We ended up having to go without Elena. There was no chance Sam ever would have made it between sports and work. Our friends joined us and we had a great time. Olivia absolutely loved it - I think the kids would have happily spent several days there.

And most exciting, Seth has finally started his lifelong dream of building a treehouse. He's been collecting wood for years and we finally decided he needed to just build it or get rid of the lumber. We were a little worried he'd build it only to have the trees die shortly after (we've had bad luck with trees lately). But after doing some research, we discovered that Norway Pines often live 250-300 years so we're optimistic they will last another 100 years at least. Of course, like everything he builds, it's neither small nor simple. He got phase one done pretty quickly. It's been entertaining to watch people drive by and then suddenly slow down or stop when they notice it. Our local paper got several calls from people asking them to cover it, so they came out and got a few pictures for the paper. Seth doesn't love the attention, but it's been kind of hard to avoid.