The latest in reverse

Because my photos uploaded on here in reverse order, and I'm too lazy to re-order them, here are some more recent highlights out of order. First, our football team won the state championship title for the 4th year in a row. Sam got lots of playing time along with his two cousins Ian and RJ. It was a great year and a lot of fun to watch (at least to most of us - Olivia still doesn't enjoy going to football games, even at the US Bank Stadium). A special thank you to Reba Lipinski for all the great shots from the season! Sam is number 7. He plays Tight End and Defensive End...whatever that means - I just know he knocks people over a lot.

I interrupt this program with a shot of Frank and his class on All Saint's Day. Frank is St. Pierre Giorgio.

This is one of my favorite shots from the season, featuring RJ on the left (#30), Sam in the center (#7) and Ian on the right (#2).

The 3 amigos:

I think I may have forgotten to mention in my last post that Frank shot his first deer! He turned 10 during youth hunting, went hunting the next morning, and shot a deer before lunch. Seth was in CO so grandpa was good enough to get up early and take him hunting.

The treehouse is coming along! The outside is mostly finished, but now that winter has hit, the inside will have to wait for next year when it warms up.

Olivia finally lost her first tooth while we were at the eye doctor. She pulled it out herself with no trouble at all.

Celebrating after the big win!

Sleeping after the big win! Everyone except for Seth (who was driving) was out like a light on the ride  home.

Halloween featured many costumes for our kids. Frank is Groot and Olivia is Elphaba. 

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Charlie's Saint's Day Costume: St. Denis, who reportedly was beheaded and then picked up his head and walked to the area he wanted to be buried, preaching the whole way. Unfortunately this is the best picture I got of the costume - it wasn't quite finished, but due to the extreme weight he didn't want to walk to school with it on, which meant no morning picture that day.

One of Charlie's (2) Halloween costumes. In this one, he is Spooderman, Spiderman's lumpy knock-off.

Frank and Olivia also had 2nd (aka "old") costumes for Trunk or Treat. Our friends happened to be visiting from Brainerd that day and joined us!

The quotes are getting fewer and farther between as our kids grow up, but I have a few.

 Me (reading Olivia the fortune from her fortune cookie): A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Olivia: Yeah, I'm not gonna do that.

And one more from Olivia: Mom! How are you older than me? My birthday is before yours. (It's not)

(In case you are wondering if I forgot about the musical, I haven't. I'll put those pictures and the video in a separate post)

Stuff

Today you get a hodgepodge of information and quotes since I won't have the time to put together a anything coherent until after the play. So in no particular order:

Frank turned 10 years old! We celebrated by bringing his friends and cousin, Gabby, to the ball pit in PK's. My sister and Elena joined us, which was nice for me so I didn't have to be the only adult! Oh yeah - Seth wasn't there because he went with his brother Craig to hunt elk in Colorado. No luck, unfortunately, but they had some good bonding time out in nature and brought our vehicle back in one piece (with only 1 flat tire on the way out). 

Sam was a jot dog for the 11th grade homecoming parade. His class won for best float. We're pretty sure the hot dog costume was the deciding factor in their win.

During their last visit, Maria mentioned to Charlie that both of Gabby's grandmas are named Helen (or Helen and Hellen to be exact). Charlie didn't skip a beat and immediately  responded with "What the Helen?"

Backtracking yet again, I don't believe I mentioned that Elena officially started at SDSU! She's doing great and adjusting well to college life. One thing she misses is having a place to clean. Keeping her dorm clean isn't satisfying enough so she's planning to come home this weekend just to do some "deep cleaning." I'm not going to complain! She must get it from my mom. When I told her, she said she used to defrost the freezer in the shared dorm fridge at college when she got the itch to clean.

Papi had a bumper crop of apples this year and the boys were happy to take them off his hands to sell. Between the two boys, I think they delivered well over 100 pounds if apples!

The weekend before Frank's birthday, I brought the kids to Brookings to visit Elena. We went to the children's museum in town while we were there. Charlie spent most of his time on the SDSU campus looking for his former baseball coach, Tate, who also happens to be a classmate of Elena's. He stopped just short of asking every person we passed if they knew Tate. We were not able to stop him from yelling "Tate! Are you there?" outside of open dorm windows as we walked by.
 

And lastly, here are a few pictures from Bug Days. First is Olivia pushing Captian Jack in a stroller (after Seth gave him yet another bottle of rum). At one point during the weekend I walked towards home through the back parking lot of the grocery store only to find Charlie eating fries by himself on a crate behind the dumpsters. I asked what he was doing there and he said, "I do this every year. There's always a few crates sitting here so I just use them for my table and chair." Well, ok then. I guess it's tradition. The last is Little Red Riding Hood in the kiddie parade. Sam escorted the bug days princess, Clare, but I can't seem to find a picture. 

And lastly a quote from Olivia!

Me: We really need to move all these bikes from in front of our house. It looks terrible. 

Olivia: Mom! It just adds character!!

Fall Happenings

1. Sam is keeping busy with football. It's been a lot of fun watching him with his cousins Ian and RJ on the field. An injury to the hip 2 weeks ago put him out for a bit, but he's hoping to play again tomorrow. 

2. Olivia, who used to scream like she was being attacked by a rabid dog at the sight of an ant, is now catching snakes.

3. Homecoming week is in full swing. Here's a glimpse at Wacky Wednesday. 

4. I'm directing the high school play again. Sam and Charlie are both in it. Not much else to report for now. That has been consuming every free moment. Luckily my parents have come to the rescue again helping with the garden and errands!

Campaigning

I'm happy to announce that all of Charlie's campaigning paid off, and he was voted onto student council. He hung his posters around the school, including a few new ones. The day before voting, the candidates were able to make a campaign speech and answer questions in front of the whole school.

That night as I was putting Olivia to bed, I asked about her day. It sounds like Charlie took a line from the movie Napoleon Dynamite, in which Pedro tells the school if they vote for him, he'll make all of their wildest dreams come true. Olivia told me, "At school Charlie said, 'Vote for me and I'll try to make your dreams come true'.....but he can't make mine come true because once I had a dream about unicorns."

Congrats, Charlie! 

Now, I'll leave you with a few recent quotes.

Seth had polished up a walking stick that Charlie had found so it was nice and smooth, and then put a coat of polyurethane on it. This was the conversation that ensued:

Elena: Why is this walking stick so smooth?

Charlie: Father put garnish on it.

Seth: Garnish?

Charlie: Tarnish?

Seth: Nope, varnish.

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Olivia: We basically have wigs. It's just that they're glued to our heads. 

Boston

This July, we took a big family trip with my entire side of the family to Boston to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary. 13 of us from MN flew out together to stay at an Airbnb near my brother's place. A wonderful time was had by all. I think the cousins especially enjoyed having so much time together. 

Enjoying delicious Italian food in the Airbnb

The group of older cousins were able to go off and do things on their own, which was a big help and fun for them. They started off by going to watch the Red Sox vs the Dodgers at Fenway Stadium, which was a highlight for the boys for sure. 

The younger kids enjoyed both the Science Museum and the Aquarium. At each place we were able to put one adult with each kid - and it's a good thing we did with how much the kids ran from one exhibit to the next. We all agreed my mom got the biggest work-out following Frank. Getting him out of the museum was quite the feat since he wanted to check out everything he laid eyes on.

At the grave of "Mother Goose"

The grave of Samuel Adams

At the Samuel Adams tap room - Sam got a free coke when he showed them his name on his driver's license

At the Paul Revere House

Recreating a favorite childhood photo (this is now the 4th version we have of this!)

In preparation for the trip, Charlie ordered a Revolutionary War costume with plans to wear it while dropping tea into the Boston Harbor. I'm happy to say he was able to accomplish this - and he got much more use out of the costume than I anticipated. 

For starters, he wore it to our local 4th of July celebration at Independence Park. Frank also had a 4th of July suit for the occasion. Needless to say, they both made the newspaper along with Olivia and their cousin, Gabby. One kid asked to get his picture taken with Charlie. Later that week our librarian told me that she had skipped the celebrations due to the heat. Afterwards, her friends told her she should have come because she "should have seen this boy dressed as George Washington." 

Here are the pictures from our local 4th of July celebration:

Frank and Gabby, leading the Kid's March.

In Boston he wore the outfit for the entire Freedom Trail and even ran through the streets yelling "The British are Coming! The British are Coming!" When it came time to drop tea into the Boston Harbor, I thought he would just go up to the Harbor and drop in the tea. As you can see in the video below, he made it into a bit more of a production than that.

By Paul Revere's grave

Enjoying Dunkin' Donuts

At the Harbor

Enjoying Dunkin' Donuts with a Metro Transit worker

Riding a bronze donkey that is in Boston for no particular reason other than one of the founding fathers brought it back as a souvenir from Italy.

On our last day, we took a ferry ride to Spectacle Island. The water was much too cold for the adults, but the kids all dove right in. At least 3 of the MN cousins popped up out of the water and said, "Ah! It's salty!!" At one point a larger wave came up to shore and hit all of our belongings on the beach. We all frantically ran to grab purses, backpacks, phones, shoes, etc. Pretty much everything got wet, but amazingly nothing was lost or damaged. As we were all scrambling on the beach, Sam was blissfully body-surfing on the wave wondering why everyone was running away. 

On the ferry

The boys - digging a giant hole (which was later filled in by another rogue wave)

Our group, heading back to the airport with all of our luggage. We made the transfers from trolley to train to bus to airport with no problems.