Fall Retreat 2016

Our boys look forward to our Cru Fall Retreat all year long! They love being a part of the meetings and participating in worship. They love being outdoors and playing. And the LOVE all the attention from the college students!

Here you can see some of their excitement before the first meeting started on Friday night!

 They don't have the endurance to stay in an entire meeting but there are plenty of things to do around the camp!  

 The students were so great to include the boys in their game of 2-hand-touch football for a couple of plays! 

 The girls played a LONG game of Duck Duck Goose with Crosby! He won some more hearts:) 

And a bonus of the weekend was that our speaker was a former student/intern, Eric Leinen. I got to hang out with his wife, Tina, a great friend of mine!! Winner!

Hall of Fame Weekend (1998 Team)

I have such incredible memories from my time as as basketball player at UND! These girls are amazing and it was so fun to reconnect with them as our 1998 National Championship team was inducted into the UND Hall of Fame!

Mandy flew in from Arizona and stayed with us for 5 nights. What a blessing to get so much time doing life and catching up!

On Friday night there was a banquet for all the inductees.

 Saturday was tailgating and being announced at the football game. 

 Lots of reminiscing, catching up, and being silly:)

Ahhhhh It's FALL!!!!

This fall has been good in many ways. I've loved walking the boys to school. They have wanted me to walk them all the way into their classes most days (which happen to be right next to each other). I'm soaking in these days where they actually want my help and attention:)

We have played after school almost every day and made some great park friends. Crosby is in gymnastics and the big boys are in soccer. I've enjoyed doing pre-school with Crosby at home and we've also had lots of other fun too.

 We had a 24 hour visit from Allie and Annie!

 The weather has been incredible and I've enjoyed some sunrise runs.

 Date nights are awesome:)  

 The boys have made some friends in the neighborhood that stop by quite a bit.

 We spend a day in Fargo over Labor Day weekend with some great friends! 

 Cros and I like to join the big boys during their lunch at school! 

 Hawkeye football games

 Bonding...which involves lots of playing, laughing, and FIGHTING. 

 A trip to Scheels on a rainy Saturday. 

Another Saturday at the Grand Forks Street Fair.

Festival Palomino Weekend

I have been wanting to see my brother play Festival Palomino for the last two years and was finally able to make it happen this fall! I was sick and it meant packing up a family of 5 and hitting the road once again...but it was worth it!

I got to spend a good part of a day with my family! Tim joined us later in the evening once Trampled by Turtles hit the stage.

The festival was at Hall's Island with a beautiful view of the Minneapolis skyline. The weather was also perfect!!

 Sunday morning we brought the boys to meet up with the whole Carroll gang over brunch.

 LOVE!

 On our way to the van afterwards we found this cool park with a huge wolf and moose!

 The boys loved it and even humored us with MORE pictures!! (Not pictured are Bev and Steve who hosted us all weekend)

Back in School

School is back in session! We had an unusually long summer being that we pulled the boys out of school 3 weeks early for our adventure in New Jersey. All that to say, we were all ready this year to jump back into fall!

 The boys really enjoy school and have great teachers. Carter has Mrs. Huus for 2nd grade and Cooper has Mrs. Nash for 1st grade. We already knew her as Carter had her last year. 

 So far this fall we have biked or walked to school almost every day!!

 They didn't mind me coming into their rooms that first morning and taking pictures. I wonder how many more years I'll be able to do that with no fussing!

 After drop-off on that first day, Crosby and I went to celebrate with some friends:)  

 And then we went back home and started his pre-school curriculum!  

 Cooper brought this home day one. We are so thankful he likes school now. He HATED pre-school so we were a bit worried!