White Coat Ceremony

Tim (one of Al and Ry's hockey coaches) is in Pharmacy school at SDSU and invited us to his 'white coat ceremony' which took place last Friday evening. Tim and his family are also 3M transplants and the boys have spent many hours fishing with him. He'll make a great pharmacist and we wish him the best!

Speaking of hockey, the boys play in Watertown this weekend. Unfortunately it's my weekend to work so I'll be unable to watch. :( This is the only weekend I'll miss so I can't really complain. We'll face Sioux Falls for the 3rd time this season and are hoping to come away with a win (the last two games have been close but the Flyers have always come out on top). GO RANGERS!

Luverne Tournament

Alex during the shootout competition...unfortunately it didn't go in :(

Al fighting for position

Ryan takes a shot

We traveled to Luverne, MN this weekend for a hockey tournament and came away 1-2. I think the players all had fun even though they came away with a couple of losses. The two games they lost were the most fun to watch as they were the closest in ability. We opted to spend the night there so the boys did some swimming and we also brought the Wii. The Wii won't be accompanying us again...it didn't turn out to be as great as I thought...too much fighting. I think we'll choose a boardgame or two for our next out of town trip.

I'm still working on the closets. I needed to get a few more drawers and some of our friends were going to the Cities so they are bringing them back tonight. I will post pics soon, though, I promise :) I know some of you can hardly wait...lol! As a side note, I've had a handful of Kevin's coworkers make comments or give me a bad time about 'investing' so much money into closets. I'd just like to say that at least we'll use these 365 days out of the year unlike the $10,000 ice house that someone wants to buy. ;)

We're still alive :)

We haven't fallen off the face of the earth...just busy with the daily things. This past weekend we DIDN'T have any hockey so it was nice to stay at home. On Friday I ran to the Cities to visit The Container Store and pick up some shelving for 3 of our closets, so I've spent the last 3 days working on that. There was a small mistake in my order but luckily a friend happened to be up there visiting her son so she was kind enough to stop by and pick up the missing components (thanks Marcia!).

The boys had today off from school so it was spent skiing and fishing on the Wii. I believe I heard someone say they caught an 18 pounder and unlocked another lake or two. If it were only that easy in real life!

Have a great week and I'll get some pics of our new closets up soon!

First hockey tournament

This weekend we traveled to Sioux Center, IA for our first hockey tournament of the season. Unfortunately it was pretty black and white. Yesterday we lost 0-5 and 2-6 (we finally scored those two goals with about 4 minutes left to go in the game or it would've been another shut out) and today we won 18-0. As you can see, none of the games were really exciting but we had a nice time. Tim (one of the coaches and former Bkgs. Rangers) rode with us this weekend so last night we stopped in SF and ate at Famous Dave's (a family favorite). Today Tim's parents also made the trek to Sioux Center so on the way home we all stopped at HuHot and had a late lunch. It's nice to have friends that will come and watch the boys play since our families are so far away. Now we're idle until the 24th when we go to Luverne, MN for a tourney. We're really hoping that the teams will be a little more even because it's no fun watching your kids get beat down and vice versa.

Other than that we've just got the usual going on....work, school and practice. We hope you all have a great week!

Brookings vs. Big Stone in Morris, MN

The picture frame Kevin's parents got me for my birthday. It has something like 38 openings with sizes ranging from 3x3ish to 5x7. Most of the pics in it are recent, but a few are from when the boys were Termites, which was 4 seasons ago.

The Rangers before their game vs. Big Stone

Ryan shoots!
(Unfortunately he didn't score)

The boys played Big Stone today but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and we couldn't play outside as originally planned (it was -10 on our way to the rink) so we traveled an additional 30 minutes to play in Morris, MN. They allowed us to use their ice which was very nice of them or we probably would have had to reschedule this game. The boys were still in 'Christmas break' mode and were caught out of position a few times, Ryan more so than Al. But they came away with a win and they had fun which is what it's all about.

We're home!

This was the scenery on the way back from Whitefish

(I believe this was in Glacier Ntl. Park)

We finally made it back around 5 o'clock this evening. The roads yesterday were ugly to say the least. The Odyssey could've used a pair of ice skates for the trip from Havre to Circle. The road was literally a sheet of ice - yuck! But, we made it and are now faced with the challenge of unpacking the van, putting everything away and that mountain of laundry that accompanies us wherever we go. What a wonderful problem to have! It means that we are healthy enough to travel, have great families that spoil us rotten and that we haven't worn out our welcome at our parents' homes (yet). ;)

This Sunday the boys play a hockey game in Big Stone, MN...and it's at an outdoor rink! It should be fun and a new experience for all of us. Have a great weekend!