a couple more pics

Jeff, Kevin, John, Alex and Ryan

Tracey, John, Kevin, Ryan and Al

more weekend pics...

Sunset

Ry's idea of fishing

First catch of the day

piranhas

can you find the seahorse?

Showcase II

the agony of defeat

SCORE!! You can see Ry celebrating in the left hand side of the photo.

GOAL! Once again that's Ry celebrating in the lower right-hand corner of the pic. He scored the only two goals during this particular game.

Deep in thought prior to the game.

Let's play hockey!

This past Saturday we traveled to the Cities for our final Showcase weekend. The team played well and came away 2-2. We played the same team twice and those two were the most exciting of all the Showcase games. We won the first game (3-2) and lost the second (5-2) with one of those goals being an empty netter. I think the picture I captured of Ryan speaks for itself (and the rest of the team members). I'm told it's a good experience for them to lose...hmmm. We also got the chance to visit with Kevin's uncle (John) and cousin (Jeff) for a bit. We went to dinner and then took the kids to Underwater Adventures in the MOA. The boys thought it was SO cool to walk in the tunnel and see sharks, stingrays, carp, piranhas, etc. swim all around them. Now they want to go back to do some rides and hit up the zoo and Children's Museum. Yet another summer adventure. :)

We've been fishing a couple of times...last Wednesday and then tonight. Last week was somewhat fruitful with Alex catching a bass and me a 'snot rocket' (that's what Al calls a northern). It was a beautiful night and I caught a pic of the sun setting. With a little imagination it almost looks like it's setting over the mountains (in reality it's actually a bunch of dirt piles...lol). Tonight's outing wasn't productive at all and ended up as just getting out of the house. It's supposed to be rainy the next few days so I wanted to get out a bit and that's what was accomplished.

Soccer is in full swing with the boys playing on Mondays and Saturdays. Unfortunately they're on different teams so we usually split our time between the two. On Monday they played eachother with Al's team coming out on top. Ryan took it pretty well...much better than had it been the other way around! :)

First fish of the season!

Some of Alex's friends that came to his bday party.

Nice job, Al!

We share our space with these geese.

Just waiting...

The big 1-0! See all the smoke? They were the candles that you can't blow out. They produced so much smoke that I was concerned our smoke alarms may go off!

We went back out to The Pit today and after about an hour had a smidge of luck. Actually, it was Alex that had the luck and he was so happy to catch the first fish of the season with his new pole. It was a beautiful day and we spent about an hour and a half there. It abruptly came to an end when Ryan discovered he had a tick on him. He threw down his pole and started bawling and ran to the van all the while screaming "I'm never coming out here again!!" After getting the first one off he found another as we were driving out of Lyle's and I actually had to stop the van to get it off him because he was screaming. Then while at Lyle and Marcia's house, he came in bawling because he had found another one on his pants. Needless to say as soon as we got home he was in the bathtub without me even having to suggest it. :)

Alex is 10!

Last Friday Alex celebrated his 10th birthday. Because it was Easter weekend we didn't have a party, but he did go golfing with Kevin and then we all went out for dinner that night. The next day we went fishing at Lyle's but didn't have any luck. Last night we had some of his friends over and they played the Wii and Nerf tag and then we took them to 'Monsters vs. Aliens.' It was a much better movie than I was anticipating so I was pleasantly surprised.

Soccer started this past week and keeping with what seems to be tradition, it was cold and rainy this morning. At least with hockey you know it's going to be cold and you don't have to deal with the wind or the possibility of rain!

Ryan has one final weekend of Showcase left and then we are officially done with hockey for the season. We will have almost 3 months off before next season begins...crazy, I know! We are considering sending the boys to camp at UND instead of here in town. We would have to send them away for a week and they'd stay in the dorms, but they seem to be fine with that. The thought is that it would be a neat opportunity for them to play in the Ralph and get to meet some of the players and coaches they see on TV. I guess time will tell.

I do believe spring is finally here and Medary Acres is open for business. The boys and I walked through Easter Monday and picked out several items we would like to have. I'll probably buy them soon so they're not so picked over, but won't actually plant for awhile because it still gets fairly chilly here at night.

We hope you all have a great week!

line change

Good game

Ryan playing a little defense

When he grows up he wants to be like Ryan Duncan

I'm open!

Here are the pics I took from this past weekend's Showcase Tournament.

Showcase

This past weekend we traveled to Edina, MN for the first of two weekends of Showcase hockey tournaments for Ryan. They played really well and came away 4-0. That was a bit of a surprise as they struggled the weekend before in Sioux City. We'll head back there 4/25-26 for the second round.

We also had a chance to see Chris (Ry's godfather) and his wife Amy. They came down for the second game on Saturday and then we went out to dinner at Famous Dave's (an Alex and Ryan favorite). After that it was back to the hotel for some downtime. We had to be back at the rink for a 9am game. I had all of an hour and a half to shop at the Galleria so next time that will be on the top of our list...lol.

I can't seem to upload the pics I took from this weekend but will try again a little later. Have a great week!

Allergic to everything but girls and video games

Today I took Alex to SF for an appointment with an allergist as we have not been getting satisfactory relief from our current regimen of meds. Al had the skin test done on his back...all 56 mini shots. He said it hurt a little but itched worse. The Dr. walked in about 7 minutes into our 15 min. time wait time and said "wow...he's definately got some allergies!" by the end of the 15 minutes he had huge wheals on half of his back. He's allergic to mold, mites (not the hockey kind...lol), cats and several other environmental items. He had also been using his inhaler twice a day which I thought was normal. Turns out if his asthma was well controlled he should only have to use his inhaler 2-3 times/week. So now we're trying a different regimen of meds for the asthma and he'll start allergy shots next week. Twice a week for 4 months, weekly for 3 months, every other week for 2-3 months and then he'll be re-evaluated to see if the shots are working. Hopefully he'll get a little bit of relief from the shots this summer/fall, but he said that we'll see the true results next spring. Poor guy! But he did get a new game for his Nintendo DS so he thought it was worth it. ;)