Strawberry Fest

We spent a few hours yesterday at our town's Strawberry Fest watching the parade and going on rides. The kids had a blast.

Atlanta Airport

Last week I was flying back from a business trip to Florida and was connecting through the Atlanta airport. As I was walking through the airport I ran into a good friend of mine who I hadn't seen in about 8 years - Christy Smith. Christy was one of my seminary students in Texas when I taught New Testament when we lived down there. She was also in Young Women's with Brooke. She was one of those youth who always had her act together. It turns out that Christy is teaching seminary herself and has been for a few years now in Utah where her husband is going to law school. In fact, a year or so ago when I was teaching Old Testament seminary here in Minnesota, Christy was teaching at the same time in Utah. It was great to see Christy again!

As we briefly talked in the airport we also discovered that her husband and my parents recently had dinner together in Kiev, Ukraine. My parents are on their mission there and Her husband, Chase, is doing a summer internship with a lawfirm. It's a small world.

Harrison's B-day!

We have a great family party for Harrison yesterday. He was a handsome little man who was very excited! The other kids did a great job celebrating with him. He is such a wonderful part of our family.

Cute Kids

Here are a couple cute shots of Sadie and Harrison.

Our house...in the middle of the woods

We've had a great spring here in the north country. Brooke shot some photos of the yard last week. The leaves are almost all on the trees.

View from the Back Deck

Side Yard


Swing in the Front Yard

Swing Again

Pinewood Derby Gold

We had a fun Pinewood Derby this past Saturday and at the end of it all Mason stood atop the podium claiming first place! He had a great attitude and cheered for all the boys from his pack. His good friend Alex Coutu came in second place.

Easter

We had a beautiful Easter day today. It was about 74 degrees and we had all the windows open. We had a fun Easter egg hunt this morning. The kids found eggs hidden all over the yards and in the woods. We dyed them yesterday between conference sessions. We were very excited to learn yesterday that Brooke's dad has been called into the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy. He'll find out on Tuesday what his assignment will be - we're predicting Eastern Europe based in Moscow.

Family Bonfire

We had a great family bonfire last night. The weather was perfect (about 60 degrees) and we had a beautiful full moon. We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows and played "Ghost in the Graveyard" with the kids. A perfect Minnesota evening!

On the Roof

I had to get up on the roof today to take down an old tv antenna and the boys couldn't resist joining me.

It's a Wombat!!!!

So, I get a call from the kids on Tuesday this week - they were all very excited that a wombat was hanging out in our garage. I had Brooke take the first picture above and send it to me at work and it turned out to be an opossum. By the time I got home from work he had escaped out of the garage but proceeded to show up every afternoon this past week. On Friday afternoon, the boys and their neighbor friends decided to take things into their own hands and started shooting it with their airsoft guns. After it got agitated enough to scare them they left it alone. On our date night on Friday, Brooke and I went by Menards and bought a live animal trap to see if we could get rid of it - a very romantic date! After a few unsuccessful attempt we caught him today after church. Harrison was pretty excited to see him up close. We released him in the woods about 10 miles from our place so hopefully he won't be back again. A very exciting week!