Burnsville won the 7th Grade Football Championship!

The year was up and down as mentioned here and the boys pulled it together for the playoffs and RAN THE TABLE!! It was very exciting to see them recover from being down early in a few games and in the semi finals they were doing so well the other team forfeited the second half of the game. 

Congrats to the boys for a great year!!

View the full album here for the Championship game

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Joey watching over the field

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Berra ran over, through, and past people all day!

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The defense really was locking down the line

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Jeremy got loose!

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Howard breaking free…

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Vargas got in for one!

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A little celebration chant ๐Ÿ™‚

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Victory lunch w/Grandma and Grandpa

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Glacier & Theodore Roosevelt National Parks – 2018

This summer we went on another national park adventure with the Lenzen family. We played games, had camp fires, smores, hiked (and sweated), swam, rafted, kayaked, canoed, enjoyed camping food, ice cream, and each other’s company.

Our trip started with a stop west of Fargo, a night in western Montana, and finally arriving in Glacier National Park which was our home for about 8 days. We decided to leave Glacier early to break up the trip and spend a day in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, camping in Medora.

Click here for the full album

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The kids on our first night at the river near our campground in Glacier
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Slow motion waterfall with the boys
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The kids enjoying their hikes ๐Ÿ™‚

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Hike to Hidden Lake overlook
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I was loving all of the colors
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Thank goodness the snow cleared on the Road to the Sun
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Kayaking on the blue water of Lake McDonald
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Many Glacier hikeIMG_2770-2

Animals!
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Stars
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Rafting
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A day in Canada
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Back in ‘Merica!
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Teddy’s Park
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Medora Musical
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Elizabeth’s 4th Grade volcano project

Elizabeth teamed up with Ella and Ruby on a volcano project and “the Dads” were put in charge of this project by our spouses. Kyle coordinated so that we could get the project going, Matt encouraged the girls to be creative, and I looked for the most explosive eruption which was Mentos and Diet Coke instead of the baking powder solution ๐Ÿ™‚

The girls did a great job! They were very creative with all of the details of pine and palm trees, painting, water, and dinosaurs.

View the full album here

During the build
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Video

Post eruption at school
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Creating the foundation
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Getting messy
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Test eruption’ – We doubled the Mentos for the real one ๐Ÿ™‚

The finished product
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Our first model rocket launches!

After building our rockets and fixing some mistakes we received our order of rocket engines today in the mail. It was perfect timing because tonight was a beautiful night with little wind. So, we all jumped in the car and ran down to a local park for some initial launches.

We were worried about losing Elizabeth’s rocket because of the small size and the altitude that it reaches so we stuck to the larger rockets that Joey and I built.

As instructed, we started with the smaller engines and then got a little more confident and went with the ‘big boys’ on the second launches (my launch was not recorded).

Thankfully we recovered the rockets with each launch and have more rocket engines for future launches. Carolyn is saying that I am enjoying this more than the kids ๐Ÿ˜‰

Next up is taping a small HD camera to the rockets to record the flight – stay tuned…

I recommend this activity for anyone with kids as it has been a fun journey!

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Elizabeth launches “Big Bertha” – 200 ft

Joey launches “Amazon” – 200 ft

Joey launches the “Amazon” again with a cheering section and a larger rocket engine – 600 ft

Spring Break 2013 – Disney World

We made a break for it on Monday and flew to Orlando for a couple of days to visit Disney World. It had been two years since our first visit there and the kids were excited to see some new things and remember some others they had forgotten.ย We planned on two days of park visits. The first day was at the Magic Kingdom. Even though it was the same week of the year that we visited two years ago the temperature was completely different. Our last visit was 90+ and sometimes miserable in the heat. This time we were bundled up with temps trying to reach 50 degrees.

We started at Belle’s house which is a new ‘show’ and then proceeded to see some of the other princesses, fairies, and characters such as Buzz Lightyear and Captain Jack Sparrow who we missed in our previous visit. On the second day, the plan was to start at Hollywood Studios and then Epcot later in the day. Unfortunately, just as we were getting ready to pass into Hollywood Studios Elizabeth got sick and ended up with a short lived flu bug. The girls went back to the hotel for the day and Joey and I spent the day doing “guy stuff” and saw a few stunt shows and Starwars related activities.

It was a good trip and we made the best of it even with Elizabeth not feeling well.

Click here to view the full album of photos

Cinderella’s Castle in the background.

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We were early to the airport and did not make the first flight which Elizabeth was excited about so that we could hang out at the club!? ๐Ÿ™‚
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The ride to Magic Kingdom
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The princess from Brave
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Buzz!
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Joey was picked to play the part of the Beast with Belle and danced with her (I was jealous)
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Tinkerbell
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Indiana Jones Show
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The Star Tours show was awesome
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The Lights, Motors, Action! show was very entertaining
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Polar Plunge 2013

We had another successful year at the Polar Plunge. With your help, Joey and I raised over $1,100 and our team total was over $2,300 for the Special Olympics of Minnesota. A special thank you to my Delta family for helping so generously ๐Ÿ™‚

It was a lot of fun having many family members join (Little Joe, Big Joe, and Nix) this year along with some friends that included newbies and Plunge vets. Joey was a cool customer until we go to the event and then he expressed some concern. He was ready to go once we got in line and handled it like a champ!! Too bad that old Dad forgot to make a stop in the hot tub ๐Ÿ™ Hopefully he returns with us next year! We were all so proud of him to try this experience. Thanks again for everyone’s contributions!

View the full photo album here

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After the jump we’re still smiling
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Oh, it’s cold!
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Pre-jump “warm up”
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Nix – I mean Prince, Joe and me
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Quite the crowd
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Videos (all can be viewed here)