Good-bye Seniors!

Megan is ready to watch her Bulldogs win their 4th Harris Cup in 4 years!

Yeah, they win and throw all of their stuff on the ice.

The classic photo of Megan and Mark with Brad Fogal Adrian's goalie, who happens to have the record for most career wins for any NCAA Div III goalie! Later at a fundraiser we asked Brad to sign a frame that holds all 3 pictures of Megan with Brad after the Harris Cup wins. He was very touched that we asked him to sign something that was going to hang on our wall.

Good-bye Mike Towns, next season won't be the same without my favorite hockey player.

Megan next to Mark's company sign.

Because they won the Harris Cup they got an automatic bid into the NCAA Div III tournament. We missed the second round home game but there was no way we were going to miss the Semi-finals or Final. So after a 13 hour drive to Minneapolis, Minn, we were ready to cheer our Bulldogs on. The College set up a gathering at a local bar where all the fans could gather eat. drink and hangout before and after the game.

Just thought this logo was cool. Plus it was great to see Adrian's name on the ice and on t-shirts!

Adrian wins their Semi-final game!!! On to the Finals baby!!!

Then it was back to The Blarney for dinner. Since bar food isn't really meant for kids and because Megan had been such a great hockey fan, she dined on onion rings and free dessert.

Our Bulldogs are ready for the NCAA Div III finals!

:( Sadly our Bulldogs lost. It was heart breaking to watch, the last game for 17 Seniors that built the program from day one and they lost. But like we told all of the players, they made it to the Div III finals in only 4 years! They hold countless records, some that I'm sure will never be beat. So there is no shame in this loss.

Then it was back to The Blarney to eat and to wait for our hockey boys to get there to celebrate all that they have accomplished since Adrian started the hockey program. And of course to say good-bye to our 17 seniors that we have cheered for over the last 4 years. Great group of guys they will be missed.

Warm Sunny FLORIDA!!!

I think all of us had a count down to Florida as soon as the ice storm hit. We only had to wait 3 weeks before we knew we would be in the pool in Florida. As you can see Megan was super excited to be in the pool with her cousins at Grandma and Papa Schutte's house in Florida. This was the first time that Megan has been in a pool without us closely watching her. She loves her "swimmies" and is officially part fish!

Megan LOVES her Conary! I don't think they were ever apart for more than 10 minutes. She adores him and would like to name the future Baby Schutte "Conary" (FYI we do not know if we are having a boy or a girl) Lucky for us, Conary loves Megan's and loves playing with her. With only a 10 year age difference it is always fun to watch them together.

Of course now I can't remember what Megan called this, but I think she called this her Motor Boat, but only when she was sitting on the noodle this way. She would scoot all over the pool in her "boat" It was cute!

Megan and Conary again. But more importantly...Papa is in the pool!!! More than once the grandkids got Papa in the pool with them,they loved it!

And she out! I think about 2 minutes before I took this picture she swore she wasn't tired and she just wanted to sit next to Conary to eat her snack next to Conary. Then when I checked, she was in the most uncomfortable position sound asleep! I wedge a pillow under her and then took this picture :)

To the beach! It wasn't long before Kelsey was buried under sand. Then it was Crystal's turn and Megan loved pouring sand all over them. She didn't quite understand that pour sand on their face wasn't good.

Very delicate. For the record, I was hiding out in the tent (pale white girl) hence the big area of shade on the sand.

Let's all dig a hole...and that is what they did. By the time this hole was done, I think it was about 4 feet X 2 feet X 3 feet deep! The kids ended the beach day by spending about 30 mins seeing who could jump the furthest.

Conary was off fishing with some friends and he caught a very tiny seahorse. This little guy was about an inch long when his tail wasn't coiled up. We kept him in the bucket long enough for everyone to see him, then we let him go.

Megan and Aunt Tracie looking for seashells to put in Papa shell garden.

Then after some Geocaching we met up with every for ice cream. Megan picked "Sponge Bob" ice cream, to my knowledge she has never seen the show Sponge Bob, but she wanted the ice cream. After a few tries, my best guess is that SB ice cream is just bright yellow cookie dough ice cream. It was good, and very very yellow!

Then after ice cream we had to o putt-putting! Megan was promised a game of putt-putting before we even made it to Florida and asked to go everyday. It was HOT and she loved putt-putting with Daddy and her cousins.

Team #1: Megan, Crystal and Mark had plenty of time to take photos, because Team #2" Conary, Caila and Kelsey had a little trouble getting the hang of this very challenging game :) It was fun, but after being outside all day in 90+ heat, we were ready to go home and swim in the pool. It was a great vacation can't wait for the next one!

Ice Ice Baby

A couple days after we had 50 degree weather in Feb, we got hit with a HUGE ice storm! It started around 9:00 PM and I don't think anyone in the neighborhood slept because after we lost power, all you could hear were trees snapping into pieces cause huge ice covered branches falling to the ground. With ever crack, scrape, thud! We ran to the windows to see where the branch fell and what was damaged. When morning came we walked outside to at least 1/2inch of ice covering everything and a very different looking neighborhood. All the neighbors walked from house to house helping each other clear branches from the road, driveways and off of fences. All of us were spared any major damage to houses and then we just had to wait and wait and wait for the power to come back.

Icicles covered everything!

Day 2 and the sun came out! The trees looked beautiful glistening in the sun. None of my pictures did justice to just how pretty things looked. It was the only thing that could make you smile after a day with no power and sad broken trees all around.

Megan in the middle! The piles of branches just from our yard were higher than Megan and stretched across the whole length of our front yard. And that did even count the smaller twigs and sticks that were frozen in the ground. *** As of 5/2/11 we are still cleaning up large branches because every time we have any high winds, more branches fall from the trees!

The beautiful, wonderful power trucks!!! After 4 days without power everyone in the neighborhood was so excited to see these trucks! After our power was back and we got things back to normal, I found this power company's website and I sent them a thank you telling them how much we appreciated their men traveling and leaving their families to come help us.

It was an experience and I hope that we won't have to go through that again.

Oops!

I will be the first to admit that I am not really a "computer" person. I know how to turn one on, connect to the Internet, send a few emails, look pointless information up and spend endless hours wasting time on Facebook. Other than that I don't really attempt to do anything else. But I can say that I never had the desire to hit/flick/punch that computer screen...Mark however, he did. About 2 weeks ago he claims he just "flicked" the computer screen because it wasn't working right. Well that little "flick" caused the computer screen to shatter and caused us to go 2 weeks without a computer at home (It was a LONG 2 weeks) But our computer is back and that first thing I am doing is updating the blog. Enjoy!

Oh and remember children, don't flick the computer screen...it will break!