2010

Well, I thought I would copy a friend of mine's blog and do a review of 2010, so here it is:

 The Malecek's 2010
January:  Marty and I decide to start training for our first Marathon in May. We had a great time with family over the holidays. 
February:  We have snow, so we are doing some playing outside.
March: Our runs are getting longer and longer... we are approaching the 20 mile training run. I don't know if we did much else this month.
April:  Gracie turns 3! My she is growing up fast.We are still running.
May: Marty and I run the Pittsburgh Marathon with Marty's sister, Lisa and husband, Mick!! We both finish around 4 1/2 hrs and it rained pretty much the whole time. We got to spend a few days as a couple with no kids... to bad it takes running a marathon for us to get some alone time.
June:  We spend a few weekends at my Mom and Dad's new lake cabin. The kids go swimming. Lots of fun. We go to Willmar Fest events and Marty runs the Foot Lake 4. The kids get to enjoy their first parade.
July:  We go for a week vacation with most of my family at Lake Vermillion.  We again have lots of good times.
August:  I spend 10 days at Camp Ripley for National Guard. Gracie starts Preschool and loves it! I miss her first day because I am at Guards.
September:  Gracie starts Sunday School and she loves this too. Zach and I get to spend Monday mornings together while Gracie is at Preschool.
October:  We get a visit from my brother Darrin from Washington DC. Marty and I run the Twin City 10 mile at the beginning of the month and then at the end of the month Marty runs the Mankato 1/2 Marathon and I run the Mankato 10K. I accept the Manager position of my Diabetes Center I work at. Gracie starts Ice Skating lessons.
November:  We celebrate Thanksgiving with the Malecek's. We get our Christmas Tree up and decorated. I am in an accident with our Honda Pilot due to poor road conditions and it needs major repairs.
December:  We get more visits from out-of-state siblings, Lisa, Mick, and Darrin.  We get lots and lots of snow and have a blast building snow forts, making snow angels, and going sledding.  We spend Christmas with our families.

Christmas Tree Hunting

So it is Christmas tree hunting season.  We did this I think the weekend after Thanksgiving.

We went to the tree farm just west of where we live to hunt for our tree this year. We haven't been to this place before so it was a new adventure. We get to go out and drive around and pick out our tree.  Then we make Daddy cut it down!!  We had gotten a little snow, so that made the experience even more Christmasy (is Christmasy a word?). Anyways we had a great time.

The kids enjoyed walking around checking out all the trees.

So finally we find the 'perfect' one and put Daddy to work with the saw.

And then he hauls it to the truck.

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The kids even had ornaments ready to put on that pretty tree

And a day later, we have our beautiful tree already for the Christmas season.

Winter Fun

 Over in our neck of the woods we finally got a snowfall that decided to stay.  In the cities and in central south MN they already had snow staying... but we had lucked out for a couple of extra weeks. But I think it is now here for the long haul... so we might as well go out and enjoy some of it. 

The kids gets so excited to put on boots and snow pants and scarves and hats and two pair of socks and mittens and winter jackets and it feels the list goes on and on and on... oh, I can't wait until they can dress themselves!!!  I think we were bundled enough for our outing. Some of the Malecek family were visiting, so they came out with us.  We had lots of fun.  The kids cry when I say we have to go back inside.  I remember being the same way as a kid.  I don't think I ever admitted that I was cold when we were having FUN!

Gracie and Zach making snow angels.

Below is the finished masterpiece.

 The kids wanted to be buried... so we gave them what you wanted.

 Gracie

 Rochelle

Zach

Sebastien

The sunset on this Winter day from the back of our house.

Do you think we could have snow... without all the wind and ice and bitterness?

Oh that would be nice.

Open Skate

(Click on the PLAY button to watch the video)

The day after Thanksgiving I decided to take both Gracie and Zach ice skating at the community center rink where Gracie has her lessons. It was open skate so we also talked Auntie Denise and Cousin Rochelle into coming as well. 

I rented skates for my crew, myself included. I have only skated once in my life and that was about 15 yrs ago.  So here we go, Gracie, Zachy, and me out on skates and our helpers Auntie Denise and Rochelle.

Gracie is able to stand and move around so I just kinda let her go, but my Zachy... needs some help. Lots of help. He couldn't stand at all, and then me on skates holding him.  Lets just say an interesting situation.  We managed pretty well though.  We saw someone else pushing these blue things around, so we thought we would try that and it helped quite a bit.

 

I like to have adventures with the kids and this was definitely an adventure!!

Rochelle was actually really good, and I think she has only skated once before.

Pushing the blue thing around, Gracie got pretty confident and started to get some speed.  She pretty much does a running type of move and hasn't really started to glide, but her teacher says that will come.

I was able to catch some videos too (remember I am on skates too!).  Be sure to watch them both, (just hit click on the PLAY button).

 Too bad I didn't take a video when Gracie had her first lesson, because she really has improved very nicely.

I think I am going to have to invest in some skates for my little kids and maybe me too!

Lots of Fun!

The last weekend in October Darrin blessed us with another visit home. This time he brought a 'friend' aka 'girlfriend'.  We had heard about her, we had seen a few pictures of her, a few of us have spoken to her on the phone or via text messaging, now we get to meet her in person! We are excited.

 For the first meeting we didn't want to overwhelm her to greatly and make her meet the WHOLE family at once... we are quite the large group if you put adults and kids all in the same building at once.  I mean someone brand new to this group might go crazy if we did this.  I mean someone who is already a part of this group might go crazy having us all together. What I really mean is some of us have ALREADY GONE CRAZY when we all get together. 11 adults, 11 kids (ages 2-9) that is a sure recipe for CRAZINESS!

 So we thought we would be considerate and arrange an adult gathering first without the kids.  This in and of itself is quite a deal, since I don't think we have ever all gone out together, all at once as adults.  There is always someone missing or some kids present.  We did pretty good though, we had all of us 'grown-up kids' with spouses and Mom together at a bowling alley.  We didn't get Dad there as he was busy hauling manure (that sure sounds like fun!! you know busy farming MN season). 

We did miss him though and wished he could have made it.

 So Mandy got to met us as adults with no kids.  And we got to hang out as adults with no kids!

 So we have (left to right) Christy, Terri, Wendy, Shelly, and Darrin. 

 The Sohre 5!

 And this is dear Mandy with Darrin.

 Sister Love.

 I thought I had to include this picture of the score board. Believe it or not in the last frame of our 1st game I did bowled 3 strikes in a row!!!!

 The entire Sohre gag (minus dear Dad):

 Christy and Ted

 Wendy and Jason

 Darrin and Mandy

 Marty and Me

 Darrin and Mandy again

Double Cheers to Good Times!!!

(by the way Mandy we decided we like you, so please keep dating our brother and come visit us again!)

Ice Skating!

 Gracie started Ice Skating lessons this year at the community center in Redwood Falls.  I wasn't quite sure what she would think of it, but she LOVES it.  She is so excited to go.  The first time with the skates on she tumbled right over, but after her first lesson she already learned how to walk with them.

She passed the 1st session last week with was called Tot 1.  Now we start Tot 2 next week.

In Tot 1 the kids learn to march in place with skates on, march and move, how to fall down properly, and how to get back up without falling. 

She falls down quite a bit, but the instructor says she doesn't cry. She just gets right back up.

I have only been on skates once in my life and I don't think Marty ever has,

so I told Gracie she is going to have to teach me!  She got a kick out of that.

I hope she keeps liking it... maybe one day we will see her in the Olymics!!! Ha ha!