Are you kidding me?!
First of all, let me say Happy Anniversary to my mother and father who were married 55 years ago today. I miss my dad horribly as he passed away in 2006. Love you mom! Happy Anniversary.
It has been a long time since I posted anything. With no new news, it makes it tough. We are currently in the process of updating some of our paperwork. Last week we re-did our fingerprinting and made a date of it by going out for a nice brunch in Minneapolis. Good stuff. We also needed to have fresh physicals done. That is always fun. For mine, they had to pull 7 tubes of blood from my arm to check me out for everything imaginable. Ironic, we the parents need to be open to medical conditions of the child but the other way around, the child needs to have PERFECT parents.
Summer is over. That is really annoying. The temp is starting to dip, the leaves are starting to change color. It’s over! Kids are back in school (Mariana 8th grade, Santiago 3rd grade with Mr. Zink!). I am approaching 1 year remaining before retiring (at least that is my plan). But overall it was a good summer.
It was a summer of soccer. Mariana played for Park Valley and had a great year. In their league, the ended up in 2nd place but lost in the playoffs due to some controversial calls….sigh. They did well at the USA cup tournament. They took 2nd place again and lost that game in controversy as well when a contested ball kicked up into one of the girls hand which granted a penalty kick at the end of the game…and that was it. They lost 1-0 to a team from Rockford, Illinois. Now the fall season has started and PVU is 2 wins-1 loss and Nani already has 5 goals in those 3 games. She loves it.
Santi played Rec soccer. Rec pretty much describes it. Those kids on that team were a disaster. It was chaos. Santi did well and was consistently the best player and best behaved child on the field. He did so well we decided to elevate him to competitive despite the commitment. The difference in training and games is dramatic. As of today, his team is 3-0 and he has scored a goal. He is having a blast and we love seeing him run. He is so fast.
Santi made some new friends down the street from us. The Hasse girls were frequent visitors to the yard and pool this year. RIght around the same age as Santi and they get along great. All the adventures that kept them playing in the yard. There may have also been a sales stand in our front yard where they were selling various treats and rubber band bracelets which were a big hit for a while. But the novelty wore off and sales dwindled. Thats when they thought it was a good idea going door to door which also went the direction you thought it might. But a lot of riding bikes through the neighborhood which is what I personally remember from my childhood, not plopped in front of a TV playing video games..
We got to go spend a weekend up with Jason and Natalia at their cabin up at Lake Roosevelt in Outing , MN that was beautiful. Both the kids got to go fishing for the first time though they didn’t venture to try for any fish larger that the sun fish from the end of the dock (as the pictures will indicate). Actually, Nani did catch a pretty decent Crappie which is also pictured. They also got to go tubing while Claudia and I enjoyed the peace of the woods and the lake. Santi and I went on a kayak adventure which was absolutely a blast. Enough so that I wouldn’t mind having a couple Kayaks myself to cruise around the lakes in the area.
On the way back from Jason and Natalia’s cabin, we stopped by my families old property on Nokay Lake and found that it was for sale. That gave us the ability to go up the hill then down to the lake to check it out. A walk down memory lane. Unfortunately, there is no way that I could pull off buying that property without doing some sort of major life change but still I get that urge and those thoughts. it was nice sitting on the shore and throwing rocks into the lake like I used to enjoy so much.
Plenty of great memories for the summer. Those were just a few highlights but we know that our family is currently incomplete. We pray every day for our son or daughter, brothers or sisters who are currently separated from a family that they currently do not know but will spend the rest of their lives with. We pray God’s blessings on these children and for the Lord to assure them that they are loved. God has His plan and we will respect it but that doesn’t mean that we dont get anxious, know what I mean?
Anyway, since this blog is still not public, I am actually just typing to myself right now. That is kind of depressing but still a lot of fun reviewing pictures from the summer and looking forward to the future. May God’s will be done.