Pages

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A new day is here


What a historical day this is. I pray for the Obama family and wish for a brighter future for our country. I know we all have to tighten our belts and work together. The biggest thing I know is that we have to prepare ourselves for CHANGE and be open to new possibilities that are out there. God Bless America!

Friday, January 16, 2009

It is really cold here!

We got an e-mail message and a recorded phone message letting us know that school was cancelled because of dangerous temperatures! They weren't kidding!



We slept in and kicked around the house, but around noon, we felt like a little outing! We needed some milk, so headed over to Target to find the carts all covered in snow!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Swim Team is 2-0!

Click on the article to open it up in another page...you can actually read it!
My Elliott boys are mentioned as being the "stars of the meet"! They are both training incredibly hard and swimming well. We are so proud of them for making the transition from California to Minnesota! They are good boys!
That photo is Will diving in! He better keep swimming really fast because his little brother Jack is on his tail trying to catch up!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Fishing on the Lake

It starts out with drilling a hole in the ice with an ice auger... the ice is about 24 inches thick so this time of the year, you need a power auger! You can't believe the kind of stuff they drag out onto the ice to fish!
Here is a little cluster of ice houses! Some of the guys (and gals) spend the night in these!

I understand that the fishing is good on Lake Buffalo this year. There may be a higher population on the lake than there is in town!

Radar Run?

What is a radar run you ask? Well, it starts out with a funny looking machine like this that clears a strip of the frozen lake from the snow that has fallen.The snowmobilers enter the course through here and try to go as fast as they can down the raceway. I think this is something that Todd Palin (hubby of former vp candidate Sarah Palin don't cha know) does!The race track was really long...It went most of the distance of Lake Buffalo! It was fun to watch them wiz by...even little tiny kids! It was cold today, about 8 degrees or so and colder with the windchill, but these Minnesota folks are hardy. They spent the entire afternoon out on the ice!
When they really get going (some go as fast as 120 miles per hour) a radar gun tracks their speed!

Jack and his buddy Zack out on the frozen lake watching the racers!

Only in Buffalo Minnesota!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

It started with one.

And now we've got...more than one! I'm not sure how or when it happened, but these nutcrackers have multiplied over the years! In our old house, we had a little attic that was used strictly for storing all the Christmas decorations. When we took them out each year, it was a little shocking to see how many boxes of Ornaments and Decorations we had, but then after Christmas, we put all those boxes away and didn't even think about it. Now, I have to look at the boxes every time I go to get something in the basement. They are taking up some prime real estate down there. Oh well, as Richard says we like stuff and we'll make room for it! I'm packing them up for next year and even though I think we don't need any more, I may find a few on clearance! 

Vitamins 5, Exercise 1


January 5th is here. The taking of the vitamins every day is going great! If I am sure to take them with food, I actually do feel like I have a bit more energy. Now on the exercise front, I have been using some excuses, but today I made it over to my friend Maureens and we got on the treadmill and the stair stepper! It feels good!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Igloo for the New Year




IMG_2430lr
Originally uploaded by elliottsurf
The boys had quite a bit of snow to shovel so they used it to make a big mound of snow. They stuck 1 foot long sticks in the snow around the top and let the heap settle for a day. Then they went in through the entrance hole they dug and scraped the snow out until they hit the sticks. Uncle Steve taught them how to do this on the Winter Survival day! Now they want to spend the night in it!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Vitality


Vi.tal.i.ty

  1. exuberant physical strength or mental vigor: a person of great vitality.
  2. capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence: the vitality of an institution.
  3. power to live or grow: the vitality of a language.
  4. vital force or principle
noun:
  1. an energetic style
  2. a healthy capacity for vigorous activity
  3. a hypothetical force once thought by Henri Bergson to cause the evolution and development of organisms as in Life Force
  4. the property of being able to survive and grow

Vitality is my word for 2009. I am going to start out by taking by vitamins (calcium, B, D and maybe a general one-a-day) and I am going to get back to exercising...starting with riding the bike on the trainer in the basement!

I have a big long list of all the other things that I wish to accomplish, do, learn, create, experience in 2009 but I am going to see if I can take my vitamins and ride that bike everyday for one week before I get started on that list. You see, if I gain some VITALITY, I may be able to chip away at that list!

Happy New Year 2009... my "pre-50" year!

Ice skating


What a wonderful way to spend the first day of the new year! The Trudell family joined us for a cold and windy skate on the lake. We thought the warming shack was going to be open, but we had to put our skates on in the frozen elements! We had a few rounds of crack the whip and looked at all the bubbles in the frozen lake! Then it was back to the house for some hot coco and a couple of games of Bananagrams! 



Happy New Year Goals

Jack had an assignment for English class. He had to write up 5 goals for 2009 without using any e's! This is hard, you should try it! Here is what he came up with:

  1. Catch a giant small mouth bass during a fishing trip with my dad and sibling Will who is 16 and driving a car,.
  2. Ask my dad to instruct and show me how to run our 2002 Ford.
  3. Surf daily in California during our trip in July.
  4. Tag along with my mom's sibling who is a cop in a suburb south of Buffalo.
  5. To obtain a gigantic B in our school colors on a coat for swimming astonishingly fast.