Growing up so fast...

Well, it is official. John starts his first day of preschool Sept 8th.

He is enrolled at St. Mary's which is a nice, newly reconstructed catholic P-8 elementary school. Nice too because it is only about 5 blocks away. Of course though, he will probably tell his kids one day it was 2 miles, up hill, both ways, and his mom and dad could only afford flip-flops for winter boots...isn't that right Grandpa?

D

John's Friends from the Mall of America

Here is a shot of John with Dora and Diego from Saturday's visit to MOA with Ms. Liz and Tyler.

Thanks again Liz & Tyler for spending the day with John at MOA and Underwater World, he really had a great time!

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John and Elvis

John with one of his musical hero's.

John was super excited when the king sang his favorite Elvis song: little less conversation. (see below post) Then, at the end of the show, was nervously excited to actually meet and shake hands with the King. It's a special moment to watch a young boy with that shy, yet serious face, say "hello, my name is John" while he just stare in awe.

Thanks again Art for taking the time with John. Thanks too for signing his cd, TCB - PTL, he is pumped!

Blessings to you and Jean

D

Saturday was Fun Day!

Today was a fun filled day for John. It started out with an adventure trip to the Mall of America to meet Diego with Ms. Liz and Tyler. John had an absolute blast. We will post some pictures as soon as we get them from Ms Liz.

John's adventure brought him home around 2:30 only to tell us quickly what a great time he had, then rushing out the door with dad and Sarah. Oh, forgot, Sarah came to town with Aunt Barb and Austin...hockey practice stuff.

Anyway we rushed off to see our friend Art Kistler, AKA ELVIS. He was performing for a rare public show at ST. Paul Park's Heritage festival. After the show John and Sarah had to check out some of the rides...let's just say they had fun!

Drummer Boy

Today John and I made a scheduled pit stop on the way Home from a day at Grandma Terrie's. With his little drum sticks in hand, we walked from the parking lot through the front doors of the most magical store in town - Ellis Drum Shop.

As we walk through the door we received a, "Hey little bud" from our friend Connor. Connor is a cool drummer buddy who, along with Tony & Tim, runs the drum shop. After waiting a bit for Connor to finish up with customers, John, with a nudge from dad, asked politely if he could play some drums. As always, Conner said, "absolutely, go for it little dude". John was like a kid in a drum store.

You can check out Ellis drum shop at: http://www.ellisdrumshop.com/ and Connors band at: http://www.theswampkings.com

Training for the Pain

John has put on a Veggie Tales Sing-Along "show" for me approximately 10 times a day for the last week straight. While the "show" was quite entertaining the first couple of dozen times, the music is now getting a little painful to hear.

Having listened to this CD over and over again, I am sure I have now significantly built up my tolerance for pain. I guess John is doing his part to get me ready for delivering the babies. A couple more days of Veggie Tales concerts and I won't need an epidural - even if I have a c-section.

Extreme snow surfin'

Aside from the hours of listening to John singing and listening to his latest veggie tales CD, today was a rather non eventful day. Having said that, after 38 times of listening to the same CD it was time for someone to make a move.

With the nice weather, Mom decided John and dad needed to go out and have some late afternoon fun. They took John's Elmo surfin' toy and decided to try out the sport of snow surfing. Though Elmo was designed for inside use they were bored with that today and gave it a go outdoors. The results... lots of smiles, fun and snow in the boots.

Dad, who lives up there?

No, no, no, this was not taken today. At literally -20 this morning we have been just hanging around inside staying warm.

This shot was actually from two weeks ago. John and dad ventured out on a warm +10 day after a snowy night. John was investigating the peculiar clump of leaves near the top of the sugar maple tree in our front yard.

"Dad, who lives in dare" he said. I was quite surprised he knew it was a critters house! We talked about the grey squirrels and what they do in the winter. John was glad he gets to sleep in a warm bed at night.