here and there

terri headed to Atlanta today (for emerging adulthood conference); doug to Boston tomorrow (to give a talk at Brandeis). Kids staying with mary and roy tomorrow night. all hectic and exciting though a bit less so with football and soccer now over. and we'll all be together saturday for halloween, when doug and ben will be going to gopher game and emma has elaborate plans for her annual costume (still to be fully created and unveiled).

big weekend

two big days for us this weekend. ben got confirmed at Hope this morning, following a nice dinner with the other confirmands and their families last night.

yesterday was emma's day--her soccer team winning three games in a row to capture their second city championship in a row. it was fun and not nearly as stressful as last year with the scores being 4-0, 5-0 and 3-0. (the main stressor was that on thursday night in a makeup game, they looked a little lack luster in a 0-0 tie). anyway, a great day capped off by a pizza party with all of the girls (who come from 7 different schools) to celebrate.

dark day

dark, rainy day today. seems to fit the mood with the funeral of an 8th grader at MMSA this morning named Josh Rothe Moon. he died this past weekend after a year long struggle with a brain tumor. our kids will go, along with all of the middle schoolers and many kids who have graduated in the past couple of years. so sad. and second time in two years for the 8th grade to loss a classmate. (ben's classmate was killed in an auto accident in mexico 2 summers ago).

ben's faith statement

With all that is going on, we didn't even mention that next week, Reformation, is Ben's confirmation at Hope Lutheran. This morning he, along with 5 other kids, read the "statements of faith" they have spent the past few weeks preparing to the congregation. He did a great job and received numerous complements and accolades. We'll try to post a written draft, or at least snippets, here shortly.

the results are in...

..and they are fabulous! the sociology faculty voted to make Terri an associate professor with tenure. yeeaaaaaaahhhhh! we went out for a celebration dinner at little szchezan last night, and then victory chocolates (dark) today.

on other fronts: ben's team lost (42-14) against a tough wisconsin team this afternoon. he had a pretty good game--some big runs through his hole, and he was in on at least five tackles on the line and one on a kickoff. lots of studying tonite: he and emma are both off of school thursday and friday this week.

hockey practice continues for emma, and last week of regular season games on thursday. playoffs set to begin Saturday October 24.

Doug trying to fight off a sickness that may or may not be a slight bout of h1n1.

puffy white stuff already

did you check the national weather reports? we've got a couple, three, four inches of puffy white snow on the ground this morning with more coming down. should make football and soccer games interesting later in the week (tuesday and thursday). kids actually off of school thursday and friday, and ben has to prepare and deliver his faith statement at Hope on sunday. and of course by the end of the day today (monday) we should have results from terri's tenure vote.

checkin in, looking up

big sports day in como area yesterday: ben's team played their best game and won 22-0; emma's team won a close one 2-1 on a goal with under 4 minutes left; then the como high varsity boys won a chilly homecoming game 20-0. emma's hockey team had good news too getting 3 or 4 new (and pretty good) girls from the east side to round out their roster.

gopher game tomorrow, of course, but the big news is the forecast for snow. we'll actually trying to think about that right now to keep our minds off the two twins games in new york.

center of the sporting universe?

Gophers games on saturday; twin cities marathon and gopher's women's soccer game on sunday; vikings versus packers on MNF yesterday along with the start of hockey; and then the twins extra-game play-in game versus the tigers tonite. what a string of events. and we're only just getting started: MLB playoffs tomorrow, and then ben and emma both with games thursday night along with como and gophers homecoming this weekend. how to keep up with everything else when we're having so much fun!

wet whirlwind week/weekend

so just after nana and papa left on weds after a great visit, grandpa (terri's dad) flew in for a quick visit. he helped finish up the basement ceiling project, replaced a faulty electrical outlet, and got to see ben play a football game before leaving to get back to CA friday afternoon.

ben's team lost their game against central 13-0 but it was a memorable, epic battle on two fronts: one was that it was raining buckets throughout the game (those of us who were there got completely, utterly soaked; ben's team fumbled at least six times as a result). the second was that ben had what everyone we agreed was the monster hit of the game--blowing up a wide receiver running a reverse. (it actually knocked the kid out of the game and straight to the hospital; we heard later, luckily, that he was okay).

its been rainy ever since--including the big minnesota/wisconsin game today, and emma's marathon school fundraiser. we're hoping it might dry out a bit tomorrow: we're supposed to watch the twin cities marathon with friends in the morning, and then are taking emma's soccer team to the gopher's women's game in the afternoon. also ahead for the week: ben's teacher conferences, football and soccer games, and the start of hockey for emma. and hey, we're keeping our fingers crossed for the Twins too. only 1/2 game out as of the playoffs as of this writing!