A Veteran's Day to Remember

Knowing how much Jocie loves to write, I wasn't surprised when when she wanted to do a optional Veteran's Day essay. She knew right way who she wanted to do her write-up on; her Great-Grandpa Dale Youngern (my maternal Grandfather). So she started her research by talking directly to the source. She got her trusty notebook and pencil out and jotted down a few questions before she called Grandpa Dale. I think she might have been a little nervous on the phone because she wasn't real sure on her answers...so she called her Grandpa Mike (AKA Boppa). He cleared up a few things, and then she got down to writing. This is what she wrote....

The veteran I did research on is my great-grandfather, Dale Youngern. Grandpa Dale was a Darby's Ranger and served in the Army from 1943-1945. The Darby's Rangers were an elite group of soldiers that went into enemy territories first. They were said to be "the tip of the sword" because they were such talented soldiers. When he served in World War II, he fought in Africa, Italy, France and Germany.

Grandpa Dale said that he enlisted in the Army because it was the right thing to do and they were short of men.

The Darby's rangers landed in Anzio, Italy and fought the Germans fir four months. They were such outstanding fighters that they pushed the Nazis right out of Rome! After their outstanding battle they got to meet Pope Pius XII.

Grandpa Dale served our country for 3 year, 3 months, and 3 days, and earned the rank of Corporal and was decorated with 5 bronze stars and a Good Conduct Ribbon.

Grandpa Dale's proudest moment in the war was when the war was over and he got to go home to his beautiful wife Florence.

I'm so proud of Grandpa Dale because he had so much courage and pride in his country. I want to be just like him!

Jocie's essay was so good, that it was chosen (only 2 essays were chosen out of all) to be read out loud at the Veteran's Day Program at Jocie's school. Grandpa Dale was so moved by Joice's essay that he just had to be in attendance to witness his great-granddaughter's first public speaking experience. So, my mom got the day off from work and she and Denny drove him down from Grand Forks! We were so happy he could make it to this special occasion. It wouldn't have been the same without him there!!Jocie and Grandpa Dale enjoying dinner and some cake at our house the night before the program

Presentation of the Colors began the program

This is dark...but here is Jocie at the mic reading her essay

The Proud Grandpa...and the proud granddaughters :)

After the program, and fellow serviceman gave this metal of honor to grandpa after hearing about his fight during WWII....WOW!

Grandpa Dale then visited Jocie's Classroom and showed off the Nazi helmet he has had since the war! The boys in her class were very, very impressed

We will always look back on this day with a lot of pride in Jocie, for being such a great writer/daughter/great-granddaughter - pride in Grandpa Dale for being such a great soldier/Grandpa - and all the other Vets that have served our country so well!

Halloween Cuties

We had another fun Halloween. After getting all of the girls dressed up, we headed out for trick-or-treating on our block. It was really fun watching the older girls delight in all of the candy they were scoring. Claire had a good time just watching the tree branches sway in the October breeze.

Here is our little Tinkerbell!

This is what Claire was wearing underneath her Bear suit

All three girls getting ready to hit the sidewalk

Don't you LOVE Jocie's "Smarty Pants"!! How fitting

Claire Bear

Mario loves to trick-or-treat too...he was even offered a doggie treat at our neighbors house

After going up and down our street, Claire and I went home to pass out candy to other trick-or-treaters, while Carl took the older girls to get more candy! I'm pretty sure we have enough until the next Halloween....well we would if I could stay away from it :)

Happy Halloween!

Carving Up Pumpkins

Last night, we had our annual pumpkin carving night. Not only did we do our normal activities such as digging out the pumpkin guts and carving out jack-o-lantern faces, but we added a few new things to the mix.

One of those new things was our new little addition :) Claire loved everything about pumpkin carving. She loved just looking at the pumpkins, but her favorite things was to try to eat the pumpkin!

Jocie's favorite part of pumpkin carving is pulling out all of the slimy guts.

Ella, on the other hand, does not like pulling out the guts...she is actually disgusted by it! I actually made her put her hand in there one time (this picture) and then her hand never again entered the pumpkin. She was so grossed out by this, that she made sure when I was done digging out her pumpkin that "I didn't touch her".

Claire did not mind touching the insides at all...she actually liked the feeling of it :)

But she still had to get a little taste :)

Jocie had the great idea to cut out stars all around her pumpkin. I loved this idea, and it looked especially cool lit up with candles (those stars are free hand!)

This year, Ella drew her face on with a marker all by herself, then I carved it out. She closely monitored my craving, and insisted that I don't go outside her lines (which would ruin her artistic vision). I think she did a wonderful job!

Claire's pumpkin turned out great too (with the help of her biggest sister, Joc).

Carl was busy picking out all of the pumpkin seeds he could find because he wanted to try to bake them into tasty treat...we will see how they turn out tonight! We also added cinnamon to the bottom of the pumpkins' caps, so when we lit the candles, the whole kitchen smelled like cinnamon (instead of raw pumpkin) YUM!

If you ask me, they all turned out awesome!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN from us to you!

Family Pictures

Here are our latest family pictures taken by the wonderful Larry Gantner (friend of ours from Pinewood). If you want to view, to go http://www.squibnocketphotography.com/ then click on "View and Order", you will then click on "The Adolphson Family" and enter my email address anneadolphson@yahoo.com.

Stay-cation

This past weekend was the teacher-loved MEA weekend. This is the first break teachers are given since the beginning of school, and as all educators know, September (and sometimes January) are the longest months of the school year...so this break is very much looked forward to.

We had big plans to go up north to visit our family. We were going to leave on Thursday morning, and head up to East Grand Forks to spend a few days with my dad (AKA Boppa), and then head even further north to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Adolphson (AKA Grandma Ju Ju and Grandpa Doo-aine). But, on Wednesday morning, Ella woke up with a low-grade fever, so we decided that we were going to stay put.

We were happy to see that even though Ella was under the weather, she still wanted to play and had no problems eating and drinking a lot...of course I was freaking out because I thought she might have the dreaded H1N1...but I don't think that was the case. :) I continued to the a "germ-nazi" and insisted on obsessive hand washing for ALL and even made Jocie and Carl change clothes immediately upon entering the house from school, so nobody else (knock on wood) has gotten sick.

We were all a little bummed because we were looking forward to seeing grandparents, but we still wanted to have a fun weekend. So we decided to do some fun things at home. Here were some of the highlights:

Thursday night - Family Movie Night - rented "Monsters vs. Aliens" popped a lot of popcorn, snacked on Junior Mints and Sour Patch Kids, and washed it all down with Coke and Fanta. We also moved all the furniture in the living room so it was right in front of the TV and turned off all of the lights so we had the real "theater" experience.

Friday - Trip to St. Cloud to shop for a winter coat for Jocie and then onto Granite City for dinner. After dinner, we returned home to watch the Sioux hockey team destroy the Gophers (4 - 0)! Sioux, yeah, yeah!

Saturday - After a morning workout (big commodity for mom) Jocie and I headed to the Mall of America for a little Jocie/mommy outing. We had a blast!!! Lunch at the big food court, then to the American Girl store where jocie got to spend a $50 gift card, then to DSW where she got to pick out 2 new pairs of shoes, then decided to grab some Cold Stone ice cream for an afternoon snack :). Then onto evening Mass. All-in-all fabulous day!

Sunday - The girls re-cooped a little at home, while Carl fished with a buddy all afternoon.

Even though we had looked forward to going home, we had a wonderful weekend just hanging out together!! We need to have "stay-cations" more often!!

Proud Mama

This past Saturday was the annual Medtronic Twin Cities Kids Marathon. This is the 5th year we have been partaking in the running festivities. I coach a running club at Pinewood, and these races are always our culminating event. Even though it was chilly and rainy, the kids showed up with big smiles ready to run! In the years past, Jocie has run the 1/2 mile race, then decided to upgrade to the 1 mile race, and this year took the big leap to the 5K race! I was super excited for her to do this because 1) she is a fun running partner 2) how awesome is it to run a 5K when you are 10 years old!! I was 26 when I ran my first 5K!! Although she was a little nervous about the run, she was up for the challenge.

Jocie was already a running club member, but she wanted to do a little extra training at home with me. So we started jogging about 2 weeks before school started. It was really good for us to have some "mom and Jocie" time again. Since Ella has been born and now Claire, that time has been a little more limited. So it was really fun to just hang out!

During the race, she told me a few times that she was really getting tired....but she kept pushing herself and finished the race without walking!!! Not only did she not walk, but she sprinted the last 50 yards! It was such a cool feeling crossing the finish line with her! I told her that when I was her age, I competed in a 1 mile race and had to walk during that race!! She felt much better after that story. After the race she told me that "she felt like she was on top of the world"! She did awesome and I'm so proud of her!

Joc and I after the 5K

All of the 5Kers

All of the 1/2 mile and 1 mile runners

Give me some real food!

Claire has started to understand what happens at the kitchen table. Whenever we eat a meal, we always pull Claire up to the table so we can "eat like a family". She has started to copy some of our eating behavior...observe

(Just click on the play -arrow- button on the video picture below)

She could be telling me that she wants to eat too! She is probably sick of just sitting there watching us eat...she wants to eat too! Even though it looks like she's got this chewing thing down, she will still have to wait a few months before she can eat any "real" food...sorry Claire!