Thanksgiving and Tournaments

Luke's Squirt A white team vs. the Squirt A Crimson team in the championship at Thanksgiving

Lining up at the start of the game (Luke is in the net)

Liam on the ice (#15)

John went to lunch at school with Aiden while he was off last week

Followed by lunch with Luke and Liam at school.  John was not ready to sign up for lunchroom duty anytime soon.

Aiden attempted to eat an entire turkey leg on Thanksgiving!!

Jack (on the end in red sweater) also ate a turkey leg

Face-off at Liam's game (Liam is bottom left)

I don't have many Thanksgiving pictures this year, but we did enjoy a very nice Thanksgiving day with Kevin and Melissa Weigel and their son, Jack.  We have been over to the Weigel's for Thanksgiving for the last couple of years.  I think it began when Jack started playing travel hockey three years ago because there are almost always hockey tournaments the day after Thanksgiving which makes it difficult to travel.  Kevin and Melissa's extended family are much like family to us as they have know the boys since they were born when we lived directly behind the Weigel's (in our old house).  Jack is an only child, but has grown up with our boys and they have played together for many years.  It was a fun and relaxing day with lots of delicious food.

Early on Friday morning after Thanksgiving, we began a hockey tournament for both Luke and Liam's teams.  We are extremely fortunate this year because all of the in town/local tournaments are the same for Luke and Liam.  There are only two teams in their association that have the exact same in town tournaments and thankfully we happen to be on each of those teams.  It makes for a very long day at the rink, but thankfully we are all in one location.  We attended a total of 8 games in three days.

Liam's team had the unfortunate draw of playing three Canadian teams from the Thunder Bay area.  While they didn't win any of the three games, I would say they improved a lot over the weekend and finished respectfully considering their competition was quite good!  On a positive note, Liam's team was the only team to score any goals on their Canadian opponents who managed to shut out all the other B1 teams in Liam's bracket.  And, we won our final game 9-0 against a local team so I think we finished well.

Luke's team also did well winning their first three games relatively easily.  They ended up playing in the championship game for the Squirt A teams and finished second.  They lost to the other Squirt A team in our association which was a hard one to swallow, but a good learning lesson for the boys who have several things to work on before their next tournament.

All in all, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We are all preparing for Christmas and excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Hockey Season

We had our first snow fall last week.  Not sure I am ready for snow yet, but its coming.  And, as you can see in the picture, John has been working on the ice rink.

Luke had his first game last week.  The picture is of Luke and his goalie partner, Kaden.  And, they won their first game 10-2.


We have been busy the last few weeks adjusting to the start of hockey season.   This season is going to be a little different for us as Luke and Liam will be playing on different travel teams, unfortunately.  Luke made the Squirt A White team as a goalie and Liam made the Squirt B1 Black team as a skater.  Both boys have great teams and we are hoping for a great season for both of them.  

It will be a busy season, no doubt, with a combined 34 district games between now and the end of February plus a countless number of practices.  We will be heading to Thief River Falls, Minnesota for Luke's tournament in February and to Fargo, North Dakota for Liam's tournament also in February.  Needless to say, we will see a lot of hockey over the next three months.  That isn't including Aiden's hockey which will pick up with some games in January.  Thankfully, Finn is going to continue his "hockey team" skating on the backyard rink so we don't have another schedule to balance (at least not yet).  

We have our first two tournaments for Luke and Liam beginning the Friday after  Thanksgiving.  We will have 6+ games in two days and the remaining games on day 3 will be determined by how well we do on days 1 and  2.  Should be a fun weekend cheering on both teams!

Happy Thanksgiving to our friends and families!

Twin Werewolves, a Rapper, and a Pirate

Luke and Liam were twin werewolves 

Luke

Aiden, Finn, and a few neighbors on Halloween

Aiden, Finn, and friends/neighbors

Luke and Liam and a bunch of neighborhood boys

Liam's loot

We had a giant candy sort!

Luke's loot

We had a fun Halloween last week and we were blessed with relatively warm temps and gorgeous weather.  After 9 years of buying costume, we went for a very simple route this year, thankfully.  Luke and Liam chose to be Werewolves.  We found two flannel shirts at Goodwill and bought each of them a Mask from Target.  Aiden picked out his entire costume at Goodwill for $10.00 which I was very happy about.  He chose to be a rapper so he got a black leather jacket, hat and glasses, and some gold chains.  Finn was a pirate similar to his costume last year.  He has quite a selection of pirate accessories now so we only had to purchase an earring for his costume. We ended up with way more candy than we need, but we will soon see some of that disappear as we donate it to a good cause and we attempt to save ourselves from a mouth of cavities!