Snow and Liam's WILD game

The rink has had a good year with lots of cold weather!

Sunny and cold day that was perfect for skating!

We have had lots of snow

The snow is piling up so much that it is at the top of the mailboxes now.

Liam and his buddy getting ready for a game

Clearing snow on the rink.  There is usually a 5 foot drop off the back wall of the rink, but right now you can walk off since the snow is piled so high

Luke's Squirt A team finished First in their district!  Nice job Luke and team!!

Liam finally made it to a WILD game this year

In January, we had tickets to a WILD game as a Christmas present for the  boys.  Liam was not able to go because he was very sick.  We found a ticket at the last minute this past Sunday evening so Liam was able to go with John to see the Wild vs. St. Louis Blues.

He got a puck!

And got to sit with Nordy, the mascot

As a Christmas gift this year, the boys received tickets to a Minnesota WILD hockey game.  Unfortunately, Liam was very sick on the night of the game so he and I stayed home.  We have been trying to find a good time to take Liam to a game and when we found some tickets last minute for a game on Sunday, he went with John to see the WILD vs. St. Louis Blues.  Liam had a blast and talked the entire time!  He had nachos (and didn't have to share), skittles, and even his favorite drink (Diet Coke).  He loved every minute of it.

We are still getting lots of snow in MinneSNOWta.  This has been the fourth snowiest month in Twin Cities history and the snowiest February ever.  We have had a total of 40 inches in February alone.  We are definitely running out of places to put this much snow.  I think we are all looking forward to some warmer temperatures very soon even though the rink has been in great shape this year.

We finished our final district games over the weekend.  The boys and their teams did very well.  Luke's team finished first place in our district and Liam's team finished fourth with only one point difference between the third and fourth place teams.  We are moving onto the district tournaments this weekend.

Travel Tournaments

Warning....LOTS of hockey and lots of pictures in this post! 😉

Luke's Squirt A team with their siblings at the sibling game.

Aiden and two of his buddies at one of Luke's games

Luke's team pre game

Champions of the Thief River Falls Showdown tournament 

Team and Sibling picture

Team pic outside one of the arenas

Watching the siblings in the Old Arena built in 1936

Aiden and his buddies getting ready to play

Awesome first place trophy!

Back home...the trophy is in the case at the rink!

Liam and his teammate, Evan

Trading Pins!

Intro to Curling

Liam's team took a class to learn how to Curl

Finn loved the sibling saran wrap ball

81 Squirt B1 teams from the US and Canada

First place in their bracket

Liam with the trophy

Liam and his buddy driving home post game with the trophy

The past two weekends in February have been busy ones for us.  Luke's Squirt A hockey team traveled to Thief River Falls, MN for their tournament over the weekend of February 8-10.  Our original plan was for all six of us to go, but when we realized the logistics of doing that with Liam's district game and practices, some very bad weather, Finn being sick, a small hotel room for all of us...we opted to split up.  John took Luke and Aiden to Thief River Falls for Luke's tournament while Liam, Finn, and I stayed home.  Aiden went with John because a big group of his hockey buddies played a Thief River Falls team with kids Aiden's age while they were on the trip.  Luke's team was quite successful and came home with a first place trophy.  Luke had a blast and despite being tired, enjoyed every minute of it.

Over the weekend of February 15-17th, Liam's team traveled to Fargo, North Dakota for their travel tournament.  They played in the Squirt International with 81 other B1 teams.  This tournament was gigantic and involved teams from the US and Canada.  We only played one team from Minnesota.  Liam's team also had a great showing in Fargo where they won their bracket.  Because there were so many teams in this tournament, the teams were seeded into brackets after their first two games.  If you won both games, you moved up to the higher bracket.  If you lost both games, you moved down. We ended up in the upper middle bracket and finished in first place.  The only team we lost to over the weekend ended up being a team from Spokane, Washington that won the entire tournament.  It was a fun-filled weekend with pin trading, curling, swimming, games, and more pin trading.  We were all very happy to sleep in our own beds, but the boys loved it all.  One impressive stat from Liam was his total of 5 goals and 4 assists to lead his team (his team scored a total of 18 goals so Liam had a role in half of them).  This is huge progress for Liam who has really stepped up to be a leader this season on his team.

In between our busy February with two tournaments, we have had a TON of snow!!  It has been the snowiest February on record for Minnesota.  The first record was 26 inches set in 1962.  At this point, we have already passed the 26 inches of snow and we are well on our way to a new record with at least two more snow storms on the way.  The snow banks are piled higher than I am tall.  We have missed more days of school than I ever would have imagined.  

Super Bowl Sleepover!

Watching the Super Bowl

Dancing during halftime

The whole gang at Top Golf

Eating pizza and watching the Super Bowl

Aiden and his three friends

Cookie cake and ice cream

Silly pic

Luke and Liam had their 11th birthday and Aiden celebrated his 9th birthday

Getting ready to do Top Golf

Luke 

Liam and his buddy, Jack 

Adam and Luke, two friends of Luke and Liam

Top Golf party!

Top Golf with 12 boys!

Luke and his buddy, Charlie

John and I survived our first ever sleepover party over the weekend.  Each of the boys invited three close friends so we had a total of 12 boys.  We were very fortunate that a friend of Finn's offered to let him have a sleepover at their house so Finn was ecstatic to have his first sleepover with his good friends, Landon and Andy.  We had two sets of twins at our sleepover, both of which we have known basically since Luke and Liam were born.

The boys all arrived around 4:00 pm on Sunday afternoon and we played nerf wars and other games until the Super Bowl began.  We ordered pizza and had some simple snacks like chips, pop, fruit, veggies, soft pretzel bites, and chicken wings.  The boys were definitely in heaven with the food.  They were loud and crazy the entire time, but overall we had no issues and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  We played a few games during the Super Bowl to see who would guess the winning team and who would win a prize after each quarter.

Although the game wasn't the most exciting, we all watched the entire thing before the boys exploded again in games of nerf wars, laser tag, and other random stuff.  After they ran around for an hour or so following the Super Bowl, we watched a movie and tried to settle everyone down.  They were thankfully all in bed by midnight even though John and I were falling asleep on the couch during the movie!

The next morning, we loaded everyone up in the car around 8:15 am and drove to the new Top Golf facility.  Top Golf did not disappoint.  Great food and service and we have some very good golfers in our group.  We played golf for two hours and had breakfast before heading home so the parents could pick up their kids.

It was a fun party and the boys are already asking when we can do it again.....I am still recovering a bit, but very thankful things went smoothly.