Busy January!!

Liam preparing for his band concert.  He plays the trumpet and did an awesome job!  Luke missed the concert because we left for Roseau that morning for his tournament.

Liam with Player of the Game on his 12th birthday!!

Happy 12th birthday Luke and Liam!

Roseau Arena 

Very COLD!!!

The moms on the bombardier getting ready to go ice fishing

The boys preparing for ice fishing

Quite the crew and quite the adventure

FIRST PLACE!!

Luke's team finished FIRST in their Roseau tournament

Aiden got player of the game

Liam's team finished second this past weekend

Liam and his buddy, Luke

Luke's team and his brothers did a service project on their day off from school 

We packed food to feed starving children in other countries

January has been a very busy month for us with 6 hockey tournaments, 3 birthdays, and a countless number of hockey practices and games.  Its been a lot of fun and has kept us busy during the long winter months for sure.  I will try to back up to the beginning of January where we left off at the last post.

On January 11th, Luke and Liam turned TWELVE years old!!!  Yes, how does that happen!?  They both got a phone for their birthday because it has become apparent over the last few months when we are going different directions that it would be very nice to be able to communicate.  They still have a lot of healthy restrictions on how they can use their phones, but I appreciate the ability to be able to reach them when needed.  They have proven to be responsible with the phones thus far.  

On the weekend of their 12th birthday, Liam's team had a local hockey tournament so we were busy with that.  Liam scored his first goals of the season and received the Player of the Game award on his birthday!  It was a very nice present for all of us.

The following weekend, we divided up and I went with Luke to his travel tournament up in Roseau, MN while John stayed back and handled practices, the band concert, sleepovers, and other fun events.  Roseau is about as close to Canada as you can get without crossing the border.  Its a small town of around 2,000 people and the winters are brutally cold.  The area is also known for its hockey.  We rode on a bus for six hours to get there and stayed in a very basic hotel without many amenities.  The people in Roseau were very friendly and they love hockey families.  The tournament was very competitive with some of the top teams in the state of Minnesota.  The boys played awesome and won the championship which was quite an accomplishment considering the stiff competition.  I survived running in brutally cold temps, drinking some of the worst coffee I have ever tasted, sleeping with Luke in a double bed, and ice fishing on Lake of the Woods in the middle of no where.  Many fun memories made on the trip and I enjoyed watching Luke and spending time with some awesome hockey families on his team.

Most recently, we had two more tournaments for both Liam and Aiden.  Aiden played in the same tournament his brothers have done for the last two years.  He played some 80 other squirt teams from all over the country and traded pins from each team.  He had a blast and his team did reasonably well amongst some very good competition.  Liam's team ended up making it to the championship where they lost by one goal.  It was a close game and they played hard.  The team has come so far over the season that it was really fun to see their success this weekend.