Summer Updates

Finn started soccer with his new Royal Blue team

Aiden went to a professional soccer game with his team and got to meet a pro soccer player for Minnesota

John bought a Corvette (ONLY JOKING).  No, we have been having several issues with our vehicle so this was one of many stops at the dealership and we knew Liam would love to see the Corvette.  

Aiden and his soccer team at the professional soccer game

Liam and Luke and their golf buddies.  We completed another round of lessons last week.

John and Aiden at the Minnesota United Loons soccer game

We are wrapping up some of our summer activities and it is nice to have a bit more free time.  Aiden's soccer team had their final game about two weeks ago and they celebrated with a professional soccer game when his team went to see the Minnesota Loons play.  It was a beautiful night and they had a great time.  The boys were even lucky enough to meet a few of the professional soccer players.

Luke, Liam, and Aiden wrapped up their golf lessons for the summer  Each of them took lessons on one day per week and then played the MAC 9 (a par 27 course) each week.  Each of them enjoyed it, with Luke perhaps being the one who enjoyed it the most.  Golf might be a bit too slow for Aiden right now, but he had several of his best friends playing with him and a young golf instructor that made it all fun for Aiden.

Finn began his recreational soccer last week.  He is very excited to be playing soccer again this summer.  He is playing with kids that are going into first and second grade which is definitely pushing him (perhaps a bit more than I intended to push him), but he is still loving it.  He is as tall as most first and second graders so he fits right in.  He has a couple of our neighbors on his team as well.

We are gearing up to celebrate Finn's 6th birthday in a few days.  He is very excited to be turning six and heading to kindergarten in the fall!

Camp!

Luke and Liam and their friends after they returned from camp.  They were so tired...

Camp games

More camp fun

Luke on the rope swing

Finn attended "Bring your child to work Day" with John this week and he loved it.  Here he is checking out human hearts.

Finn's medal from sports camp

Luke and Liam and all their friends headed to camp!

Liam's cabin with several friends

Aiden and his cabin

Finn's special date with mom and dad while his brothers were at camp

Aiden and his counselor and friends

It was a big week of camp for us.  All four boys went to some type of camp this week.

Finn completed a sports camp every morning for a few hours and loved it.  He learned basketball, soccer, and baseball.  His favorite was soccer, but he enjoyed all of it.  The Easter bunny signed Finn up for camp because his brothers would be at camp this week and he knew it would also be good for Finn!  Finn also attended a "Bring Your Child to work day" at John's office this week and loved it.  He was able to check out human hearts, program the pacemakers, play games, eat lunch with daddy, and complete a scavenger hunt.  He was very tired that night, but enjoyed himself.

Aiden attended a three night overnight camp with our church.  He went last summer as well and this summer several of his close friends joined.  He had a great time.  He returned a bit out of sorts because I am pretty sure he stayed up way too late, but that's pretty much par for the course at camp!

Luke and Liam were gone for an entire week at Covenant Pines Bible Camp.  They attended with around 10 or so friends last year and this year there were 17 of them.  They had a blast and loved every minute of it.  They have a close group of good friends that all get along well together and they had so much fun for a week at camp.

We are thankful that everyone returned safely and we are very grateful for the amazing leaders, counselors, and staff who put so much time and energy into making this an amazing week of recharging, renewing, and just having fun.

Catching UP....

Luke (far right) and his New England Team

Luke and Liam at the Twins game.  Ended up going into extra innings and being the longest home game in history for Twins 

Movie on the 4th of July at a friends pool

Treats at the Pool with Friends

Aiden and Finn at the Zoo checking out the giant Gorilla!

Pizza place after the zoo

Luke at the Tournament

Aiden and Finn at the Zoo

Finn and his Buddy, Silas

Aiden and his friend leaving for Camp

Aiden and his cabin buddies for camp

Luke has passed me just slightly in height.  And Aiden is catching Liam while Finn will catch all of us in a few years.

Stuck!

It has been a few weeks since I posted on the blog so I have several pictures to catch up on.

First off, Luke played in an elite hockey tournament with players from all over the United States.  It was an honor for him to play and he enjoyed the competition, but it was also a long week.  The games were a bit of a drive and many were during the day so John and I took turns driving out there with Luke.  John did the bulk of the games and worked around his schedule at the office.  Luke's team was primarily from Boston and they were called the New England team.  They made it out of pool play as one of the top four teams in their division.  Even though they didn't win, it was a fun week for Luke.

On a random weekend a few weeks ago when Luke and Liam had plans with John, Aiden, Finn and I went to the zoo and had a great time.  Finn loved all the animals and while it may not have been Aiden's first choice on activities, he enjoyed it as well.

We had a very nice fourth of July.  We stayed home and really loved the week off to relax.  We had no sports, no practices, no time commitments, no schedules.  It was great!  We spent lots of time at the pool, enjoyed a fourth of July pool party, played golf, and did lots of fireworks.

This week is full of camps for everyone.  Luke and Liam are heading to Covenant Pines camp for the second summer in a row with about 15 of their friends from school.  Should be a fun and exhausting week for them.  They are beyond excited to get back to camp as it was a highlight of their summer last year.

Aiden is doing a three day overnight camp for the second summer in a row with our church.  He loved it last year even though none of his friends went except one.  This year he has several friends willing to give it a try and he is very excited.  We have one 24 hour period when Aiden is gone and after Luke and Liam leave where we will only have Finn.  ONE CHILD!?!  Should be a fun week for all of us!

Summer Activities

 Big News for FINN!!  He learned to ride a bike without training wheels!

Luke and Liam's lacrosse game.  The face-off thing is very odd in lacrosse.  

Graduation Party for the Weigel's niece, Emma

Aiden attended a professional soccer game with several good buddies from his soccer team.

Luke and Liam's 3 on 3 hockey team won first place in the spring league.  Luke is a skater (not a goalie) on this team and its fun to watch both both with some of their close friends.  

We have not been at a loss of things to do this summer.  Each of the boys is signed up for a few things, but it is all of their combined activities that keep us quite busy!  Luke is doing a goalie camp several mornings per week and it really wears him out so he spends a bit of time recovering before he is ready to move to something else in the afternoon.  And, he's super hungry after camp!!

Luke, Liam, and Aiden are all doing golf lessons and playing the MAC 9.  Finn will have a small sports camp and VBS later this summer and the older boys will head to overnight camp.  In the evenings, we are still busy with soccer for Aiden and lacrosse for Luke and Liam.  Finn's soccer will pick up in mid July.

Finn's big accomplishment this week was learning to ride a bike!  He was so excited.  He had a balance bike for two summers and got too tall to use it so we pulled down our next bike (the one Luke and Liam used to learn how to ride) and he was too big for that as well.  So, we moved to yet the next size of bike in the garage and he tried it with training wheels and then decided he didn't need the training wheels because they make a funny noise.  So, we took the training wheels off and OFF he went!  He really had very few issues other than when he tried to jump a curb on a bike ride around the block and flew off the bike onto the grass (thankfully).  He loves to practice riding and wants to take off down the street, but I am hoping for baby steps....

We made it!!

Last Day of 5th grade (and elementary school) for Luke and Liam.    Last day of third grade for Aiden.

First day of First grade for Luke and Liam (and their first day at the elementary school)

Taking pictures still isn't easy

My favorite moms of 5th grade boys!

5th grade boys at the decathlon (yes, they all pulled their shorts up high on purpose)

Biking to school on the final day

Celebrating the last day of school

Finn's last day of school and our final day at Montessori

Last day of Montessori Kindergarten 

Throwback to Luke and Liam's last day at Montessori kindergarten

Finn wanted one final picture with his favorite teacher, Ms. Kristi

We survived another school year and we are ready to have a fun summer!  The last few days and weeks of school were busy.  Just to recap a few highlights....

1.  Luke and Liam finished their final day at Basswood Elementary where they started in first grade.  They are moving onto middle school whether we are ready or not.  It was a fun week celebrating their final days at Basswood and preparing to say Goodbye to their wonderful teachers.  We had a picnic lunch with parents, kids, and teachers, a field trip to the Mall of America, a decathlon, a final bike ride to school, and a pool party to celebrate on the final day.

2.  Aiden finished third grade and will be at Basswood again next year for 4th grade.  His teacher this year is doing something called "looping" so he will actually be in her class for 4th grade as well.  Should be fun to maintain many of the same friends and the same teacher.  Aiden celebrated with a pool party on Friday (after school finished up on Thursday).  It was a fun day with several of his friends.

3.  Finn celebrated his final day at Step by Step.  This was a really hard one for me as we have known the teachers at Step by Step since Luke and Liam began there nearly 10 years ago.  We have grown up with many of these teachers and they have loved us and taught us well.  We are so thankful for each of them and what they invested in the boys.  We promised to come back to visit because we will miss each of them so much.  Finn is excited to begin kindergarten at Basswood Elementary with Aiden in the fall.  

Memorial Day and Spring Sports

Aiden (far left in pic, his team is blue and white) is really enjoying soccer this spring.  His team is undefeated and Aiden has scored a goal in pretty much every game.  

Liam's AAA team in their most recent tournament

Liam's team watching an overtime game

The younger siblings cheering for Liam's team

Luke after a recent lacrosse practice

We made a quick visit to the pool over Memorial Day.  It was very warm outside, but its all relative when you haven't seen teams in the mid 70's in so many months!  The boys didn't care that the water was ICE cold!  And, that's Finn on our inflatable bull (a birthday gift).

We had a nice Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed several days with no sports or other schedules to follow.  It was great to have the free time and a chance to catch up on things at home.  We had some nice weather for at least two days.  Our spring has been chilly and very rainy this year.  We finally had some sun and temps in the mid 70's on Sunday so we made a quick trip to the pool.  It was chilly, but the boys honestly didn't care.

Liam had his final AAA spring tournament last weekend.  His team played well together and while they didn't finish as strong as we hoped they would, it was a good weekend.  In our pool, we ended up playing both the first and second place teams in the entire tournament.  Both games were close for us so we definitely had some good competition which hopefully will pay off in the long run.

With all the rain this spring, we have had some messy spring sports.  Luke and Liam love practicing in the mud and rain.  Aiden played an entire soccer game in the freezing cold and pouring rain last week and I was honestly a bit more thankful that hockey is an indoor sport.  I think I would take a cold rink any day over the cold and windy conditions we had at soccer.  I couldn't even keep my umbrella upright.