and he writes back

Tonight, we had a very motivated boy writing back to his best friend Payton.

His letter says:
Dear Payton,
Congratulations on a good basketball season. I hope you have a good week. I hope your tournaments go well.
Your friend, Osten

He also included a photo that was just printed in the River Falls Journal.

a letter from his hero

Osten received a special letter from his favorite friend, Payton Flood. Payton wrote:

Hi Osten! Thank you for the card, I watched the superbowl and I wanted the Rams to win too! I hope you had fun on all of these snow days too!
-Your friend, Payton

Boy, did this letter make an impact. Osten was extremely excited and it really motivated him to read/write back.

last game of the season

Katie's basketball team finished their last two games of the season on Tuesday. They played the New Richmond Tigers. They won one game and lost the other.

I had conferences until 8:30pm so I wasn't able to see her game, but I did get to see her when I got home which was a treat.

We are proud of you Katie Grace and your tenacity in completing another season.

2 hour delay

5am--call from our Superintendent--2 hour delay.
Rolled over and got a few more hours of sleep!

After school, got home and had yummy pancakes and bacon and then off to Anders' college fair, parent teacher conferences and a mandatory band trip meeting.

Brad and Osten went to his wrestling practice at 7pm and Katie was ski-boarding at Afton Alps.

That extra two hours definitely came in handy!

blizzard and not the DQ kind

We are in the midst of an old school blizzard. Wind gusts are pretty impressive. I'm happy I'm able to be inside and folding laundry right now. We will be dressing up for church in the next hour and heading out. I hope we can drive, but we may be walking depending on the status of getting vehicles out the driveway.

running running running

Today is another day the Olson clan will be traveling in different directions. Anders and I are staying in town where Anders will perform in a music contest with a brass quartet. I am working concessions at the music contest from 10am-4pm.

Brad, Katie and Osten are headed to St. Louis Park for a basketball tournament from 11am until about 9pm.

Then tonight, I will head to Hudson to go out to dinner with friends at Mama Maria. It's our annual Valentine's dinner, but then the basketball tournament came up so my Valentine can't join me...oh well. Hope to update posting with results and photos later.

Update 2-24-19
Anders quartet sounded beautiful and received a rating of 1 (excellent rating) from the judge. They did not qualify to move on to state competition--superior rating.

According to the River Falls Music Department, 109 entries performed, 51 events received a Superior rating, 42 events received an excellent rating, 16 events received a very good rating and 4 events received a best in site rating (all day, they were the very best performance seen by judge).

Katie's basketball team won their first game, lost their second and one their third so placed second in their tournament.

Osten and Brad went to the Lego movie and both reported it to be great.

I decided to skip my friends dinner and take my 17 year old, Anders out for dinner at Mariachi Loco and to the movie the Upside at the Falls Theater. Very enjoyable movie. We ended up having to sit near the top of the theater so we couldn't get out to get concessions. We opted to head to Mei Mei's cookies to order really delicious made to order ice cream sandwiches. Mine was vanilla bean ice cream in chocolate chip cookie sandwich while Anders ordered a chocolate ice cream in chocolate chip cookie sandwich. YUM!

\

The Upside was based on a true story and this photo shows the movie characters on the left and the true characters on the right.

playing in my mind

It is so delightful to hear our 8 1/2 year old run around and have an audio replay of what he's playing in his mind. That little man has the energy of 100 men.

all in a 13 hour day

I love visiting with parents at parent teacher conferences, but the day gets a little long in the tooth. On Thursday, I spent 13 hours in my classroom. From 7:45am-8:45pm. I did sneak out to get a little Subway for lunch, but otherwise, I was in the classroom.

Here is a peek at one student who got really inspired after I presented a lesson on ancient Egypt...love it.

oh what a beautiful morning!

This morning, my running pack--Maggie, Abby, Sara and I went for a two mile jog arranged when we discovered we had a snow day today. We assembled at Maggie's house at 8am and then jogged to Brad and Bruce's new office to say hello to Bruce and looped back around to Maggie's house.

The snow was so elegant in it's descent, but I even more appreciated the companions who were jogging at my side. Thanks for a lovely run today friends! Our distance (according to my FitBit) was 2.45 miles and our pace was 11 minutes 30 seconds.

I wish these photos captured the incredible giant flakes falling. Pretty spectacular. 

By the way, as of 9:50am on February 20--the snow depth in River Falls is 4.8 inches

Now as of 10:23am is 5.3 inches...a 1/2 inch in 30 minutes. 

Now as of 12:15pm it's 6.2 inches

4pm--7 inches

85 years ago today

My wonderful papa Clarence Edward Blomgren Jr. was born near Pipestone Minnesota in his family home. Thank you for being the best "diddy" in the world.

Dad, the rose between two thorns--Audrey and Jeannie

on eagles wings

Today our class and a neighboring classroom are planning a walk to the public library where we will see a presentation intended for children on a non-school day. With the plentiful in-climate weather days, the district scheduled school on a previously planned teacher in-service day. The local librarian also scheduled a wonderful presentation from the national eagle center for families looking for educational options in town. We are reaping the benefits of a field trip coming to town!

I have several parent volunteers who plan on joining us on our walk to and from the library--should be a fun day!

Update--it was a fun day and the kids had a blast. We received a very nice message from the presenter:

I wanted to thank you for coming to the Eagle program today. Also to reach out and let you know that the presenter, Jared, complimented our group and said that he was hugely impressed with the behavior of the classes that came. He told me that he often has much more difficulty getting groups to be calm, and that our group deserves HUGE praise for how well they did for the entire presentation.

I am just so thrilled to have a presenter give me rave reviews of our kids. Way to go, all of you.

2 year old eagle named Latsch

ushering, cleaning, running, folding and Bunco

Today is going to be a busy day with Katie as an usher at the 8:30 service for confirmation points, I will be working at cleaning the house as it needs it and Uncle Bruce is coming to stay tomorrow. I will be running 4 miles for my training, I have quite a bit of laundry to washing, dry and fold and then tonight, I get to a Bunco party. Sounds like a full day!

heading south

In less than an hour, our family plans on heading south to visit Saint James and my lovely Momma, Vivian Grace Blomgren for the day. I'm so excited to see her and hear all the news of home.

Update:
It's now Sunday morning and we got to see Grandma B! We arrived around noon, had a lovely lunch of homemade beef roast and root vegetables, some taco salad (my favorite) and fresh veggies. For dessert we were treated to Grandmas Special K bars and some new no bake cookies.

During the afternoon, we gave her one last Christmas gift, her new Best Grandma mug, Osten read his newly written story about a fight with monkeys to grandma, Katie read a book and Brad and I visited with Grandma. We got her squared away on her CD player, got a hand vacuum charging and also went through a whole bunch of papers from Dad's hospitalizations. It felt good. Then we visited the soon to be closing Shopko in town and went out for an early dinner at McDonalds.

  

We left St. James at 6pm, stopped for a new stove thermometer at Fleet Farm and at Family Fresh for some whole milk to make yogurt.

Made the yogurt and watched a little Emperor's New Groove and then off to bed.

deathcicles descend

With our crazy crazy weather--heavy snow, brilliant sun, extremely cold temperatures and ice, the homes and businesses here in River Falls have developed some pretty impressive what Brad calls "deathsicles".

We closed on the second street property yesterday. Brad and I met there for a lunch of BLTs during my lunch break from school when I noticed the building next door had a lovely display of deathsicles so I snapped a photo:

I also snapped some photos of the new property without the professional photography. This will be a fun adventure.

 main office area

 kitchen

 conference room

 laundry room

 upstairs office 1

 upstairs office 2 (deathsicles out this window)

upstairs office 3 (faces 2nd street)

happy Valentine's Day!

Tonight, I got home from school and found Anders was at the basketball game playing pep band, Katie was at Afton Alps with ski club so Brad, Osten and I went to Juniors to celebrate Valentines Day.

I had a nice bouquet from my valentine

and here is a photo of the cookies I made and we ate on Tuesday to celebrate the special occasion

I received a special valentine from Mom...I'm the luckiest woman on the planet.

right now it's 10 degrees

It's a beautiful winter morning and when I asked Alexa, she said, right now it's 10 degrees. A high of 23 degrees is expected.

Today we have school! We have missed 7 days of regularly scheduled school so far this year. We just counted that we have 76 days of school left this year ;).

breakfast in bed for our 13 year old

On this lovely snow day, Katie reminded me we had not done her birthday breakfast in bed, so she ordered her food and I satisfied her request. So fun!

first day of training and all signed up for the cinco de Mayo race in Eau Claire!

This morning, I woke at 5 to run with my friends, Sara and Abby as they are joining me in training for the Eau Claire half marathon on May 5th. Shortly after waking, the phone rang to let me know I have another day at home with a snow day. I know Katie and Osten are thrilled, but Anders and I are ready to be back at school.

The run was tough with snow/ice on our trail, but exhilarating at the same time. It took us almost 45 minutes to cover 3 miles...I'm hoping our pace can improve, but it's still fun to run with friends and have a common goal.

Here is a photo of Kim and I finishing the 2009 race for a motivator to keep going ;).

and the beauty continues...

we are currently under a winter weather advisory and have steady light snowfall. According to weather underground, at the Hamilton addition here in River Falls, the snow cover is 3.7 inches. This is a winter wonderland...

I'm going to wait until 5:30 when it's supposed to stop snowing to shovel

a little update on the day

So far, Katie has won a game and lost a game. I am back in River Falls, updating our blog and then will head to see her last game.

2019 WIAA Boys Division 1 Sectional Rhinelander hosting at UW Stevens Point

Event 2 Boys 200 Medley Relay
River Falls in 5th with a time of 1:51.71 seconds--they took 4 1/2 seconds off their best time

5 River Falls                                       1:56.30    1:51.71  
     1) Shawn Derks FR                  2) Anders Olson JR                
     3) Seth Larsen JR                  4) Nate Lawrence JR           

Anders, Nate, Seth and Shawn 4th team from right getting their 5th place recognition

Event 4 Boys 200 Yard IM
Anders placed 7th with a time of 2:24.34--he took 2 seconds off his best time

7 Anders Olson              JR River Falls          2:26.40    2:24.34 

Anders is second from the left

Event 9 Boys 200 Yard Freestyle relay

The River Falls team placed 4th with a time of 1:37.15--they took 1/2 second off their best time

4 River Falls                                       1:37.69    1:37.15  
     1) Seth Larsen JR                  2) Anders Olson JR                
     3) Nate Lawrence JR                4) Connor Baar SO    

here's Anders getting ready to jump into the pool, bright blue swim cap

Here is the team getting their 4th place award on the podium (3rd team from left)

Event 11 Boys 100 Yard Breaststroke 

Anders placed 5th with a time of 1:07.81 2 1/2 seconds faster than his fastest time this season 

 5 Anders Olson              JR River Falls          1:10.49    1:07.81  

Here's a photo of him during his race

 

Here's a cool new tee shirt he can wear after the weekend. 

So proud of you Anders for your hard work-you had the best meet of the whole year when it really counted. Way to go! It looked like you were also really enjoying the whole experience.

Now it's off to see Katie in her game. Hopefully I will have good  stuff to report after that ;)

Katie's team won two games and lost one--

Here's the 7th and 6th grade teams who faced one another in the last game of the evening:

Katie's #32

driving to Stevens Point, up north and here in River Falls

Today, the Olson 5 are scattering in a few different directions. Anders is already in Stevens Point, Wisconsin--traveled with the high school team there last night (thankfully we had school!) for sectional swimming. Brad and Osten drove up to Grantsburg last night where they will be participating in an ice fishing contest on Big Wood Lake. Katie and I spent the night in River Falls where we watched some fun movies and fell asleep on the couch. I made my way to my comfy bed, but Katie is still sacked out on the couch.

In about 30 minutes, after showering, I will depart for Stevens Point to watch Anders in his potentially last meet of the season--hoping he does well and can qualify for state next weekend (fingers crossed). Katie will stay here in River Falls and will be playing three games of basketball at our home tournament. She has rides from friends planned so should be covered. I'll be calling throughout the day to make sure she is doing ok.

When the day is done, I hope to put in a full report of a wonderful day of experiences in different directions.

day 6 no school

Right after school on Wednesday, I got home and was snuggled in on the couch cutting some geography materials out of lamination and got the call from superintendent Jamie Benson--due to heavy snow and dangerous wind chills, there will be no school on Thursday, February 7. The 6th day of school called in the past 2 weeks. It's been quite a journey, that's for sure!

let it snow let it snow let it snow

On weather underground, it's saying we currently have a snow cover of 7.1 inches and are expected to have another inch of snow before 8:45 this evening. Brad is planning a family shoveling party tonight. 

Looks like we have another snowstorm heading our way Wednesday/Thursday. This has been quite a winter!

Here is a photo posted by a friend in RF...it is quite beautiful.

5th day of no school

5am this morning, we got a call from Superintendent Benson saying that schools would be delayed two hours. About two hours later, we got another call saying that we would have no school today.

The kids are pretty pumped, but I have to say, it would be really great to have school again!

In that one day of school we did have in the past week, here is a photo of an event Osten got to participate in at Westside Elementary.

He's in the center with the black shirt.

Hudson Wisconsin has a hot air balloon event every February and the organizers came over to Westside to help promote the event to children at Westside. Looks pretty cool to me!

sprouts

Our grow lights have been put into commission and they are making some salad greens grow here in our living room. So fun to see some growth in these cold winter days.

brc meet

The Wildcats swam yesterday against some very strong squads. Anders wasn't feeling amazing so really struggled with his times. He gained 7 seconds on his IM time. His 200 free relay did place 6th so that was good, but he sat out his 100 breast because he was feeling unwell.

I am proud of his willingness to give it a try though.

The heater went out in the High School pool so this week, he's heading to Hudson to practice in preparation for Sectionals next weekend in Stevens Point. I will be driving over next Saturday morning and hope I will also get a chance to go see him the following weekend at state. We shall see...

 he't the swimmer standing in the center of the pool deck

 lane 7

take your mark (lane 7) in the 200IM

back to school and life again

It was wonderful to get back to school and regular schedules on Friday. Great to see the kids and had a great music lesson from an amazing guest educator from MacPhail Center for Music (who also happens to be a classroom parent, Beka Butter Grathwol). Prepared for UW River Falls classes in my room and then out to dinner with Brad and Osten at Buffalo Wild Wings. Anders had a pasta party for his swim team and Katie was at another sleepover at her friend Mya's house.

Today we are heading to Hudson to pick up Katie and then also see Anders compete in the conference swim meet.

Go WILDCATS!