51 years

Bud and Betty Olson were wedded in holy matrimony 51 years ago today. It's been quite a journey and now there is a family of three children, three in law children and nine grandchildren. Happy happy anniversary.

gorgeous day at Valley Fair

Today I spent a very special morning and afternoon with Anders, Katie, Osten and Katie's friend, Stella. We drove to Shakopee to play at Valley Fair. Anders had to work at 4 and we ran into pretty major traffic driving through so he ended up being late. I hope he still will go to things with me...I love spending time with him.

We arrived shortly after the park opened and went our separate ways (Katie and Stella) (Anders, Osten and I). Anders did separate from Osten and I as we wanted to spend time at the water park and he wanted to ride the coasters.

Osten and I had fun floating in the lazy river and then racing down water slides. I spent some time getting the last rays of the summer sun. Anders did join us when he finished riding the coasters.

We met up with Katie and Stella and then drove home to River Falls. Anders got to DQ and the rest of us went out for China Moon buffet. We picked up Osten's buddy Coulter and watched the Wildcats play the Onalaska Hilltoppers. The Wildcats scored the first touchdown but ended up losing 28-21. There were some really exciting parts of the game, Osten was able to do a little scrimmage during the half time portion of the game and the final score wasn't really what we wanted, but we still had a great time at the game.

Now we're home and will soon collapse after a full day of sun and fun.

birthday party feeding starving children

Katie's lifelong friend, Quinn just celebrated her 14th birthday. Her party was held at a Feed My Starving Children meal packing location. After the group of girls packed food, they visited the Drive Inn Theater in Woodbury and had a sleepover. Katie had some great times with good friends.

preparing the environment

Part of being a Montessorian is making sure your classroom is beautiful, organized and inviting for children to learn. I haven't snapped any photos of our new learning space yet, but it has been a lot of fun working with Michelle, Jessie, Petra and Lynn to get our classroom ready for students on Tuesday, September 3.

happy birthday Betty Jean!

Happy birthday to a wonderful Momma, grandmother and mother in law...may your year be filled with everything good.

first day of teacher workshop

This morning, my friend Maggie and I met at 5:30 to go for a nice walk before we started our first day of the 2019-2020 school year at teacher training. I didn't take a photo like brother Kyle and sister in law Kim did for their first days of school, but I will get a photo next week when I welcome back my students on Wednesday, September 4.

At our training we got to know one another better and then were released to work in our classrooms. We spent hours unloading boxes and doing some repackaging for things  we don't envision using in our classrooms this school year. It's a great time to take inventory and see if we really need all the items that we packed last May/June.

Now I'm making some meatloaf and will print out Katie's 4H records so she can spend some dedicated time at completing them before they are due on Friday.

the wedding of Sharyl and Mike

On Saturday, Brad, Osten, Katie and I journeyed to Half Moon Lake near Evelyth, Minnesota to see our friend, Sharyl marry her Junior High crush Mike. It was a lovely ceremony that was officiated by our mutual friend Mike N.

We dined, danced and had a lot of fun watching a couple declare there life long commitment to one another.

last official day of my summer vacation

Yesterday morning dawned and I got the opportunity to spend the day with my two youngest children. Our first stop was the Walker Art Center Sculpture garden

We saw beautiful sculptures, walked across the I94 bridge to Loring Park

Admired the famous spoon and cherry sculpture

Caught a glimpse of my new favorite sculpture (I also purchased a t-shirt with image of the sculpture)

Then we ate lunch at the Smack Shack eating some Lobster Poutine and macaroni and cheese. 

Next stop was the Minnesota History Museum where we saw the history of First Avenue with dancing on a disco stage, meeting a favorite artist named Lizzo (or her image I should say)

ordered and made some ice cream at the soda shop, endured a tornado in the weather section, took apart a bison in the Native American exhibit, walked through a sod house, went up in an airplane on D-Day and found the country of Iceland on a world map. Spending time with these two are tops for me!

bootcamp week

Anders has been very busy this summer with marching band preparation. This week, he spent four hours per day and on Friday, he spent seven hours at a workshop with a professional and did some research on his role.

Here are some photos that I lifted from another website:

my helper

My sweet Katie has been a big helper in getting the classroom prepared. I treated her to lunch at Mariachi for helping me on Wednesday.

flag football starting for Osten and our amazing Trenton Anders is 12!

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, Osten spent time running drills for a new season of River Falls Youth Football. Go Wildcats!

Happy 12th birthday on the 21st to our terrific nephew and Godson Trenton Anders!

settling in

The past two days I have spent some time in my new classroom space doing some directing and organizing. I'm really excited to get things set up with my co-teacher, Michelle and our Chinese teacher for the first half of the year, Jessie.

Tomorrow we plan on putting shelves where they think they might be during the year and maybe even getting a start on opening some of those boxes...

Here is an outside photo of the building:

h h h h h h hen dog hen dog is 11

Happy 11th birthday to our witty and winsome Henry Loren Quintana. 11 looks good on you!

Yaking down the Kinni

On Sunday, I went kayaking with my dear friend, Julie Annette. We borrowed friend, Angie's kayak, used my kayak and journeyed down the Kinnikinnic river--putting in at about 3pm and getting out about 6pm.

We endured a few mishaps as I didn't prepare Julie for the speed of the water, but we made it back home and went out for a nice dinner at Juniors.

Thank you soul sister for being up for any adventure!