We've arrived in Bismarck!

We got to Bismarck August 18th so Rich could start at his new NWS office Aug. 19th. We can't close on our new house until Sept. 9th (arghhh) because the appraisal's are so backed up, so we are staying at the Candlewood Suites...all 6 of us, the 2 dogs, and Perry the fish. We have 2 rooms, which helps, but are already going a little stir crazy. Thank goodness for the hotel pool! The kids have been swimming at least twice a day every day. Matt started tennis practice with the high school team...the tennis team is 7th through 12th grades. There are 2 7th graders, a ninth grader, and high school boys on the team. He loves it though, and is learning quite a bit already. Luckily, the season is only a month long since the nice weather doesn't last long in the fall! The kids start school Thursday Aug. 27th. Tyler and Matt both have their schedules, and Ben talked to his teacher on the phone a few days ago. Rich has a couple of days off so we decided to head over to Grandpa Jim's to get ourselves out of the hotel. The wheat is all golden and ripe and they are starting to combine. It's a great time to be here..it's so cool to see all the combines in the fields!

Rich's going away celebration

The guy in the red shirt is Rod...I think he looks just like Heidi's brother Craig :)! (He's in the pic above and below)

Fusilli Rich

The NWS office in Des Moines had a going away lunch buffet and North Dakota slide show for Rich last week. They gave him a big Hawkeye duffle bag full of candy, since he eats it all the time on shift. Jim and his wife made him a "Fusilli Rich", fashioned after "Fusilli Jerry" on Seinfeld :). He will miss all the guys down there, they all had a great time working together. His first day up in Bismarck was August 19th...so far so good!!

Happy Birthday Grandma and Don!

We celebrated Grandma Cathy (Aug. 22) and Don's (Aug. 9) birthday last weekend with a cream cake, balloons, cards and gifts...and a fabulous steak dinner! Tyler's friends ate dinner with us since we were leaving for North Dakota the next day. Don built a fantastic deck in their backyard...it looks great!

Typhoid Mary

How could this sweet little face be so virulent LOL? Grace threw up most of Saturday night and into Sunday morning. She also had a fever and was really lethargic. By Monday noon she was feeling much better so (as I said earlier) we decided to make the trip to Minneapolis Tuesday morning. When we left to come home Thursday morning, Andrew had thrown up overnight and Jeff and Linda weren't feeling well. Apparently Alex threw up last night, and today Matt is feverish and has a stomach ache. And just now Ben came to me saying his head hurt and he didn't feel well. I don't know how it would be possible for Grace to have shared her lovely illness since it was gone when we got there, but it's awfully coincedental that everyone got sick afterwards. :(
Sorry family if it was us, I feel terrible about that!

On a side note, Miss Sunshine helped me make brownies this morning and wanted to wear my old plastic Raggedy Ann apron I had when I was little :). I still remember wearing it and the little blue plastic cookie cutter that went in the pocket!

Fun family visit to Minneapolis!

The above pic was stolen from Heidi's blog :). This was before Grace and I got there...it's such a cute pic!! (click on any pic to make it bigger!)

Grace at the American Girl store

Aang from Avatar doing Kung-Fu moves with the kids :)
Kim and Jeff on the scary Sponge Bob roller coaster that went straight up....and straight down! They are in the back on the right.

Ethan and Ben. They are only 3 months apart and are such good buddies!
Noah giving Matt the 'Spidey' hands
Plugging their ears while the train goes by. There is a train track right behind Linda's house...the kids got a kick out of watching them whiz by.
Matt and Andrew
Grace and Lexi...the only girl cousins. Grace ADORES Lexi!!

Grandma Cathy, Matt and Ben went up to Linda's on Monday for our annual Watt/Beck/O'Brien/Peterson gathering. I decided to stay home since Grace was throwing up w/a fever Sat. & Sunday and still felt kind of crummy Monday morning. Rich had to work and Tyler decided to stay home and hang out with his friends since we're moving soon. Joel, Heidi and the boys were there too. By Monday afternoon Grace was feeling better and we were sad that we were missing out on all the fun, so Tuesday morning we drove up to join the crowd. We all had such a fun time! The kids all have such a great time together. We hung out Tuesday and Wednesday we went to the Mall of America. The kids rode some rides and we shopped a bit. Grace got to go to the American Girl store and oh my, was she in heaven! She could have come out of there spending thousands I'm sure, it's such a fun place. We came home today and now several of the group are feeling sick....I hope it wasn't Grace that gave it to them, but I think she was totally better by the time we got there. Hopefully!

Rafael Nadal

Matt played in a tennis tournament last weekend. He played in 4 matches and was bushed by the end of the night. He won 1 and lost 2 in singles play, and he and his friend lost in a doubles match. He's getting pretty good! He wants to play tennis in Bismarck on the school team (they have fall tennis), so he's been getting some good practice.

Lemonade Stand

I forgot to post this pic with the Eli/Noah visit pictures. The kids had a lemonade stand the last day they were here. They didn't have many sales but they had a great time! Thanks to Grandma for making the lemonade and Don for assembling the cool sign!