Tim the turtle and cheerleading

This is a video of the girls cheering....it's cute!  Grace is the one in the middle...her friend Mary is on her left and friend Zoey is on the right end. 

The neighbors found a turtle in our yard, and the kids all named him Tim.  He was pretty good sized...maybe 8 inches long.  I think he was a Western Painted Turtle.  We kept him in a bin for a couple days, then let him go in the canal. 

Tuesday Grandma and Don came through and stayed with us for a few days on their way up to Canada.  We had a lot of fun!  We went to Grace's cheerleading practice, Grandma did lots of my laundry for me :), Don and Rich did a couple projects, and we went to some garage sales.  We are keeping Belle for them while they are gone...she blends right in with our dogs!  They'll be back through on Thursday to pick her up and catch Matt's tennis match.  Speaking of tennis, Matt won his first match!  He and his teammate Scott won 2 doubles matches in a tournament in Fargo.  Very exciting...and thanks to Uncle Joel for the sideline coaching and cheering on!
Today was Grace's first official cheerleading game.  She's cheering for the Bismarck Midget football league.  It was really cute!

Labor Day in Daglum

The kids and I spent Labor Day at Grandpa's over in Daglum with Joel & Heidi and the boys.  We watched the Iowa game, redecorated Grandpa's house, went to church, went to Wal-Mart a couple of times, took Matt driving to practice for his permit, and spent lots of time exploring.  The weather was perfect and the kids had a great time!  A few pics:

Entryway makeover

I think our entryway is finally done!  New paint, new laminate floor, new decorations and new hall tree.  Yay!
Before:

Newly painted.  Old floor removed, moisture coming in under door :S.  Got that all caulked and dried up...storm door ordered.

New laminate in!

And after:

First day of school

Yesterday (the 25th) was the first day of school for Matt, Ben and Grace.  B & G were really excited, they met their teachers early and they both really like them.  Matt was stressed out to start 9th grade, but he found lots of his friends in his classes and seems to like his teachers, so I think he'll do fine.  Tennis started up again for him...tonight they played Williston.  The days get pretty long for him between school and tennis.  He's happy todays Friday :)). 

The monkeys in the tree

We took a family zoo trip the day before we left for Iowa, and got a good shot of the weird monkeys in the big tree.  Crazy, crazy monkeys.

Tyler goes to college

We took a trip down to Iowa last week to take Tyler to college.  How is that possible?!  He was just born, right?  He was super excited to finally get there and get classes started.  He likes his classes so far, so that's good.  His roommate is from China, so I think he was a little bit apprehensive about that at first (the language barrier), but they have gotten along great so far!  He speaks pretty good English and he has the same major as Tyler (political science), so I'm sure they'll have some classes together next semester.  Tyler's girlfriend Rachel is at Iowa, as well as some of his Ankeny friends, so I know he'll fit right in.                                                            

                                           Tyler and Rachel  in Tyler's dorm room

                                            



Tyler's dorm room door.

Rachel, Xu, and Tyler :)

Visit to Moorhead and Saturday fishing

Last weekend the kids, Grandpa Jim and I went over to Joel and Heidi's for a fun weekend.  Saturday Heidi took the kids to her nephew Austin's birthday party, and Joel, Matt, Grandpa and I went the the Hjemkomst Heritage Center.  They have a full-sized Viking ship inside, and a full-sized reproduction Stave church out back.  We found out that this particular church is a reproduction of an actual Stave church from Vik, Norway...the same village Great-Grandpa Halvor Peterson came from in 1900.  Very cool!  Also, we found out that our tour guide Lyle has a daughter that lives in Ankeny.  And his son-in-law happens to be the pastor that baptized Eli and Noah.  Crazy small world.  In the afternoon Heidi, Matt and I went shopping.  We found some fun things at the Antique Mall.  The cousins had a great time together too <3. 

Tonight, Rich and I took the little kids fishing at a small ND Wildlife pond near the prison.  That's right, the prison.  Each of the kids finally caught one fish....they just weren't biting tonight. 

Grace was quite proud of her little guy!

Tomorrow Tyler is driving home from Iowa.  We're excited to have him back!  Then Thursday we're leaving at midnight to head back to Iowa and take him to college.  Scary and sad and exciting all at the same time :).