More birthday pictures

My cousin Marc.
Macy and Amanda.
Here is the youngest generation that came. Macy, Daniel, my cousin Wiren's daughter, Susanna, my niece, Amanda, and my cousin's son, Andrew.
Here's the middle generation that came. Me, along with my cousins,

Wayne, Cheri, Marc and Wiren Dale. It was windy along the prairie!
This is still the middle generation but now we've added in-laws as well. It was really fun to see and visit with cousins that I haven't seen for quite a while. We hosted a family reunion on our farm 3 years ago and being with them again made me realize we need to try to get together and keep in touch more often! I wonder who will host the next reunion?? Curt??

Happy 80th Birthday, Uncle Harold!

On Sunday, August 17th, we travelled to Freeman, South Dakota, to celebrate my uncle's 80th birthday. It was a gorgeous day for a celebration and a great place for a celebration. They held the party at the arboretum which has a beautiful new community center.
My cousins Cheri and Wiren (or Dale as he's known in New York).
My Aunt Deanna and Uncle Eldean who traveled to the celebration from Mt. Lake.
My Uncle Harold and Aunt Irene. My uncle is wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt.

I guess he and Mickey were both born in 1928!
My mom and dad who made the trip with us. We kept grandma and grandpa entertained with movies in the van on the drive over!

Yes, even more pictures

The instructors told the kids about a game where you use flags to eliminate hand or foot holds. It provides quite the challenge to still be able to climb up the wall to a certain point. They had a great time out-doing each other as the game progressed and more and more holds were taken out.
Look at all those flags! Poor Logan, he tried!
Cory's next.
I think Macy's done.... climing is exhausting and they were all so sore by the end they could hardly move. We made a pit stop at a gas station for water and gatorade and they could hardly open the bootles themselves!

And more...

Having supportive ground crew is important. Since he's not in the pictures, I think they were watching Cory climb. I bet they made helpful comments, too...
After climbing in their street shoes, the instructors offered special climbing shoes and the kids said they made a big difference. Aren't they snazzy looking? They reminded me of bowling shoes, just not as colorful.
Macy and Emma climbing.
Cory tries the shorter, more challenging wall. The instructors said he could do this wall but had to have a "spotter". Guess who was spotting him?? Do you think he would have really broken Cory's fall??
Macy made it to the ledge!

More Rock Climbing Pics

Macy scales the wall..
Emma's on her way to the top!
Looks like hard work! Glad Teri and I were comfortable on the bench!
Emma gets the hang of walking back down the wall better than the other kids did the first time! Way to go, Emma! Spiderman couldn't have done it better!
Logan is pretty proud that he got to the ledge. Now to get back down...

A Cool Adventure

Teri suggested that the four friends, Macy, Emma, Logan and Cory, try their hand at rock-climbing at a community center in Albert Lea. We left St. James early enough to stop at Applebees for supper and what follows are silly pictures that the kids took of themselves with my camera. I was hoping to get "nice" pictures of them but of course they wouldn't cooperate! That's ok, I'm used to it from my own kids. I left my camera at their table knowing they would take funny pictures of themselves and the others. I love digital - deleting is so easy!!

After supper had a chance to settle a bit, we found the community center and were shown into the gym were the rock climbing wall was. There were two instructors, Tim and Travis, and they were really nice and patient with the kids. Here's Emma and Macy getting their gear on.
Logan and Cory suit up also.
Logan was the first to go up and he made it to the top and rang the bell!

Kitties

Please accept my apologies. We've never been parents to kittens before and we think they are absolutely adorable and everything they do is absolutely adorable! Here are a couple of the hundreds of pictures that Macy took of them the other day.

Mike and Amanda

My brother, Curt and his wife, Jennie went on a vacation to upper Michigan and their kids, Mike and Amanda, stayed in St. James with grandma and grandpa and their favorite aunt, Shirley!
On Sunday, August 10, I took Mike, Amanda, Daniel, and two friends of ours, Morgan and Maren, to the water park in Sleepy Eye. We'd never been there before and had a lot of fun going off the high diving board, down the body slide, down the bigger slide and playing in the little kids area. We will definitely go back there again!

A close up of Macy's medal from the tournament. This trounament was a test of endurance as much as it was a test of tennis skills. It was unbearably hot that day. They did a great job of not letting it get them down. I missed much of the final match because Emily called to tell me her car had died while she was trying to drive her roommate, Erin, back to Sioux Falls for her parents to pick her up. I hopped into the van to drive home to talk to John about what we were going to do about getting the girls back home again. He went to a local repair shop to talk to them and they brought the car back to St. James on a flat bed trailer. Emily continued on to Sioux Falls with the van so she could get Erin to her parents as planned and all was well. The repair shop diagnosed a transmition problem but John decided to try replacing the alternator. It seemed to work and the car hasn't died on her yet!

Another Tennis Tournament

This one was held on Saturday, August 9th and it was a double tournament. This is a picture of Macy's friend, Cory, who played in the tournament with another friend, Logan. I like the fact that I'm finally able to get shots of the kids as they are hitting the ball. I use the continous shooting mode on my camera as suggested by "the guy" at Best Buy. I think I like this guy a lot for recommending I use this setting for sports pictures. For some reason, the sport setting on my Fuji just didn't take the picture fast enough to actually catch the action. (I ask you, so what is the sport setting for, Fuji?? Hmmm???)
Macy's friend, Logan. Notice how his feet AREN'T touching the court!! Ha!! I think the shadow is neat, too. Sure, I'm taking three pictures for every one shot I actually want but with the magic of digital, I can delete the pictures I don't want. I am burning up a lot of battery power doing this but they're rechargable.
Sandra, Macy's doubles partner for the tournament.
The winners of the tournament. Second place winners are on the left and first place is one the right. Yes, Macy and her partner, Sandra, won first place!
Way to go girls! Good job of playing tennis on a very, very hot and humid day!

More birthday pictures

Emily
Emily and Grandma and Grandpa Ratzlaff
Emily and mom
Emily and Erin
Emily and Macy

20 years old on 8-8-08

Emily's got the neatest birthdate in the world!

She was born on 8-8-88.

So that means on 8-8-08, she turned 20 years old! It's incredible to think that she has been around for 20 whole years! Not even a teenager anymore. I'm so proud of the person she is. I'm amazed at her courage, strength and caring. Love ya, Em!
This is Emily and her college roommate, Erin. Emily metErin and her mom in Sioux Falls on Friday so Erin could spend the night and celebrate Em's birthday with us. The girls got along really well last year and they will be rooming together again this year. I took Emily, Erin, Macy and Emily's boyfriend, Johnny, to Bergen for supper. It was fabulous! as usual. They make the best steak, fish, chicken anywhere around! Definitely worth the drive and the wait. Although for a Friday night, we were able to just walk in and sit at a booth. Pretty unusual. We were actually disappointed that we couldn't sit on the deck!