Finally into 2014!

I always have in the back of my mind that *someday* I will be caught up on getting our family photos online.  I'm not sure why it matters to me, since I'm the only one who really cares that they're there, captions and all, but it does.  It's the closest thing I have to a photo album these days and I'd like to get it captioned while I still remember what everything is. :)

Anyway, I've managed to get another 3 months done - Dec 2013, Jan and Feb 2014.  Yay!

Our "fierce" wrestlers

In the Nov-Dec 2013 album, the December pics include:

• The boys' performances at the OLP Parish Christmas Concert and the school's Christmas pageant
• Decorating for Christmas
• The Christmas holiday festivities

In the Jan-Feb 2014 album, the pictures include:

• Cub Scouts: Pinewood Derby and Polar Camp
• Zach and Alex's first wrestling tournament and their team pictures
• Celebrating Zach and Alex's birthday - a family celebration (also for Grandma's birthday) and an awesome party at Triple Play Sports
• Celebrating Cole's birthday
• Other misc photos - reading time, clearing snow, a talent show at school, etc

A few more to share

Our favorite Maverick!

I'm still plugging away at getting the family pictures up into Flickr to share.  The latest to the site are pictures from October and November of 2013.

In the Sept-Oct 2013 album, the October pictures include:

• Missing teeth
• Family Day at MSU
• A visit from Grandfather Dan
• Cole's band concert at MSU
• The Space Derby at the Cub Scout Pack Meeting
• Halloween

In the Nov-Dec 2013 album, the November pictures include:

• Karen and Joe's night out at the Taste of the Vikings
• Cole's Jazz band concert at MSU
• Celebrating Thanksgiving with family in Chicago

Hey, only a year behind on pictures...

So proud of our college graduate!

Well, things got busy again (surprise, surprise), so it took me forever to get another two months' photos uploaded to Flickr but the August and September 2013 photos are finally up.

In the July-Aug 2013 album, the August pictures include:

• A visit to the Vikings Training Camp in Mankato, MN, where we watched practice and Zach and Alex got to run drills on the field
• Moving Day for Cole as he moved into his dorm at MN State Mankato to start his freshman year
• Cub Scout Pack Camp, which was a "stellar" experience
• Fun at the MN State Fair

In the Sept-Oct 2013 album, the September pictures include:

• A belated birthday celebration for Papa
• Zach and Alex's first day of 2nd grade
• A very special day celebrating a huge achievement for Joe: his college graduation
• Family fun at the MN Zoo

Here's hoping it doesn't take another 7.5 months to get another couple months of photos done. :)

More photos posted - June and July

The photos from June and July 2013 have finally been uploaded.

At Cole's high school graduation

In the May-June 2013 album, the June pictures include: Joe's birthday, Cub Scout Rockets, Cole's high school graduation, Vacation Bible School, Squirts baseball (coach-pitch) and the Marriage Encounter group's camping weekend.

In the July-Aug 2013 album, the July pictures include: the 4th of July celebrated with friends; BBQ Days with the 5K and Kids Fun Run, parade and carnival; Z&A learning to ride bikes without training wheels; the Scott County Fair and demolition derby; and a great day at the park.

Cole as George Gibbs in "Our Town"

We also added a great picture from May, a picture of Cole that was in the Hopkins newspaper from his performance as George Gibbs in Hopkins High's production of "Our Town"

Catching up

The massive amount of photos to sort through from our last two big trips (Disney last Nov and Hawaii in May) got me really far behind on all of our normal family pics. I'm slowly working my way through all of them and am finally caught up through the end of May, plus a couple of fun events this summer!

Scouts and their Den Leader at the Pinewood Derby

Jan-Feb 2013 - Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby, Polar Camp, Blue and Gold banquet and a TV station tour, Cole's Honor Band performance (with video!), his Senior Pops Concert and Cole's 18th birthday
Zach and Alex's 7th birthday - birthday dinner at Osaka and a birthday party at the bowling alley!
Mar-Apr 2013 - a Spring Break trip to the zoo with a friend, Easter fun, and more Scout events including the recognition Zach and Alex got for earning their Light of Christ pins and religious emblems, community service on the City-wide Clean Up day and other fun Pack activities

Cole performs a solo at Hot Club

May-June 2013 - Just has May pictures for now - crazy kids driving the lawn mower, Cole's final high school band concert and Mother's Day brunch
Muckfest MS 2013 - Joe and I got mucky with some friends for the Nat'l MS Society, running a crazy muddy 5 mile obstacle course!

Crossing the finish line together at Muckfest

OLP Ladies Pilgrimage -Karen joined some lovely ladies from church on a pilgrimage and retreat in Eastern WI.

With the addition of the Scout pictures listed above, the Tiger Scouts album is complete with the full set of pictures from the various activities Zach and Alex did as Tiger Scouts

Our Super (Mario) Bros.

A family vacation and the holidays caused me to get behind on the photos, so I'm finally getting around to finishing up October and starting November.

The Scouts at the 1890's school

Zach, Alex and the rest of their Scout Den had a fun field trip (known as a "Go See It") to a historic place called The Landing (formerly known as Murphy's Landing for those in MN). The park has historic homes and buildings from the 1850's-1890's to show how settlers in the area lived at the time. The Scouts got a taste of what family and school life would have been like for them - no video games or electricity! They all had a lot of fun.

Luigi and Mario

For Halloween, they dressed up as Mario and Luigi from the Super Mario Bros. game, an idea they came up with all on their own (so cute!). They were excited to be dressed up for school all day. After school, they went trick-or-treating at the local businesses downtown and scored a huge amount of candy.

In other news, Alex was soooo excited to finally lose his first tooth! It bugged him that Zach lost his much earlier, so we were all happy for him when it was time for the Tooth Fairy to visit. Just like Zach, the Tooth Fairy gave Alex a set of gold coins for his special first tooth.

Check out the Sept-Oct 2012 album and the Nov-Dec 2012 album to see these pics and a few more, as well as some videos of Cole practicing his trombone for us. :)

School days

Ready for 1st grade!

As usual, September means that school is beginning again. This year, Cole is in his (gasp!) senior year in high school, and Zach and Alex started 1st grade at the Catholic school in our parish. I don't think Cole would be overjoyed at having pictures taken on his first day of school, but fortunately for me, Zach and Alex still are - so we took pictures of them as they went off to the bus stop. :)

Sept was a bit of a tough month for Zach, who suffered a broken collarbone when he got tackled in flag football.  Grandma Pat happened to catch some of the aftermath on camera, and in addition to the pain poor Zach suffered, the pictures show a moment of brotherly love as Alex helps comfort Zach as they leave the field.  Fortunately, the injury didn't slow Zach down much and he's right back to his energetic self.

Along with these pictures, the Sept-Oct 2012 album includes a fun day at our church's annual Fall Festival fundraiser and the Raingutter Regatta races at the October Cub Scouts Pack meeting (hence, the kids in costume), along with some other odds and ends - including some videos of Z&A reading and Papa playing the accordion!

Also, I've added a couple new photos to the Basement album showing the work I did on the basement bathroom - a new tile floor and wainscoting on the walls. Slowly but surely, it's getting done!

Scouting fun

Alex and Zach with Den Leader Mommy

We had a couple of fun Cub Scouts events in August - a camping trip with the Pack and a day camp specifically geared towards Tiger Cubs (first graders).

The Pack camping trip was the first "real" camping trip for Zach and Alex, spending the night in a tent somewhere other than in our backyard. They, and the rest of the Scouts from Pack 324 who attend, had a fantastic time. We did some canoeing, did some geocaching while we were out on a hike, made pizzas and s'mores on the fire, played some games and just had lots of fun. Z&A can't wait for the next camping trip - they're hooked!

A week later, they and two other friends from their Tiger Cub den attended a one-day camp geared just for kids their age. They did all sorts of fun activities while earning some of the achievements towards their Tiger badges, but I think their favorite activity was archery. They were so excited to try out the bows and arrow!

The pictures from these activities have been added to the July-Aug 2012 album. I also have a Tiger Scouts album to show all the fun activities they're doing in this year of Scouting (I'm having a lot of fun as the boys' Den Leader!)

Look out PGA!

Alex and Zach get golf lessons

At the suggestion of a friend, Zach and Alex took a series of golf lessons at the local country club with their friends (and fellow "double trouble") Jack and Ted. They had a blast learning how to putt, chip and drive over a five week period - so much so that they begged us to buy clubs for them, which they are frequently seen using in the backyard with wiffle balls. I took a few pictures from their first session and posted them in the July-Aug 2012 album.

Papa blows out the candles
 on his birthday pie

Also in the album are pictures from Papa's birthday, where we of course celebrated with the customary birthday pie. Never heard of birthday pie? Well, when you're the birthday boy, you get to pick your treat, and Papa couldn't resist a homemade raspberry pie - yum!

We celebrated another milestone in July - Zach lost his first tooth!  He was very excited to get a set of special Presidential gold coins for his first tooth (the tooth fairy gave a more "standard" gift of a quarter for his second tooth, which came out a few weeks later).  Alex hasn't lost any yet but has two very wiggly teeth, so we expect another visit from the tooth fairy soon!

A festive(al) weekend

 Zach and Alex at the
BBQ Days parade

The second weekend in July is always a fun-but-busy weekend for us, as both our town and Cole's hometown have their big town festivals that weekend - BBQ Days and the Raspberry Festival, respectively. And starting this year, the big parade for each festival had some of the Vandermark boys in its list of participants.

Saturday was our BBQ Days day. Zach, Alex, Joe and I marched along with the rest of our Cub Scout Pack, handing out freezees to the parade-goers - a very welcome treat on a hot, sticky day! After the parade, we met up with Grandma Pat and Papa Bob at the carnival to have some food and enjoy some rides before Zach, Alex and I had to go work a shift in the Scout's pork chop and corn-on-the-cob stand. Joe spent the day working at the Knights of Columbus' burger and dogs stand. We were definitely worn out at the end of that day!

The next day was a little more relaxing for us but still lots of fun. We went up to watch the Raspberry Festival parade to watch Cole perform with the LMPM pep band from his school. Later that evening, we were back at BBQ Days to watch their famed fireworks, put on by a major pyrotechnics company based in town (they were amazing!).

Check out the fun in the July-Aug photo album, including a video of Cole's band performing (Hi Cole!)!

The boys of summer

Zach and Alex at T-ball

I'm finally catching up on our summer photos, and I've got the pics through the month of June up on the site. June was a great kickoff for summer.

As mentioned in the last post, the boys fired off rockets with the Cub Scouts and we spent a day at the zoo to see dinosaurs with Grandma Pat.
We celebrated Joe's birthday, including a special present where I took him to see Roger Waters perform The Wall, who was in town that night (great show!).
We honored 2 of the best dads I know, Joe and my dad, on Father's Day, a relaxing fun day up at Grandma Pat and Papa Bob's house.
Zach and Alex started their second season of T-ball, this year playing on the Maroon Team.
The carpet was installed in our basement - we have a functional space downstairs! Yay!! :)
Grandma Pat and Papa Bob spent a special day with Zach and Alex, taking them to the Como Town amusement park just to hang out and have fun.

Check out the pics and video clips in the May-June album.

From space-age to prehistoric

Zach and Alex are
ready for rockets!

We took quite a time trip in the last week, starting in the Space Age by shooting off rockets with Cub Scouts and finishing up the week going back in time a mere 65 million years to the Dinosaur era at the MN Zoo.


The Cub Scout rocket launch gave each scout the chance to fire off his rocket twice, and the rockets were flying high on a perfect Saturday morning. Zach and Alex had a blast (ha!) shooting their rockets - they went really high! Zach's rocket had a slight mishap on its second flight - the parachute didn't pop out, so it turned into a nice lawn dart on its return to Earth, burning itself halfway into the ground. Zach thought that was SO cool! :)

Did you stop by for a bite?

We finished the week celebrating the end of the school year joined by Grandma Pat for a trip to one of our favorite places, the Minnesota Zoo, to see the new Dinosaur exhibit. This cool exhibit features animatronic dinosaurs displayed along a trail similar to the other animals at the zoo. It was really neat to see the dinosaurs as they may have looked in life, really giving you perspective of their enormous size.

Check out the pictures (and a couple of video clips of the rocket launch) in the May-June album.

From Lions to Tigers (Scouts)

Alex, Zach and the rest of the new Tiger den

Most of the pictures from the last month are from Cub Scouts events - participating in the city-wide clean up by cleaning up trash at Veterans' Park (on a cold, rainy day!), helping out at a fundraiser dinner, and graduation/rank advancement at the year's final Pack meeting. Zach, Alex and the rest of the Lions Den stood guard during the flag ceremony in their last Lions duties, and then they crossed the bridge to receive their orange Tiger neckerchiefs and the Lions badges they had earned. The boys were SO excited to move up to Tiger Cubs!

The city clean-up pictures are in the March-April 2012 album, while the rest are in the May-June 2012 album.  Also in this album are a couple pictures from Hot Club, the annual Jazz band performance at Cole's school, a highlight for the band members and families alike that is performed at the school in a cabaret-style club.  Cole even performed a trombone solo this year and sounded fantastic!

Easter fun

Alex and Zach: These eggs are
Easter Bunny approved!

Easter weekend is traditionally a weekend of family fun in the Vandermark household, and this year was no different. Zach and Alex started the weekend with an Easter care package from Grandpa Dan and Grandma Marilyn with a bunch of really cool coins from Grandpa's collection and some special Easter baskets from Grandma. Afterwards, we dyed some eggs and made yummy Easter M&M cookies.

On Easter morning, the boys couldn't wait to see if the Easter Bunny had left anything for them in the not one but TWO pairs of buckets they left out. Zach and Alex normally each leave a bucket out, the same ones every year ('cuz the Easter Bunny is all about reusing!), but this year, the boys decided to leave those and the buckets they got from Grandpa Dan and Grandma Marilyn's care package. I guess they thought they'd get more treats that way, and of course, the Easter Bunny obliged by filling all 4. :)

After we celebrated the real meaning of Easter in church, we had a little more fun with an around-the-house egg hunt, where the silver egg is an extra special find. You can find the pictures (as well as a video of the boys talking about the Legos they got from the Easter Bunny) in the March-April album.

Meaghan and Cole

Also in the album is a great picture of Cole and Meaghan, who both looked wonderful on their Prom night!

We've also made some progress on the basement (yeah!). The walls were painted a warm grey with a dark red accent wall where the TV will be. The bathroom was painted the same red and will eventually have some cream wainscoting. The picture in the basement album shows the trim ready to stain (we did that part); that trim is now up so it's time to order the carpet, a patterned mid-tone grey. Can't wait until it's all done!

Jamming to a "Jungle Beat"

Zach and Alex perform with their classmates

The kindergarten classes at Zach and Alex's school put on a Spring program titled "Jungle Beat." Each of the classes was featured for one of the song, performing music about the jungle and the animals who live there. Zach and Alex's class was featured for the title song, "Jungle Beat," using a bunch of percussion instruments for the beat. They did a great job! Video clips and pictures of the performances can be found in the Mar-Apr 2012 album.

Arrgh! We be here to see Pirates!

Also added to the album are pictures from Z&A's spring break, where Zach, Alex and Mommy went all over town having lots of fun. There are pictures from our trip to the Minnesota Zoo and, the big highlight of the week, the trip to the Science Museum to see their special Pirates exhibit, featuring treasures found from a real pirate ship that wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod.

October Fun

Our heroes - Ironman and Spiderman!

October was a month of fun for Zach and Alex. As I mentioned in the last post, it started out with a couple of visits to the Scarecrow Festival. The end of the month was packed with a trip to the circus, seeing one of their favorite cartoons, Phineas and Ferb from the Disney Channel, in a live show, and their first Cub Scout activities - their first Den meeting and their first Pack meeting where they got to race their own rockets in the Pack's Space Derby.

And then there was that little kid-favorite holiday, Halloween. The boys decided to go as superheroes this year; Alex was Spiderman and Zach was Ironman. They had a costume parade at school, went trick-or-treating at the local businesses downtown and later hit a few homes near a friends' house. We even had a special dinner that night, something we were calling Stuffed Jack 'O Peppers, which were quite tasty!

The boys show their
ferocious faces (?) at the zoo

Check out the Sept-Oct 2011 photo album for pics from these events - there are some really good ones in there! You can also check out a visit to the MN Zoo to see the new penguin exhibit after a recent remodel at the zoo in the Nov-Dec 2011 album.



-

School Days

For many families, September means the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year. Cole is an old pro at this routine, starting his junior year in high school. He has taken on a heavy class load this year, with lots of honors and AP classes, as he prepares for college. He's also added another band to his activities, now performing in Pep Band in addition to the Concert and Jazz Bands.

Heading out the door, ready for school

Zach and Alex, on the other hand, began their school careers this year, entering into Kindergarten. They are having a blast at school, and they are doing really well, especially with their letters and numbers. They really like their teacher, Mr. Kampa. We take the boys to school most days, but on Fridays when Daddy works from home, they get to take the school bus. Daddy then joins the class to help out for a few hours - something both he and the class really enjoy.

In addition to school, the Fall season meant lots of activities for Zach and Alex - flag football, joining the Cub Scouts as Lion Cubs, and swim lessons.  It's been a busy Fall!

The Sept-Oct 2011 photo album has pictures from Zach and Alex's first day at school and their first bus ride to and from school. There are also pictures from flag football, a family trip to the Scarecrow Festival at Emma Krumbee's, a playdate at the Festival with some of the boys' friends from New Horizon and a few fun activities around the house.

A big step

Zach and Alex are going to miss Ms Kate,
who taught them for all 16 months
they were at NHA

Just quick post for some fun pics... The big step was Zach and Alex's last day in the Pre-K class at New Horizon, which was celebrated with afternoon treats that we brought in for the class before they said goodbye to their teachers and friends. NHA did a great job getting them ready for their next big step: Kindergarten!

The July-Aug 2011 album has the pics from that day, along with photos from an afternoon at the Stages childrens' theater to see "Annie, Jr." and some family fun at the bowling alley (be sure to check out the video of Alex and Zach getting their groove on  when some dance music started playing for Cosmic Bowling - it's sure to make you smile!)

A year of fun in Pre-K

Alex and Zach in class

Zach and Alex spent the 2010-11 school year, along with the summers before and after, at New Horizon Academy in the Pre-Kindergarten class. They had an absolute blast learning and playing with their friends and their great teachers. Ms. Kate, the room's lead teacher, took pictures of the class frequently and posted them online for the parents to see all the fun things they were doing. I've posted the ones of the boys in the New Horizon - Preschool album. Come in and play!

If Dad ran the zoo

Thing 2, Thing 1 and Daddy with the Cat

As I mentioned in the last post, we celebrated Father’s Day by spending a day at the Minnesota Zoo with two of the best dads I know – Joe and my dad, Bob. We even ran into our good friends Robert, Kwo Ue and their daughter, Athena! The zoo is always a great time, but it was extra fun thanks to Seuss on the Loose, an exhibit that featured the artwork of the great Dr. Seuss. Our own Thing 1 and Thing 2 were thrilled!

Papa and Grandma with their
handsome grandsons

The pics from the zoo trip are in the May-June album. Also added to the album are pictures from some Wii bowling, teeball (including team pictures!), a deep-dive during swim lessons, and videos of Z&A talking about a favorite book.

Zach and Alex also reached a big milestone in June: their first ride on big kid bikes! Yeah! They did great – and they were so proud of themselves!