Simple Gifts

Photos of the boys Christmas program.

Letters to Santa

Love....

Red Ryder

Cam really really wanted a Red Ryder for Christmas but Santa said no. Well I wrote Santa a letter and low and behold the big guy came through! Cam was SOOOO excited! By 7:00 AM cam was out shooting it in the backyard.

Keaton writing Merry Christmas!

Fall Video 2009

Happy Birthday

Happy 60th Birthday mom! You will always remain forever young in our opinion. Too bad it was such a yucky weekend so we couldn’t do the corn maze but hopefully you are enjoying your birthday vacation.

Way Cool!

We had an awesome opportunity to do a really fun materanity shoot last week. She was able to do a headstand at 34 weeks… that is jsut insane. Thanks D for coming in, we had a blast!

John & Di's 40th Wedding Anniversary

Jacob

Mmmmm Good!

Mooooooooooo

I don't know why I think this is funny but for some odd reason I get a kick out of it. This is one of my sister in-laws cows they have. They had a bunch of calves this year so they asked me to come out and take some pics of the little ones.

Thunderslam!

Darcy and I have always wanted to go see Monster Jam but it has never worked out to go when the shows are. Well a few weeks ago I saw an ad saying monster trucks were coming to our home town dirt track. What a perfect opportunity to go and see what the boys would think of the whole thing. The show was pretty good, I was expecting a lot more out of the trucks but I do have to give the guys credit, there was a lot of new drivers that are working really hard to give a good show. They also had some motorcross bikes there, I personally think that was the best part of the show, those guys are NUTS!!!!

Lady Slipper

Tonight Darcys uncle Steve called and asked if I wanted to go take some pictures. We went and found these lady slippers. This is probably the best shot I got of the night, I was hoping they would have turned out a little better but at least we had a good time. I mean its not weird at all for two guys to be taking pictures of flowers together is it? Lol.

Dandelion

When these things are not in my yard I really enjoy taking pictures of them :o)

Oreo Snowdrift

Hmmmm so good!

Campfire

Ahhh the campfire!

Macro

Oh Here We Go...

Like I said in an earlier post… look out world here comes Keaton, man this kid loves to ride his bike without those training wheels.

Soccer

Our little jock. Keaton has been begging to play soccer for almost a year now. These shots were on the first night and that kid was an animal. He got out there and got the ball and made 4 goals, he was on fire. The second night he pretty much stood around. I asked him what the deal was after he was done and he said “he was tired and running was a lot of work, and that he didn’t want to play anymore” so we had a long discussion about quitting and being lazy. He is actually really enjoying now and is doing pretty good. Cam even decided to join, I will get some pics up of him here soon as well.

Some Flowers

No idea what kind they are but they are pretty :)

Ah serenity

This is one of the views we have while laying on the beach looking up in the sky. Even without seeing the lake or the beach it makes me relax and think of this place just seeing this tree!

Summer Fun

What a fun weekend. On Sunday we got a chance to visit with Darcys cousins from Texas and their kids at Donna & Dales in Miltona. Even though the water temp was only 66 degrees the kids were not shy at all. Now come December (when it is -50 here) I think we need to go down and visit them in TX. The kids really enjoyed each other.

Warning: Anyone who loves peeps ignore this post!

I am so sorry peeps (I love peeps) As many of you know Darcy highly DISLIKE peeps! While we were out camping last weekend Darcys sister (another Peep hater) found a new use for peeps. Her kids like to roast them over the campfire (they were pretty good). We did have a rather fun time watching the poor little peeps meet their demise. Sick I know but fun!

2010 Salem 36BHBS

Our New House on Wheels…

Well we finally took the plunge and bought a new camper. We did a ton of research and a ton of window shopping. We finally purchased a 2010 Salem 36BHBS, it was delivered last Friday afternoon. Thanks to Dennis with the tractor we were able to get the camper to slide into place pretty easily. With the boys being in Wisconsin for the weekend with grandma and grandpa it gave Darcy and I the perfect opportunity to get it all setup and to be able to put things where they are suppose to go. We can not believe the amount of space difference from the last one to this one. It will be fun to get the whole family out there next weekend.

We are in trouble…

Keaton asked a few days ago for me to take his training wheels off his bike. We tried it a few times and it went “ok” Well tonight I was completely unprepared and did not have a camera in hand. He asked to try his bike tonight and he was off. Ten seconds later he looks at me and says “lets race!” There is not chance we are going to be able to keep up to him. He is pretty proud of himself.

A Windy Day on Mille Lacs...

Burrrrrrr!

These boys are much braver than I. They hopped into the pool this weekend...when our themometer only said 58 degrees.

Papa Tim

My dad died back when I was 15, he never had the chance to meet my wife or my kids. I am sure he would have had a blast with my boys, there are so many things he would have showed them to drive me nuts. He would have been so proud of them and Darcy!

Trying to explain death to kids is really tough, but I think Cameron actually gets it and Keaton, well I don’t know what he thinks about it. We try to explain that sometimes the body is under the ground and the spirit is up in heaven. Then he will ask “how can he see us if his body is buried but his spirit is in heaven, aren’t his eyes in his body?”

My dad had ulcers most of his adult life and he ate popsicles like they were going out of style, the popsicles would help his stomach not hurt as much. So for the last few years we have made a little tradition to go and have some popsicles with Papa Tim every now and again.

Here are a few shots from last night. We love you Papa Tim!

Tree....

I guess you can say I took a picture of a branch! Oh how exciting is that?

Garage Sale Find

Cam rides the bus home from school everyday, yesterday on his route home he spotted a garage sale that had some Christmas decorations for sale. Some how when him and Darcy were done taking Ollie to the vet he convinced Darcy to swing by it. Cam scored pretty good on this one. Each deer and sleigh were only $5 each. The owner (Ole) of the garage sale was pretty excited to meet Cam. You can tell he has the same enthusiasm for Christmas decoration as Cam. I think we made two peoples night last night.

Bud...

Another try at this macro stuff :)

The Dog

Macro?

Here is my attempt of a macro shot without a macro lens....

View from the lunch table...

When we were in the cities a couple of weeks ago Darcy and I treated each other to a lunch date at the Rain Forest Cafe. This was the view from our table. I was surprised at the cool photos we captured just using Darcy's tiny pink purse camera.

Do you see a snake?

Tree Climbing

Our boys have never really been into climbing trees but this past weekend they saw some other boys doing it. I think we might be in trouble, especially with Keaton!

Window Licker

My Window Licker!

Highlights of March 2009

The Opener

Cameron has been asking to go fishing for the past couple of weeks. So this past weekend we went and got some minnows and everything all ready to go. Darcy thought it was only going to last a couple of minutes but I think we were there for over an hour. Cameron caught two Bass and Keaton caught one. This was Keatons first time catching a fish, he was pretty excited. Cameron keeps telling people he caught a whale…. I am glad they had a good time with it.

Oh and I didn't catch a dang thing!

Our NILMDTS Story

Here is a quick story of how we got started with NILMDTS and a little bit of our journey.

Back by popular demand....

I had some more request of pictures of Ollie so here he is!

Cam and that hat!

Cameron loves his hat, it can be 60 and sunny out and he wants his hat! I think you can tell he is from MN :)

First S’more of the year!

First S’more of the year! This past weekend was our first camping trip of the year.

Winter Damage

Well this past weekend was our first trip out to the camper for the year. I went out on Friday to open up and get things ready. I pulled up and noticed that the thing about the fender (fender flare) was broke. That sucks but what can you do. I go around and go into the camper and start looking for signs of rodents which I did not find ANY! But to my dismay I found a ton of vinyl that ripped over the winter. So now we have a rip in the rear of the camper in the bathroom and then in our bedroom that is on the opposite end of the floor is just trashed. So any thoughts on what I can do? Do you think insurance would cover the flooring? With not having a slide we are pretty limited on floors space so I think installing laminate would be almost impossible.

After finding that I was pretty bummed but as more and more people got to the campground I realized I could have had it much worse. One couples tub cracked in five places, several people had water line issues, some had squirrels.

It did turn out to be a great weekend, I can not believe how relaxed I am when I am there!

Going to the Zoo

Ok, so maybe we are bad parents. Keaton just turned 4 and he has never been to a Zoo. By this time in Cameron’s life I think he had been to everyone in the state. Any ways we finally got him there for his 4th birthday. Things were going great until he smelled the buffalo! He lost it as you can see in the pictures he is holding his nose and crying. He is not crying because he is scared he is crying because he was squeezing his nose so hard it hurt. He hated the smell of the buffalo, he says they “smell like poop” lol.

Luther Seminary

While Darcy was in college she had the privialge of staying in a house on Luther Seminary. That was over ten years ago, for Keatons birthday we decided to go down to the zoo and we swung buy some of the areas where she spent a lot of her time while in college. One of the coolest places was “Old Muskego Church” it was built in 1844 in Wisconsin by Norwegian immigrants and then moved to Luther Seminary in 1904 piece by piece. It is still used for some weddings, baptisms and such. It is such a neat building.