Happy 10th Birthday Mya!

Dear Miss Mya Pat,

Happy Birthday a week and a half late! This last week or so has been a bit crazy around here so that’s why I’m late with your post. You had a great birthday. Started it with gymnastics from 9-1. When I went to pick you up, you said you loved it and everyone was saying Happy Birthday to you all day! I told you that’s what it would be like if you had your birthday in the school year! At 3:00, we picked up Katie, Kalissa, Lilllian and Kaylee and we went to the country club pool for a couple hours. After swimming, we went to our house and ate Happy Joe’s taco pizza, you did slime, jumped on the trampoline, ate cake and we took them home. It was a fun day!

The bigger news this week…even bigger than your birthday according to you, was that we got a puppy! Jasper Lu Hoden joined our family on Friday July 20th, and you were by far the most excited person in our family! You picked this puppy and so far…8 days in, you picked really well😊  Before we got him, we called him teal puppy (teal is your favorite color) because that’s what color his collar was at Rose’s place. He really was an awesome dog when we went to pick a puppy and he’s doing awesome with us! 

Now, let’s talk about you! Right now you are in gymnastics 4 mornings a week for 4 hours each day. I always think it’s too long, but you don’t complain at all! You’re competing level 4, but working on other skills as well. You are on a break from soccer right now, but will start up in mid-August and you’ll be on the U11/U12 team. I’m not sure how much you’ll play this fall because of gymnastics competitions, but it will be good to get back on the field! You are also getting pretty good at swimming this summer. You can do 3 out of 4 strokes and love to race people in the pool. You also went to Camp DuNord with Olivia, Grace, Grady and Amanda this summer for a week on your own! You did great...loved every minute of it and only missed us a few minutes each night when you went to sleep. I'm so proud of you for going that far away from home and doing so well! It helps that Olivia is your best friend..you two are amazing together. Amanda said you were together non-stop for a week straight and there was never a problem. 

You are sleeping downstairs these days in our unfinished guest room. Your room upstairs was too bright and you were waking up way too early. You have lots and lots of ideas of how you want your room to look. You love looking for beds, desks, rugs, etc. online. We’ll try to get that room finished this fall. When you grow up, you want to be an interior designer and I can totally see it coming true! You have even looked up where to go to school for this. Right now it looks like Iowa State has the best program. I'd be okay if you went to Iowa State! 

You are excited about being in 5^th grade! Your teacher is Mrs. Sanchez, who wasn’t your first choice, but you have some friends in your class that you’re happy about. I think you’ll try volleyball this winter instead of basketball which will be fun! You are 50 inches tall and about 55 pounds of muscle. You wear size 7/8 clothes, size 13/1 shoes, your hair is super long, you started the summer only wanting to wear one piece swim suits and have switched now to only wanting two piece. 

We were at the lake this past week and you loved being on the jet ski and tubing. We tried water skiing and you got up, but didn’t last too long. You did not enjoy skiing, but daddy and I are really hoping you give it another try because it can be so much fun! We stopped in Decorah on the way home and you and Olivia ran the Elvelopet  5k for the first time! You ran it in 28 minutes which is just awesome!  We sure love being your parents Mya. We love watching you do things you love!

Love you so much My-My!

Mom

                                                                      July 18th, 2008

July 18th, 2009

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July 18th, 2017

July 18th, 2018

The road to our new puppy!

As of Saturday, we have a puppy picked and ready to pick up July 20th! We are all pretty excited...some more than others, but we can all definitely agree it's time to add a puppy to our family again! I wanted to write out how this all came to be before I forget.

We decided about a year ago that spring/summer 2018 would be a good time to get a dog. We knew we wanted a non-shedding dog this time around, and we met our neighbor's dog Nala, a Goldendoodle, right after we moved here and fell in love with her. On my birthday in March, I called a place close to us called Galena Goldendoodles to see what they had available. She talked me into bringing everyone out to her house to check out the puppies that had already been reserved. Chris's parents and brother were here, so they got to go too! We had a lovely time playing with the puppies and getting to know all of her dogs. They were wonderful. We put $100 down to get a spot on her list for the next litter. We found out then that she was only going to have one litter this summer and that we were 7th on the list. It would be the mama dog's (Lulu) first litter, which normally means she wouldn't have a lot of puppies.

Fast forward a few weeks and a friend of a friend contacted me and said she was going to breed her Goldendoodle this spring and asked if we wanted one. We would be 2nd on her list so we knew we'd have better chances of getting one and also getting a female, which is what we wanted. So we put the $100 deposit on that puppy as well, but kept our name on the Galena list because the money was non-refundable anyway. Ended up that the two mama dogs were due within a few days of each other! About a week before the puppies were supposed to be born, I got a text from 2nd place saying that her dog Evie had lost the puppies. They had an ultrasound at the halfway mark and everything was okay, but sometime after that, she lost the puppies. Our kids were devastated.

A few days after that, I got a note from Rose at Galena Goldendoodles that Lulu had her puppies. She had 5 male and 1 female. The good news is that we were 3rd on the list now...4 ahead of us decided to wait for the next litter for whatever reason. That still didn't make us super happy because we wanted a female and we knew with the 3rd pick, we would probably not get one. We had to put $250 down when the puppies were born to stay on the list. That was refundable so we just decided to give the money just in case we ended up going with one of Lulu's puppies. In the meantime Chris was up in Decorah and was out with my parents one night and saw an 8 week old Goldendoodle. He asked about her and they said there was one female left in the litter and was ready to go home anytime! I drove up to Decorah to go look at her the next day. We ended up deciding against her because she was an F1 (first generation...cross between a golden retriever and a standard poodle) so her chances of shedding were pretty high. She was also going to be a big dog and we were hoping to stay in the 30-40 pound range.

So we just waited...waited patiently to go meet Lulu's puppies at 4 weeks and then wait 2 more weeks for the two families in front of us to pick! On July 4th we went out to Rose's to pick two dogs. July 7th was the actual pick day, but Max was not going to be home so we went early and picked two. Then depending on what the other family decided, we would still get one of our top two picks. The first family picked the runt of the litter...a tiny male that was adorable. The kids fell in love with two male dogs when we were there...orange collar and teal collar. Orange was a bit nuts for me...he was crazy! Jumping all over, eating the rug, super curious, but also super loving. I just didn't think I had it in me to have a crazy dog who needed a lot of exercise and attention when our lives are so busy. Teal dog was beautiful and very playful, but also very calm. Mya had him asleep in her arms in multiple ways and he just seemed to go with the flow. The female was more standoff-ish and more high maintenance from both Rose's description and what we observed. She didn't like to be held, was fidgety, etc. We left her place and the kids were dead set on one of the males.

We decided that our top pick would be teal collar dog and second pick would be the female. If the other family took one of those, we'd take the other. Last Saturday Rose called and said that the other family took the green collar puppy so we could have either of our two choices! After all of this, we were going to end up getting an opportunity to get a female, but we decided to get Teal collared puppy!  He really was the BEST dog and we are so excited to add him to our family. He will probably be on the bigger side of the range (hoping still under 50 pounds) but with the schedule we keep, we really needed a go with the flow dog who would be adaptable, independent and playful with anyone! Stay tuned for lots of pics!!

Spelling Bee

Max got to do something I've always wanted to do! He was chosen, along with 2 others from his school, to attend the Dubuque sectional spelling bee in January. He did awesome and ended up in the top 10 which moved him onto Regionals in March! For the first round, they gave us a list of about 300 words that all the words would be taken from. They also gave us all of the books that they would come from, and since I'm always on the hunt for new books for Max, I purchased a few and they ended up being amazing books, so I'll attach a pic in case any readers are looking for good books for their kids.

For the Regional spelling bee, they gave him a big packet of words and it just seemed so much more overwhelming than the original sheet that had words on the front and back. We did not study with him nearly as much as the first round. We were just hoping for the best! His goal was not to go out in the first round. He made it to the 3rd round and went out on the word "strudel". He spelled it "stroodel". Luckily, this is a 5th through 8th grade thing in Dubuque, so he should get a few more chances. The winner gets an all expense paid trip to Washington DC to compete in the national spelling bee. Here are a few pictures and video!

Happy 11th Birthday Maxwell!

Dear Max,

You are 11 today! Normally you're happier to be an even number, but you are really ready to be 11. We are so proud of you. You are kind, compassionate, smart, funny, creative, and inquisitive. People love to talk to you and be around you!

You do not get embarrassed easily.....you've had a couple funny things happen to you and you just take it in stride and laugh it off. Like when you fell in the pool with your towel and robe during a swim meet, when you swam a 100 yard freestyle instead of the 50 and everyone was screaming at you to stop, but you kept on going and swam two extra laps in the pool all alone! Or the other day when you got your coat stuck on your braces at school and had to go to the nurse to get it off! Being able to laugh at yourself is a great quality that many people (including me) wish they were better at!

Speaking of braces, you're at round 2 now. As of February 1st, you're a regular patient at the orthodontist in Dubuque.  You have lost all of your baby teeth so it was time to get started! The first round was more of an orthopedic issue and now they're straightening your teeth so they're perfect. Right now you just have the top braces on and in a month or so you'll get the bottom ones. You weigh 70 pounds and are 55 inches tall. We have a heck of a time finding pants that are long enough AND fit you in the waist.

You are doing great in 5th grade, but are really ready for middle school. You're involved in everything....choir, honor choir, chess club, math club, spelling bee and morning announcements. Your test scores are awesome and you even got your teacher to like you after a rough start. That one might be the most impressive!:) You tried swim team for the first time this last winter. Your good buddy William convinced you to join and it was a great decision. You now know all 4 strokes, can do a flip turn, and dive off the block.  You had a great first season and met some wonderful friends...Isaac, Walter, Duncan, Shea and more. Starting next week you'll be in track and field club. One of the things you miss most about Canada is running club, so I'm really hoping this is a good experience for you. This spring you're also playing soccer for DSC...your best position is a left back on defense. You're fast and don't let many balls get behind you. Dad and I love watching you do things you enjoy.

Right now your interests are the stock market (your under armor stock isn't doing that well though), looking at bleacher report and reporting all of the latest sports news to your dad and me, reading anything you can get your hands on....currently it's the Guts and Glory series, playing pool, anxiously awaiting the nice weather so you can play outside, play street hockey, basketball, etc. with the neighbors Nolan and Myles.

I'm pretty sure I could keep going, but I better wrap it up. Thanks for being such a great kid and making us parents! We couldn't have asked for a better son. Love you tons,

Mom


March 3rd, 2007


March 3rd, 2008


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March 3rd, 2013


March 3rd, 2014


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March 3rd, 2016


March 3rd, 2017


March 3rd, 2018 (btw...he was very worried about this photo...he knew he couldn't hold up 11 fingers so he didn't know what we would do!)

Christmas at the cabin

Sorry for the random blogs these days! I'm jumping around and doing them whenever I can. The kids love reading the blog books I print off and the other day they were asking about more recent blogs. I decided I needed to get back on here and document our lives!

We headed up to the cabin the day after Christmas to celebrate with Chris's family! We got to Chris's parents house and received a phone call from his parents (who were already at the cabin) to bring the space heaters up. Uh oh....I was a little worried! We got there and it was 45 degrees inside the cabin! It had already warmed up 20 degrees from when David and Linda got there so I'm sure 45 felt pretty nice to them, but it was pretty cold for us:) The furnace had broken, but thankfully we were going to be able to get a new one in a couple days and they had a fireplace that pumped out the heat. It made for some funny pictures of us sitting around wrapped in blankets with hats on!

The main living area warmed up nicely and we ended up having a great time. By the time the new furnace got there, we had pretty much decided we could live without it for the most part! I got a new state puzzle which we all spent a ton of time on (my neck was super sore for days because I was bent over working on the puzzle for so long!) The kids got outside a few times...I got out there once to enjoy the winter at the lake. All in all..a great Christmas at the cabin despite the beginning with no heat!

 Below is a picture we tried to recreate in the same spot int the lake. One in the summer and one in the winter. I think I like the summer picture a little better:)