I am holding onto Fall!!

Don't get me wrong I love snow but I am just not ready for it yet! The temps the last few weeks have been wonderful and I am just not ready for the sub zero mornings. So in an attempt to hold onto Fall for just a little while longer here are some pictures I took several weeks ago (before our house was over taken by sickness).

Children's Hospital Association's 60th Annual Benefit Ball

My mother in law Yvonne is on the board of the Children's Hospital Association and she invited Frankie and I along with Freddie and Melissa to be her guests at the Annual Benefit Ball at the Crowne Plaza in St Paul. It was so much fun to get all dressed up and spend a night out with adults. There was a silent auction, fancy dinner, Martini Bar, live auction and two great bands (in two different ball rooms). It was amazing to see the donations pouring in for such an amazing cause. Thanks for a great night out Yvonne - we look forward to going next year!

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween Everyone! Hope you all had a great Halloween. We had an awesome weekend. Our Annual Pumpkin Carving Party was on Friday night - it was awesome despite the rain, wind and cold weather. We had so much fun hanging out with all our friends and family, Thank You to everyone who joined us. I took about 200 pictures that night so I am going to put a slide show together and post that later on (I couldn't narrow it down to just a few). Halloween night Colton dressed up as Crunch the Timberwolves mascot. He had so much fun running door to door and saying Trick or Treat and after every house he would run back to Frankie and say "Daddy I got more candy for you!". He was more than willing to share his candy with everyone as long as no one touched his Kit Kats (those are all for him). This years costume is my favorite so far. I found the wolf costume at a garage sale for a quarter, the jersey is my old one and the bucket was his Easter Basket from last year! It was the cheapest costume to date and by far the best one. Every house we went to they commented on how cute he was and how you can't find nice warm costumes like that anymore. Another great Halloween is on the books. HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE.

No Words

Some friends of the family lost their home to a fire about 4 weeks ago. Mike and Kristy and their two kids Rachel and Mikey live across the street from my parents and at about 1am on a Saturday their home started on fire. They all escaped unharmed but the house is a complete loss. They are an amazingly strong family and coping with it the best they can. The house is going to be torn down today (which is why I am home, Colton and I are going to go watch) and then the rebuilding can begin. They were able to save some items but not much. They allowed me inside the house to take pictures on Sunday. I spent several hours in the house, shed some tears for their loss and took over 200 pictures. I will share a few pics of the devastation and believe me when I say that there are not enough words to describe the feelings you have when you are looking at the devastation.

This last picture it the hardest for me - this is their camera (full of pictures which of course cannot be recovered/replaced).

Oktoberfest!!

I went back to my German Roots this past weekend. We went down to New Ulm to celebrate Oktoberfest! We had a blast. We spent Friday evening at the Morgan Creek Winery sipping wine around a campfire (well I was drinking Mountain Dew). That night we went back to the hotel and warmed up in the Hot Tub. Saturday morning we headed back to New Ulm to take in some German Festivities. We started off shopping, Frankie was on a mission to find 'Das Boot' and we finally found them at a little shop called the Guten Tag Haus. Then we went to lunch at Veigels Kaiserhof, which was some of the best German Food ever! Yvonne tried some Sauerkraut and Meatball soup, which to me sounds horrible but I tried some of hers I was amazed - it was delicious. After lunch we enjoyed a Horse Drawn Trolley around town - this sounded like a great idea but it was COLD!! We ended our day at the Holiday Inn where all the indoor Oktoberfest activities were taking place. The beer was good, the food was great and the music was entertaining. Frankie bought his first german hat and of course had to get his first pin to go on it. We had a great time and enjoyed many laughs thanks to Aunt Sandy and her stories. We again ended our night with some swimming and relaxing in the hot tub. Frankie even showed us his mad skills by doing some cannonballs... it was like being a kid again! Okay here are some pics:

I had to throw this pic in because he is just so cute! With the warning of snow we decided to pick the few pumpkins that survived this year! For some reason we ended up with one yellow pumpkin and even a green one! I am not sure what happened but at least we got a variety - we may have invented some new kind of pumpkin!!

The Curse of the Ax

I went to the Gopher vs Wisconsin game last Saturday - it was cold, rainy, early in the morning and so much fun! There is something awesome about getting all bundled up to watch outdoor football - Priceless. It was a very intense game, but in the end the Badgers held on to the win and the AX, maybe next year Gophers! Here are just a few pics!