Tri-Quest 2008

A couple of weekends ago, we headed down to LaCrosse and participated in Tri-quest. Cousin Kari's husband, Dennis, was in charge of the event, also associated with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. The money raised helped out a local LaCrosse museum. It was a fun, busy, and tiring day. Here are some pictures from the events.

Chris and Jenny before the busy day. We played as a 2 person co-ed team, both participating in all events. Our times and scores were added together. Some did all of the events solo, while others played on a 3 person team, each person taking one event.


Chris and Corinne tuning up Corinne's bike before the race.

Corinne and Jenny...

...ready to run.

Chris during the 5K.

Jen on the run.


Chris on the 33 K bike ride.

Corinne,Terry, Jenny and Chris. We walked and played 18 holes of golf four our last event of the day. The first 6 holes were scramble golf between partners, the 2nd 6 were best ball, and the last 6 holes were alternate shot.

Jenny enjoying being silly with baby Jack.

Chris and Jenny took 1st place in their co-ed 30 year old division. Chris won the longest drive of the tournament for the men. Jenny won the closest chip to the pin for the ladies.



Corinne and Terry won 1st place in their division of 40 year olds. :) The average age was determined for each age bracket. Corinne looks pretty good for a 40-year old, don't you think?


Here's all of the family that was present for the big day. Uncle Paul golfed for Dennis' team. Aunt Margit took care of little Jack all day. Corinne, Jenny and Chris all participated in events. Kari was an avid photographer, and great supporter of Dennis. Dennis ran the show, and Jack stole it. Thanks Dennis and Kari for letting us stay with you! It was a fun weekend!

Minnesota State Fair 2008!

Ah, and end to summer...this week has been busy with a wedding, golf, the MN State Fair, and of course, the start to the 2008-2009 school year! Wedding pics are still to come of our friends Sara and Brendan. Here we are at the State Fair. We went on Labor Day. It ended up being a day of great friends, fun, food, and funny enough...politics. You never know what interesting things you'll run into at the fair!

We started out in the morning, and enjoyed a breakfast of MN Fairgoer champions...the Dairy Barn malt, and mini doughnuts! Yum yum! Two State Fair musts!

This year, the fair had a special exhibit of collectible JFK items. Here is Chris posing for a political speech.


You could definitely tell we are in the midst of election season, and the opening day of the National Republican Convention. We ran into Obama! HA! After checking out JFK and the Fine Arts building, we met up with our friends Angie & Dave, and their little girl, Lily.

We grabbed a bite to eat of our favorite turkey sandwiches...ironically enough, across from the poultry barn. It has to be one of the best sandwiches at the fair! Deep fat friend and seasoned! YUM!! Then we walked around the animal barns.

It was fun to see Lily try new foods! Her first experience with cotton candy was fun...not really knowing if it was actual food. Ok--so the Sweet Martha's Cookies were probably not a new thing, but it was also fun to see her eat those too...

I think she liked them just as much as Jenny liked the turkey sandwich!

As we were enjoying our cookies, who should appear but Mitt Romney...of course, here in Minnesota for the National Republican Convention.

Chris and I shook his hand...(Chris' shoulder in picture).

Then, we saw Marjorie Johnson at the Fair. She has won tons of blue ribbons and more! However, she is no longer an amateur, as she has a great Blue Ribbon Cook book. Jenny is excited to bake! I asked her who her favorite famous person she has met is and she said Matthew McConaughey. How cute is that? Also, she pointed out to me all of her favorite and best recipes...I can't wait to try them!

Our battery in our camera died! So, we thank Nicole and Greg for these last photos! Here Nicole and Jenny are sporting Australian Outback hats! Not bad, eh?

Here are Chris and Greg reporting live from the fair! See below for their live report!

And, we got to meet one more little guy...Liam, Greg & Nicole's nephew. What a cutie! We met up with Nicole's Brother and Sister-in-law. We had quite the day...and then back to work! The fair always is fun, but it's always a little bittersweet, because it is the end of summer. The weather changed dramatically from Monday to Tuesday! It is definitely fall!

Happy Birthday Chris!

August 23, we celebrated the many birthdays of Brent, (Jenny's Dad), Chris, and Andy. We had a friends & family golf tournament which will probably end up being an annual thing. It was a beautiful day and we all had lots of fun! We had 20 people who participated in golf, and many more for a bbq after the big event.

On team #1 was Carolynne, Jeremy, Loren, and Corinne.

Team #2 was Amy, Lindsey, Josh and Mike.
Amy was our female " longest drive" winner, and Mike was the "closest to the pin" winner.

Here was our "winning" team, of Chris, Jesse, Evan, and Jourdan. Evan also won the guys' longest drive award.

Team #4 was Bill, Bill, Paul, and Brent.

Team #5 consisted of Greg, Dave, Beth, and Jenny. Jenny won the longest putt of the day, followed by a 2nd place by Brent. Team #5 wasn't photographed, due to being the last team, and Jenny having the camera! Bummer!

Grandma Edith played Happy Birthday on the harmonican in front of a crowd for the birthday boys!
And here they all are, Andy, Chris, and Brent.

Make a wish!

Cabin Fever

This past weekend, we went up to the Gunflint Trail with our friends Beth & Jesse. We left after they were done with work, and arrived at our landing at about 1:30 am! Jesse had to hike through the woods to get the row boat for us to take to the cabin. We had quite the ordeal trying to get there, as we forgot the keys to the cabin, and realized it when we got to Duluth. Needless to say, we hit up KMart at 11 pm looking for tools to cut the lock on the boat! It worked!
Here was the sky and lake, lit up by the full moon. With the fog over the lake, it was a little eerie arriving at the cabin. Kind of like a scarey movie, especially not really knowing where we were going (as guests of theirs). But, it was also beautiful!

In the morning, we fed the Whiskey Jacks bread and pancakes out of our hands! What a weird feeling of those little claws on our hands!

Since this was the most "in nature" we were this summer, Jenny was reminiscing about Holden lots! Maybe it was the smell of the pines, "rusticness", the slowness of the day, or the lack of communication with the outside world, but it was wonderful!

Here are Jesse & Beth in the row boat!

It was our first time canoing together...and we learned a little teamwork in a new way.


We "bushwhacked" to get to the giant beaver dam.

Jesse & Beth.

Beth! Watch out!!

There were many lily pads and water lilies!

Over all, it has been a great summer. We have been fortunate to be able to spend so much time together as Chris has had a little bit lighter school load. And, we have been able to do many fun things with our family and friends. I'm headed back to school on Monday, and I can feel summer fading fast!

Summer Travels

We visited Brian this past weekend up in North Dakota. We stayed half-way between Bismarck and Minot...where Brian is working. It was the peak of sunflower season. We had to stop and get a closer look!Chris, stopping to smell the flowers.

More flowers.

Brian and Jenny.

More sunflowers...

And more...
The plant that Brian is working at on his first contracted job as a construction engineer.

In Minot, we stopped at a Scandinavian Park...here are our Swedish Horse roots!

Jenny & Chris at the Norwegian church! (who needs to go to Norway now?!)

We got a little golf in at the local course. We also took a few "fun shots".

Here are Chris and Brian with Lake Sakakawea in the background.

More of the lake and sunset.

The backdrop was beautiful!