Thankful...

For all of your understanding and compassion and kindness and for taking the time to soothe the rawness of our grief with the comfort of your words. Nolan took the news well about baby Eli. His school brought in the school counselor who undoubtedly answered a lot of questions and assuaged some of the lingering sadness.

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Without being conscious of what I was doing I realize I took pictures this past week based on some quality in the photo that meant something to me. This is pretty much our week in review.

"My girls" came back for a couple of days this week and Grandma Mary Ann came to love on them while I went to school to facilitate Colton's Jr. Great Books discussion. I was pretty much in awe of how quickly the girls warmed up to my mom, but I have always been in awe of my mom's ability to enter their world and draw them to her.

We tactfully avoided the sign on the other side of the hot tub that read "capacity 3." Why stop at 3 when you can fit 13 hockey players in one hot tub before it starts to overflow?









I'm not certain who was in the pool, and I didn't think there was anything particularly interesting in the photo. Except, the sun was streaming through the windows and if I scrunched my eyes up really tight, I think I smelled summer.



This is Olivia... We played tag in the hotel and she kicked my butt. But she let me rest in between and said we should get pretend drinks. I asked her what kind and she said "a latte." We can so be friends Olivia, we obviously speak the same language. Is that swimsuit not the cutest thing?






Rick said you should never take a photo with a pole in the way. I agree. But then I never got a better shot and how else can I tell you that we got to play at the Little-Ralph in Thief River Falls on Valentine's Day?




For some reason our Squirt team has been blessed by playing in the trifecta of hockey arenas this year. State-of-the-art, does not begin to describe this amazing arena.






Okay, whats not to love? But wait, theres more. As if her ridiculously cute face weren't enough, if you spun her around and saw the curls springing out all over the back of her head you'd see why she is utterly irresistible.



When a father of three boys long out of carseats... stops to help carry a mom's girly pink carseat? Pretty much melted me right there.