What a fun and crazy weekend. We left Ames at about 2 pm on Friday afternoon. We arrived in Dubuque at about 5pm that evening. We had just enough time to check into our hotel room, eat a sandwhich and head to the Rink for the opening ceremonies of this Year's Iowa Games. The opening ceremonies include a parade of athletes and coaches, and of course the best part is the indoor fireworks.

Saturday and Sunday were filled with games. Each team played 2 games each day....if you did the math the 8 games. Each game is about 1 hour, 8 hours.... We usually arrive at the rink about a 3/4 to 1/2 and hour before each game and it takes about another 15-20 mins. to undress after each game. That totals about another 8 hours. Yes, That is about 16 hours spent in the hockey rink. I was very thankful that our hotel was attached to the rink, so Nadia and I could arrive at game time and not spend so many hours at the rink.

Most of the teams attending the games were fairly evenly matched, which made the games very exciting. Ethan's team showed huge improvements. In fact, they ended with a record of 1 win and 3 losses. They ended the tournament in 4th place, so did not qualify for a medal. A little disappointing for the kids, but they really played hard.

Ben's team ended the Tournament with the Gold Medal, but not without a battle to the finish. They won both their games on Saturday, which made them a little over confident in their game Sunday Morning. They lost that game 6-1. Our final game of the day was a battle to the very end for the Gold. The final score was 2-1 for Ames. Both teams played fantastic, especially the Goalies. Ben scored the game winning goal. How awesome it that! Now, to remind him that he plays a team sport and maybe he should look to pass a little more often.

Ben ended the tournament with 4 goals and 3 assists.

We left Dubuque at 5 pm and arrived back in Ames at 8 pm. What a crazy weekend.

Here's my layout for the sketch challenge that I hosted. I am really happy with how it turned out.

It's official, Nadia is a big girl! Today we moved her out of the crib and into a real bed. The bed is a hand-me down from Mike and Leah, if you look closely you can see a John Deere sticker peeking out from behind her pillows. The beautiful quilt and pillows are from Oma. Oma spent hours making them and we are very thankful for them. Nadia loves her big girl bed, now I hope she will stay in it all night.

You read that correctly, Here is Iowa we woke to temperatures of -19.3 to be exact. For all you Canadian readers, That's -28 Celsius. That's Winnipeg cold! School was canceled because it was too dangerous. Do they cancel school in Winnipeg?

We had a nice day at home. The kids played and I worked on some scrapbook pages.
I will post them soon.

I apologize for the poor photo quality. We are having some camera issues again. Our "good" camera has already been fixed once and it still does not focus correctly. We have sent it back to be fixed again. This photo was taken with our "old camera", the light was poor, but I did not want to miss the moment.

Guess what is on my Birthday list! Yep, I want a camera!

Rosalie

I am hosting a new monthly sketch challenge on the Visual Designs By Chris Forum
Chris has created some coordinating cutter files. Head over to the forum, to check it out. Please


Rosalie

We visited the Reptile Gardens in South Dakota in the summer of 2007. Here's my little one's touching snakes and alligators YUCK!!

Supplies:
A2Z patterned paper
Worldwin cardstock
Chris's Durnan's alligator file
2Peas Mr. Giggles font

Enjoy, Rosalie

Just wanted to share this photo of our house buried under the snow piles. I don't know how much we have gotten in the past week, but my guess would be 8-10 inches. We are suppose to get more tonight.