Coaching Volleyball

I am so lucky to have been able to coach volleyball this past season at Century High here in Rochester. I love the game and being with the girls. I'm grateful to be in a position where I can spend the time coaching and for a husband who not only lets me, but encourages me to coach.

The whole coaching staff was brand new this year. I was the JV coach and loved the level of competition. I would love the Varsity but then you have to deal with SOOO much more than just coaching and I'm not too interested in that right now. My team went 11-16 (not ideal) but hey... winning isn't everything (or is is?). Sports are a little different here in Minnesota rather than Utah. First of all, the pay is better :), 7th and 8th graders can play high school sports (What! right? Crazy!), people don't put their hand over their heart during the National Anthem here (why it bothers me... I don't know), and at our school if your trip is over 60 miles you get to take a fancy charter bus on away trips (Every trip would have been a charter bus for me in high school. I would have loved that on our long snowy 7+ hour rides to Monticello).

Here is some of our coaching staff.

 John - Varsity Assistant, Abby - Head Coach, Me- JV, Brittany - 10th Grade

Way to go Century... Can't wait til next season.

Bring on the Leaves

The biggest down side to having all these big trees in our backyard is come October when they fall off, its A LOT of work raking them up, plus bagging them and then hauling them off to the city dump. Natalya was not quite sure what to do with the leaves at first, until we threw her in them. Then she realized it was kind of fun to play in. 

 This is attempt #1 at getting the leaves raked up.

Colten raking the front yard. Don't be fooled thinking he raked all the leaves. He is just the lucky one to be in the picture. Notice at the top of the picture our oak tree still has ALL of its leaves on it. The leaves you see in the pile... all from our neighbors trees. Thank you wind for blowing them in our direction. :)

Back yard Round #2
Talya and our neighbor friend playing in our huge pile of leaves.  

Winter....if you have to come, I guess we are now ready for you.

Bracken's Come to Visit

We had a wonderful weekend when Colten's parents came for a visit. They arrived Thursday evening and came to the Century volleyball game while I was coaching. Then we headed home, but first stopping at Culver's for dinner. We had to let them experience some Wisconsin (Yummy) Cheese Curds. 

The next day, Friday, we planned a little road trip making a big loop around some places we've always wanted to go nearby Rochester. We first headed down to Lanesboro, MN for a delicious piece of pie from World Famous Pies. 

Our next destination was up to Whitewater State Park. We got some great pictures, even though the weather was pretty chilly. 

Then we headed up to Wabasha, MN and then Nelson, WI, which are two little towns along the Mississippi River. We enjoyed our large bowls of ice cream before heading to Kellog, MN to stop by Lark Toys. (Coolest Toy Store Ever!) Talya enjoyed her ride on the carousel so much, she didn't want to get off. This is her riding the "big buck"! 

On our way home we drove past this buck farm and saw lots of real "big bucks".

Saturday, Colten had a conference he had to be to (since he was one of the ones in charge). So Grandpa Lee went with Colten during the moring, while Charlene, Talya and I headed to the farmer's market. We got ingredients to can salsa. And that is what we did the rest of the day, canned homemade salsa. Yum!

Talya just loved playing with Grandma and Papa. When they left on Sunday afternoon she'd say, "Gama...Papa...Airpwane...bye".

It was a great weekend. Come back soon!

Enjoying Our Last Warm Days

Colten had a week off of school and we decided to get outside and enjoy the last few days of fall. We first headed to Forestville State Park to do a little hiking.

The next day we headed to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch, where Talya got to feed the goat some corn.

Weird looking animals!