End of Summer is on it's Way!

The end of summer is drawing near when it's the Town Pool Party! In the middle of a lite drizzle and temps in the 70s our boys enjoyed this inflatable with many other kids from Cokato, including most of the kids from our neighborhood, which is always fun. They had picnic food and of course played in the pool for 3 hours. We talked later about how blessed these guys are to live in a place where they can enjoy these types of things so much. To be living in a neighborhood with so many kids their age that they can play with all Summer. It truly has been another fun and exciting season for our kids.

Deb is busy planning for the school year, however, and the boys are not looking forward to that. Travis will be doing 2 Post secondary classes from Northwestern College this Fall: Astronomy and a music class. They will force him to be very self motivated. It is pretty awesome that he can do this and have them actually count both for High School AND College. We have also been busy getting our two new homes ready for our clients to move in. It looks like we will have the one full by Sept 1. It is truly amazing to see God work like this. There are more and more opportunities that just keep popping up. We are having the other one repainted and carpeted for the girls to move in. It took a lot of cleaning and attention but it will be a very nice home as well.

Won't be long and everybody will be busy with band and music lessons again. Travis will get his license in September it looks like now. So he may be able to do some driving to his band and music activities. Life just keeps moving a long! We are looking forward to our trip to Oaxaca Mexico in October. Please be praying for all those details of bringing our crew of 7 on this trip! Will be a lot of fun to interact with all those children and the people there. We are really looking forward to getting to share with them. Well, we hope God continues to bless you all!

Corn Carnival

Yes folks that is Torrey in the Cokato Corn Carnival Corn eating contest! The boy with the iron stomach! Unbelievably he ate 7 1/2 cobs in under 7 minutes. He missed placing by one cob out of quite a few entrants! He said it was only because they were too hot. (In his defense, they were bringing the cobs right from the big steam cooker right to their pans) Yes, the biggest festival of the year for us here. The whole town and many people from surrounding towns show up for this festival starting with a parade with well over 100 entrants. We were fortunate that the route went right by our new office so we were able to put out some nice chairs to reserve a spot early and watch the fun. Travis, Torrey and Tyler were all in the marching band. They were awesome as usual. The boys had a blast riding the rides and playing all the games and, of course, eating all the free corn on the cob you can handle! Best stuff anywhere!

Here is Tanner's Championship Team! He won his game tonight to take 1st place out of 10 teams in his division. It took 3 playoff games, all very close for them to do it but they took tonight's game 1-0. It was very exciting!

We are looking forward to a little time off now from soccer. I am taking Torrey (and his brothers that want to go) once a weel back to the gym where he did gymnastics for open gym. He is loving getting back on the equipment, but mostly the floor exercises, as he is very adapt now at flips and twists etc. It is amazing to see what he does now.

The other boys are busy with their friends and playing in the "hood". Last night 3 extra boys from our hood went to cheer on Tanner. It was really fun when they carried him off the field on their shoulders. The other parents thought that was really neat for him.

Well, we will keep you all posted on our doins as much as possible.

This is Tyler's Soccer team at the Coon Rapids Tournament. He is now done with Soccer for the year. They just missed advancing in their playoffs by a shoot out at the end of the game.

Since our last post I took Torrey back to the gymnastics gym for open gym where he went a few years ago. I also took Tanner and Taran. They had a terrific time! Torrey was very excited to see his name on a banner there still and to meet people who still remembered him. Now that he has grown up a lot more he really did well with all the activities.

Torrey is also working at the school pool now a couple times a week on his diving. He really has a lot more moves since he has worked on our tramp. Tyler is just about done with his detasseling. Travis is done with the restaurant where he was working and is now only at the grocery store, which he really likes! Tanner and Taran have been very busy with their neighbor friends.

Deb and I were able to close on our first investment home yesterday for our business. We should close on the second one this week. We then have an offer from another home owner from whom we are leasing to purchase his home, as well. This may happen within a month or 2. And then our fourth as soon as we can do that one. We have been leasing 5 properties and would like to have them all purchased as soon as we can.

We have had some very good meetings with our church people on Wednesdays. We are excited about meeting in our home and sharing together. We have also been fellowshipping with the Baptist church on Sundays and our kids have been enjoying their activities.

We are very excited about the big rain we had today. It was 101 degrees yesterday with due points over 70. (that is like tropical rain forest) Tonight it is in the 60's. Very nice. We knew that refreshing would be on the way. We are very thankful and so is my lawn.

Well, we hope you all are doing well!