I keep writing the year as 01, instead of 10!

Good Monday morning Family & friends!

Mondays seem to be our Laundry day! Now, if I just had a little home-helper fairy to come put the clean clothes away the world would be perfect.... What am I saying! I want a home-helper fairy to do ALL the chores!!

I certainly can't complain -- Thor & Anika do very well with their home-chores. They earn good money every week for the chores too. Thor has the system figured out completely... when ever he is trying to save up for something specific (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DVD this week) he offers to do ANY chore I can think of -- even making MY bed for me!! I discovered this week Anika is a SUPER stairway vacuum-er! I don't mind vacuuming as a whole, but like the stair-vacuuming the LEAST of it all. I had her do the two half-stair sections going from the kitchen to our lowest level, TV room area... and they are spotless!! YEAH!! That is going to become her chore EVERY Thursday afternoon!!

Dirk was home this past weekend, so we really did work some over-time on the household chores. We have learned with our new family schedule, that if all the homework and household (regular) duties are done by the time dad gets home on Friday, he will probably come up with some "fun" free time plans while he is here!! I think he's the biggest kid of us all!

Saturday morning started pretty early - leaving the house by 8 a.m. for Thor's Hockey game. The usual routine for the 4 squads of boys, is for two teams to have an hour of "stick practice" then a "positional scrimmage" (read: GAME) for an hour each.

A Side Note: We have been SO much happier wtih the hockey program this year, I can't stop telling other moms how impressed I am with the skills the boys are building! Not to mention, they are getting 3-4 hrs on the ice each week, compared to 1-2 hrs last year. It has everything to do with the coaching plan! Not to say that they last 2 years were a bad program... but it just shows how much better a good program can be with a little innovation! Because the boys are still playing only "1/2" ice for the games, it leaves the other half of the ice open for the stick-work practice ... so everyone gets 2 hrs on the ice, instead of taking turns using the whole rink for 2 teams to play a "game." 2nd: the coaches focus more on positional training during the "scrimmage" ... even stopping the game mid-play when someone has done something wrong, like "off-sides" and bringing the whole group of boys in for a "huddle" to make sure they understand what "off=sides" means... and what they need to do to prevent it. The also (probably the MOST important element) have 3 or more coaches on the ice all the time... one with the defensive players... one with the offensive players, trying to help them understand what their "job" is while playing the particular position. Thor plays defense a lot -- and is doing a really good job in that position, not that he can't do offensive play. He's bigger than most of the other boys -- not necessarily quicker!! :)

This weekend, however, 70% of the kids were gone to Pierre for a hockey tournament! There were just enough for 2 "squads" of kids left here in RC, which gave the coaches a fun opportunity. They did stick work for about 20 minutes -- then "game/scrimmage" the rest of the 2 hours of ice time!! Thor was POOPED when he got in the car... not to mention dripping with sweat and HUNGRY!!

The next stop after Hockey was going out to eat... not a usual treat, and since we are trying to eat "better" not "quicker" we opted for Olive Garden -- soup, salad, meat and pasta. Everyone was very satisfied -- even Liv who fell alseep in the booth while snuggled up next to me!

A few shopping errands took longer than we expected, even window shopping at Best Buy for a new lap-top for me for work (at church)... trying to stay within my Children's Ministry budget, plus a little extra from the leadership for the purpose of a lap-top. Still a challenge... not sure what is the best option yet? I guess my problem is that I have fallen in love the the Mac/Apple company (again) and have a hard time purchasing anything in the PC world. When you compare "apples" to "lemons" (pun intended!!) the PC's come up short every time. But the "good apples" are always a bit more expensive... so the questions is, how will I use the aforementioned budget to the best of it's ability!? :) I'll let you know what I decide.

Saturday evening we were happy to stay home, watch the Winter X Games and play "Guess Who" (Anika & Dirk) ... and just relax for a couple hours. I don't even remember falling asleep... but apparently I did, before 10 p.m.??

Sunday was a great morning at Dove -- worshiping with our church family, I taught Kids Worship for the Elementary room. It's always a fun time with those kids. They are old enough to really talk about how the Bible stories apply to our lives. This year we are stretching the usual Bible stories into lessons called "Doing What Jesus Did." Our lesson on the life of Sampson then led to a short lesson on How to Listen to the Holy Spirit in our own lives... how does He speak to us? What do we do with "it" when He does...? Sampson didn't do a very good job of following God's directions... He's a good example of what happens when God Blesses us, and we let ourselves do whatever feels good at the moment.

Mom & dad had Sunday dinner ready for us at their house - Campfire Stew (a Moeller family specialty) homemade bread, salad, and ice cream with or without bread pudding on the side. :) There wasn't too much down time afterward -- we all had haircut appointments at Amy's at 3p.m. 5 haircut/trims later -- YEP, every single one of us!! We were on our way to Cabellas for a winter-sale shopping trip. :) Then a quick lunch at Taco Bell... and we surprised the kids with one last "outing" for the evening...

Family Swim Night at the swim center!! As we were driving over, none of the kids had any idea Dirk was even considering it... Thor said "We can't go, we don't have our swim suit along." To which I replied "we don't?" Then they realized we had been planning it all along! :) Surprising them is almost as much fun as planning to go 2 days ahead of time... but you don't have to hear the constant "can we go NOW.... how much longer until we can GO??!"

We always have fun swimming together -- this time even more fun to find friends there unexpectedly. Two families we know from MOPS and Zion school were there. :) Liv found herself VERY comfortable in the water... a bit TOO comfortable for mom... She was walking/running everywhere and would find herself in water over her head. When I tried to "hold/carry" her around she would wiggle out and say "I walk... I go."

Then we tried the little kid's blue slide -- and the rest of the evening was OVER! She LOVED the blue slide! The first two times down she went on my lap... The third time at the top she sat down and went, without any warning or hesitation! I had to yell across the pool for Dirk to get to the bottom QUICK! She was ready for independence... Which means I have to enroll her in swim lessons NOW!!!

That put us home at 8:45p.m. BED TIME!! Just enough time for me to pack a few dinners for Dirk to heat up on the job-site in WY, and get to sleep.

3AM today - Dirk left for WY for work :( We'll be happier when he gets home in 2 weeks. :)