Rochester Quick Trip and School Year Wrap Up

Our Rochester trip went by quicker than anticipated. Erin ended up with the flu within hours of starting the weekend adventure. Despite feeling a bit off, the family was still able to see the local zoo just outside of Rochester and go for a nice bike ride near the rivers that run through the city. At the zoo, we got to see badgers, owls, porcupines, wolves, bears, otters and big cats in action. Badgers were digging, porcupines were climbing up and down poles, and the cougar was hissing at something behind us which we couldn't discern (It definitely wasn't hissing at us because we tried to make it hiss at us but then it just ran away). Emma's first word that Dan heard her say was cougar when she was a baby. We decided that she needed a picture from her cougar reunion for her 12th birthday (see below). Besides the zoo, we found a beautiful trail where we check out some vibrant green shrubbery. Some of the shrubbery had fallen over in the last storm so we ended up dodging quite a few fallen trees as we meandered our way through the forest. The highlight of the trip for the girls was finding some art work with words etched into the cement while we checked out the Mayo Clinic in the downtown area. Everyone randomly walked onto a word that we said represented something in our future. Analise stepped on World, Emma stepped on Knowledge, Erin stepped on Abundance and Dan stepped on Sentimental. We'll just have to wait and see what awaits us. We did manange to stay overnight at our Airbnb but early in the morning we had to head home. The flu had managed to become unbearable and we returned early.

On Monday Emma celebrated her 12th birthday with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Mark. She received so many amazing gifts from relatives. Favorite gifts this year included Lego kits, a 3D pen and puzzles. This week completes the school year for the girls. Emma's middle school group gets to go to Urban Air together for their end of the year celebration. Analise's group does a track and field event followed by water day. The final photo is Analise with her besties Ella and Tessa at the end of the year party. We made it through the first middle school year without too much damage. Overall, it was a year of great growth.

New Challenges

Emma took on one of the most challenging speeches for the middle school Speech Meet this year. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to accomplish what she intended to do by the due date, but she was able to complete the task with a week to spare. She was very ashtonished to find out that she placed. We were all very proud of her, but even more impressed that her speech made others become emotional enough to cry.

Analise has been up against her own challenges with her new gymnastics group. She joined the Stillwater gymnastics team this past spring and has been pushing herself to learn new spins and jumps on the beam. She is also getting a lot of height with her moves on the bars. She will be continuing her practices this summer along with a new sport, synchronized swimming.