Rawson Ave. Spring concert!

Last night, Nicolas's school had their Spring concert. This year the theme was

Broadway Beat. Each grade sang 4 songs. All the kids did great. Nicolas's grade is the biggest

grade in the school with 92 kids. Each year it keeps on getting bigger. This year he got a little solo part. He

introduced the 3rd song, Gary Indiana.

He practiced for 2 weeks everyday. He had his part written down and in his pocket,

just in case he would freeze and forget. But his music teacher wanted him to do it by memory.

All 3 of us were nervous. But he got up there and did it like a pro! Vince and I were cheering

and acting like a couple of fools but that's okay, we're proud parents!!!

He surprise us everyday. Here is his speaking part.....

Gary Indiana

This song describes the loyalty a person can have for a town, or for us, a school!

We hope you enjoy "Gary Indiana."

Well, that's it for now. We wanted to brag some more. We hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather. We are as much as we can before the rain and snow come back.

Lots of love to all of you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Last swim meet of the session!

Hi everyone! Well, we had our last swim meet of the session on Friday 3/5. It was

suppose to be a home meet but it got changed at the last minute. We were

suppose to swim against the Boys & Girls Club, but they lost all of their funding.

So we ended up at Riverside High school. Lets just say, we were not welcomed with

open arms. They treated our kids poorly. Our kids barely got to swim. When they did,

Riverside acted like it was such a hassle. Our coaches were pretty angry. They

tried to talk to them about all of this, but it fell on deaf ears.

It was a nightmare!!

Nicolas did swim 2 heats. He swam the Backstroke and the IM. Here is an

example of how Riversides' attitude was. There were 7 kids competing in the

Backstroke. Instead of splitting up the kids, they made Nicolas swim alone.

Needless to say, it was the worst time he ever had on his Backstroke. It's

hard to go fast when you are the only one in the pool. We are happy that night is over.

So, here are his times...

IM, 100 yards. 2.43! He took 4th place.

Backstroke, 25 yards. 32.03! He took 5th place.

This past Friday was the last night of practice so the coaches let the kids have some fun.

As the pictures above show, they did have alot fun. The kids managed to throw 3

coaches in the water. This coming Friday is the pizza and awards party. We are

looking forward to that. This past Saturday was the big swim conference. So, the

awards and times from that will be given then.

Well, that's all for now. We hope everyone is doing good. Lots of love to all of you.

Nico loses his tooth during practice.

Hi everyone. I just had to blog this because it's to funny not to tell you. Last week Nicolas was at swim practice

and he was doing the backstroke and swimming towards the deep end when.....

he lost a molar!!!!!! Now that's not the funny part. A girl that was swimming behind him

and hearing all of the commotion, decided to help. She dove to the bottom , in the deep end

mind you,

and FOUND the tooth!!! AMAZING!!!!

Needless to say, it took awhile for everyone to compose themselves and resume practice.

What are the odds of finding a tooth in the deep end of a pool?

When I took Nicolas to the dentist last month, the dentist was amazed at how many adult teeth he has already. He has 6 baby teeth left and all of them are loose. He is always doing

something to make us laugh.

Well that's it for now. We hope all of you are doing good and we send our love to you.

Nicolas's Swim Meets

Smile!!!

Swimming Breaststroke.

Swimming Freestyle.

Ribbons from 2/18 meet.

Hi everyone! It's been a little crazy here this month. Nicolas had double ear infections

on the night of his 2/13 swim meet. We just didn't know it until he spiked a fever

Saturday afternoon. SURPRISE!!!!

With that and birthday parties and Vince being on "call" for 5 days, we're ready to bid

February goodbye.

He did pretty good for being so sick. Here are his times.

- Butterfly, 25 yards. 34 seconds. 2nd place!

- Freestyle, 25 yards. 25 seconds. 2nd place!

- The IM, 100 yards. 2.40. Incredible being sick, 2nd place!!

- The IM is 25 yards doing the Butterfly,

- 25 yards doing the Backstroke,

- 25 yards doing the breaststroke, and

- 25 yards doing the Freestyle.

He has been training real hard on his IM. It shows!

He also did 2 Relays w/ 3 other team mates but, came in last on both.

The other meet was this past Thursday. We had him only swim 2 events because of his ear infections.

- Butterfly, 25 yards. 43 seconds. 4th place.

- Freestyle, 25 yards. 23 seconds. 2nd place!

He beat his own record for the Freestyle by 2 seconds!! We are so excited. We are still " giddy" over this. He has one more "Home meet" in a couple of weeks then we go to Conferences. His coaches has taken a real liking to him. So much, that they are personally working with him.

Alot of these kids don't really take this seriously, but he does. He is really working his butt off.

The coaches are real impressed with that and so are we. We really hope he sticks with this. It has been so much fun watching him grow into this strong, confident,determined and fun-loving little man. We are so proud of him. We can't say it enough. We have one more birthday party to go to and then we should be done with

birthdays for awhile. On Valentines day, Nico gave me 2 beautiful cards and chocolate. He

going to make a wonderful husband someday. Ha! Ha! Vince made a beautiful disc of us

through the years and ending with.. " I love you and I want to spend the rest of life with you!"

Other things too, but I keep that just for us. We gave Nico a book that we could record us

reading the book to him. It's called " All the ways we love you." So that was nice. The rest

of the day was spent watching T.V. and playing games.

We hope all of you had a great Valentines as well.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hi everyone. I know it's been awhile since I posted anything. Things have been

pretty crazy around here lately. But, I wanted to let everyone know about

Nico's last swim meet. We survived the water main break from this past weekend.

We also had a little scare with my back problems. I was having problems with

my bladder. I wasn't able to pee. The doctor fears the remaining discs are deteriorating

faster than expected. The fear is that a nerve could be pressing against my bladder or a nerve is pressing against something that it effected my bladder. I could see a surgeon & do a couple of very painful tests to

maybe find out what is happening or just keep going the way we have been & hope for the best.

We are still talking about what will be best for our family. We'll keep you posted.

O.K. now about Nico!

On 1/21, Nico had a swim meet against the Boys & Girls Club.

It was a small group this time so it didn't take as long. Because of that, Our kids, So. Milw. Sharks, swam just about all of the races. Nico swam 5 races which is alot for a meet his age.

Also, he was swimming against kids that were older than him. So, it was an interesting

meet. For the very first time, Nico swam the I.M. O.K. that is the Individual Medley.

Which is swimming 4 different kinds of strokes back to back, 100 yards.

The stroke you start with is:

- the Backstroke, then the Butterfly, then the Breaststroke, and the last one is the Freestyle.

He took 1st place with a time of 2:19!!

The second event was:

- the Butterfly, 25 yards, with a time of 26.79.

He took 1st place!!

The third event was:

-the Backstroke, 25 yards, with a time of 23.87.

He took 2nd place!!

The fourth event was:

-the Freestyle, 25 yards, with a time of 19 seconds.

He took 3rd place!!

The last event was a Relay. 4 teammates swim this event. Each one swims a stroke twice or 50 yards.

Nico swam the Backstroke, 50 yards. The team came in 2nd place with a time of 2:44.72!!

These meets are so much fun. The best part of this is that Nico is having a great time. He

has another meet on Friday, wish us luck!

We would love to hear from you, so reply if you can. Take care & stay warm.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

The end of 2009

Happy New Year everyone!!!

We had a great Christmas. On Christmas eve, the boys & Montana

built a snowman, or should I say Vince built it & the dog & Nico

played. This year was our 1st year at hosting Christmas dinner

for Vince's family. WOW!!! That is all I can say about that. We served cornish hens which were good. Vince's sister's kids were

SO excited about christmas that they could hardly stand it.

That was cute to watch.

Nico got everything on his wish list and more.He is into science this year, so he got alot science kits.Montana even got a present from Santa. Vince and I got cool things as well. He got a lawn mower, tools, and a Snuggie. ( HA! HA!) I

gave him a engraved card & money clip. He gave me a "one of a kind" Mickey Mouse pendent.The ears have our anniversary stone and the face is a diamond. He got many,many kisses for that one.

Christmas night, we went over to my dad's house. My brother and his family were there. We don't get to see my family a lot, so it was nice to all be together at once. Nico and our nephew, Mason are the best of friends. It was fun watching them play together. It was a really great day all around.

We hope you and your families had a great Christmas too.Let us know how your Christmas went.

Time to get ready for the new year!

Lots of love to you all.

Wilderness Resort visit

Hi everyone. Over the weekend we went to the Wilderness Resort in the Dells.

We had fun. We went to all 3 waterparks & played miniature golf. We went to

their Wave pool which was interesting. It was the first time Nico was every in

a wave pool. But Vince stayed with him the whole time and they were playing

" Super hero's" against the waves. Of course the waves won. Sunday night, I

got real sick. I had a bad ear infection and I was throwing up. So we had to leave

earlier then we planned.

It was a nice get away after all the running around and the stress of Christmas.

Well, that's it for now. Take care.