August Already?

Where has the summer gone? I can't believe that we are shopping for school supplies & clothes already. We have had a very busy summer. Mike has one demo left tomorrow night. And I hate to say it but I am glad. It is very time consuming and it is wearing on me. My house is still torn apart from the bathroom tile installation & hard wood floors in the entry way. I ran over a bolt from derby stuff in the driveway and had to have my tire repaired. Argggg.......I may just be a little angry about the whole thing now, but I will get over it! At least he enjoys doing it and has great friends & our family to support him.

So on to an update on what's been going on! Last week we spent a few days in Duluth. It was beautiful. We spent about 2 hours at the welcome center when we came to town just checking out the views. The kids loved looking out over lake superior. We hiked up to Enger Tower, went down to the harbour, and swam at our water park hotel. I have lots of pictures on facebook if you want to check them out. We have decided we must go back and spend more time looking around. The kids are in Vacation Bible School this week. Brayden is attending and Zach is teaching the recreation part of it. We spent a few hours at the fair. (and a few hours driving around waiting for them to stop charging an entry fee). Zach and Brayden have finished their summer sports and are looking forward to school even though they say they are not!! Kailey will have a big adjustment in a couple weeks. She will be starting preschool, Sunday school and dance class! Wow. She also will cheer at the 9/11 ALHS football game. She took a cheerleading class this summer and there is lots of cheerleading going on in my house every day! I was worried she may forget the cheers by the time the game rolled around, but no worries she has them down pat and performs them all day, every day!

Hope everyone is having a great summer :)

Derby Photos

Here are pictures of Mike's derby trucks so far this year!

Gray Truck, 1st place Northwood

Black Truck, 2nd place Waseca
Black Truck (smashed badly), 2nd place Blue Earth

Lots of fun and lots of mud!!

Upside Down Tomatoes at 6 weeks

They are growing, but still seem to want to turn upward. I guess they will come back down as they fill with fruit. We are starting to see small tomatoes and on top the peppers & onions are doing very well.

Our home has grown by four feet!

Meet our newest family member! Max, He is a ShiPoo and joined our family yesterday. He is a little ball of fur and loves to play with feet!! He was Kailey's birthday present. I am sure you will all be meeting him in person soon!!

What's happening?

The summer has had a busy start. We are in full swing!! Brayden celebrated his 9th birthday on the 5th of June. We had a party for him this weekend with his friends. We went to a movie and then had pizza & cake. It was tons of fun. It is a sight to see him interact with his friends. He had his first 2 baseball games last week. They lost both, but just in the last week I have seen a great improvement in his game. He went from swinging at every ball to knowing the balls from strikes. The last game, the pitcher walked him every time he was to bat. He starts swimming lessons tonight.

Zach had his first basketball game for summer league yesterday. The team they played against only had 3 players show up and they had to pull 2 kids from the younger team. Albert Lea had 12 kids show and 2 that were not there. Our 10th grader basketball players are loyal basketball players. I am very proud of them for showing all they have. They won the game!!

Kailey is just busy. She loves to be outside and most nights end in screaming as I take her inside for a bath. She is exited for her birthday next month and busy planning her "tea party" birthday party, with a few friends.

Mike had his first derby on Friday. We spent 4 hours in the rain. Which turned the field we were in into mud. We were inches thick in mud! I was the tallest I have ever been!! Mud was stuck to everything and everybody. Did I say there was tons of mud?? I think he placed 6th, he got his truck hung up on anther. Next derby is 6/28 in Northwood.

Hope your summer is off to a great start!

Will tomatoes grow upside down?

looking down (top) looking up (bottom)

The whole project

So here is the experiment. This is the view of the whole upside down thing. Upside down are 4 tomato plants. Planted on the top are green and red peppers and red onions. Will we have tomatoes, peppers, and onions? Will we have tomatoes that taste like peppers and onions? Will this even work? We will see!! Mike is quite creative!!! Watch for updates as the summer grows.

Mike's New Hobby

What a great holiday weekend we had. We got all the flowers planted outside. Replaced 2 shrubs that did not come back this year. We also planted tomato plants. Mike had a new idea to plant some tomatoes upside down. He had the top portion of a 55 gallon plastic drum. So tomatoes will be planted upside down and on the top we are planting red & green peppers and onions. Maybe we will make salsa this year. I was not sure if it will work or not so I still planted 8 plants in our pots.

Demo derby season is starting soon. There is one truck in my yard and talk of another one to be added. Mike also has taken over the Cub Scout master position for Brayden's troop. He is very excited and has lots of new ideas for the boys in Pack 7. If you have a boy who is not in the scouting program, let me tell you it is worth while. I wish we would have pushed Zach harder to do it when he was little. But have no fear, there is an adventure scout program that he joining this fall. I think that it teaches many skills that are lost in our "technical" world today. Last week I saw 5 little boys that had never fished before! WOW. That just totally surprised me. I know not everyone is an outdoor person, but Albert Lea has that free "take a kid" fishing program every year. If you have a business or hobby that you do, we may be calling on you to show your stuff at a pack meeting in the future. (Police/Sheriff, Firefighter, Hunter/Fisherman, dog training, etc) You know who you are :) If you have a boy interested in scouts please let me know. We are accepting new scouts at any time.

Summer is going to be full of activities for the Boettcher family this year. Zach has summer basketball league on Sunday afternoons in Owatonna. Brayden has a traveling baseball program that he is participating in. Kailey will be doing cheer tots thru the park & rec. There will be plenty of demo derby's, a couple summer birthdays, a 10 year wedding anniversary, family reunions, camps, and maybe a vacation? I think I need a vacation just thinking about all of it!