Zechariah 9:9 - Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Merry Christmas to you and yours. We hope that you have had a good year and pray for a happy and healthy 2020!
For spring break this year, we went to St. Augustine, Florida for a few days to visit Ryan's parents. They go there for a month each winter, so we finally made the trek to check it out. After that, we went to Universal Studios in Orlando. We spent several days there, mostly checking out the Wizarding World. We figured out the way to get through rides quicker was to go in the single rider line; you don't really talk on the ride anyways. However, it did lead to some humorous situations with Zeke by himself with teenage girls or older adults. He even got stuck once with some foreigners and had a short conversation.
Our summer road trip was to southeast Utah where we camped at Arches National Park. We were also right next to Canyonlands National Park, so were there for a day. We also spent one day rafting the Colorado River. It was a very cool experience with some great rapids and a nice lunch at a ranch. On the totality of the trip, we also hit all of Colorado's national parks, including Rocky Mountain for our third time.
While at home, we got back on the bandwagon cheering for the Twins as they played for the pennant again. It was actually a Joe Mauer tribute year that first got us in for a few games, including his number being retired. The team was so exciting that we ended up going to quite a few more, including Ryan and Elisha going to their first home playoff game in some time - it did not go well.
Most things are normal with Ryan and Steph. Steph coached our school's track team this year and also coached cross country again in the fall. Ryan is helping coach Izzy's basketball team and also started and coached a robotics team at school. They ran Grandma's half marathon in Duluth and another Tough Mudder together. The whole family ran the Vikings 5k, a Turkey Trot 5k, and another mud run together too.
Elisha remained active as ever. His school basketball team won their conference tournament in the spring. He continued playing spring ball with some buddies, a couple three on three leagues in the summer, and is playing school ball and traveling again this winter. In between, he played soccer and ran track and cross country for school too. He placed well enough in our "state" meet to qualify for a "national" meet, however he chose to stay home for a basketball camp rather than travel for that. He also was on the robotics team at school. Elisha was a strong leader on the team helping guide the process the whole way through. We didn't move past our first tournament, but did win two awards that day. Other than basketball, Elisha likes to play video games and watch TV shows, his favorite being Stranger Things.
Izzy is also keeping busy. She continued in dance this fall expanding to four different styles in two classes. She played soccer and ran cross country this fall, using her speed in both. She won first for third grade girls in one of her meets and did very well in her other competing with fourth graders. This winter she is playing travel basketball on a team of third graders, however they are entering in fourth grade tournaments. It is going a bit better than expected and Izzy is having quite a bit of fun and doing very well. Lately, she has been playing piano, trying to teach herself.
Zeke isn't quite as busy as the other two yet. He played soccer this fall and played in house basketball this winter. He got to keep his Abraham Lincoln streak alive for a school project this spring. He had to do a presentation on a state, and chose Kentucky since that is where Lincoln was born. Zeke is always up to play at home, sometimes with Legos and other times still getting out his golden guys - little army men.
Love to you all!
Ryan, Steph, Elisha, Izzy, and Zeke
