Update for Noah's room

IIn April we made an update to Noah's room. He has had a small loft bed from Ikea since he was 3. It was nice for a small room since there was play area underneath. It was time to upgrade to a full sized bed to better fit a growing kid. We found a great bed, again at Ikea. It is called MALM. We chuckled since that is our friends' last name...good choice!

And also got all new bedding since it is now a new size. 

Love the choices and the new look for his room! 

Baxter likes it too!! ;)

Noah's first interview part

In April Jeremy had a part on the Service Meeting to interview some of our youth and how they remain spiritually strong despite pressures at school etc. He asked Noah and Michael and Elena to participate. They all did so well. So encouraging to see them stand strong despite pressure. 

Last 2 day Circuit Assembly! March 2014

Not sure why this didn't post back when I wrote it, but better late than never...

Things are being simplified, so future Circuit Assemblies will be 1 day only, so this was sort of "end of an era" as our last 2 day Circuit assembly down in Rochester. I didn't get as many friend pics but a few from the wonderful weekend of spiritual encouragement and also visiting time with friends. 

Driving Baxter to the boarders before heading out of town Thursday. 

Noah with his second cousins Sam and Ben

Playing with Jackie in the pool at our hotel

Program

 

And some dinners out

Mack's (tradition)

Spring Break

Noah just came off his spring break before 3rd Trimester. We were not able to swing any out of town trips due to schedules, so just had odds-and-ends stuff going on. Still made for a busy week though and nice for him to be off school with no homework pressure. It even got nice enough for a couple days to feel like Spring (instead of just Winter Break Part 2). 

We needed to drive across town Saturday to pick up a piece of family heirloom furniture that was to come to our place since Cody has now moved to FL and it shouldn't just sit in storage. Nice to see Cody for a very brief visit. He gave Noah a special treat too. Here is the Secretary desk that has been in the family for decades. 

 And on the way back we took Mary to see Brent's new office space in the new building. Pretty nice work environment!!  :)

Monday Noah got to go to work with dad for the day. He was pretty excited. He also turned 12 that morning so another big milestone! Last year before the Teens!!

 

 think this was Noah's favorite room at the offices. Fun screen in this enclave. 

Tuesday Noah and I went with some friends in the ministry and then out for fun lunch at Culvers. Wednesday he had a mellow day with Grandma Kathy while I worked. Also had to go to dentist to get some help to get his last "baby tooth" molar out. It was loose but wouldn't come out and it broke and was sharp. End if an era. No more baby teeth!! They are do nice at his pediatric dental office. He doesn't even mind going there. 

Thursday we were going to run downtown (I was off) but Noah ended up sleeping in which he needed. We met both grandmas for lunch at Panera snd then the afternoon weather was so nice (around 50 degrees, which feels good here in spring) so me and Noah and Baxter went for a nice walk (Noah rode his bike) to enjoy the fresh air. We have been cooped up for rediculously long harsh winter it felt so good. Noah even wore shorts! 

Thursday night Noah spent overnight at Grammy Mary's since I worked Friday. He had plans with a couple brothers from our hall (Jeremy and Josh) to be in a car group for service Friday so he snd Grammy went out. 

Saturday we visited our friend Cheniu at her new Hmong language congregation. She just recently finished the language class and is now all switched over there. It was a fun adventure. The talk is usually given in English but translated into Hmong as they go. Bruce Leslie had the talk as the visiting speaker so he would talk for a few minutes then the local brother would translate and they switched back and forth. 

The scriptures were all read in Hmong but we knew through Bruce where to look to follow along. The Watchtower lesson was in the simplified English edition so read in English but discussed in Hmong. Some comments were done in English (including mine ;) since pretty much everyone there speaks English too. Some was in what I called "Hmonglish" where they would speak a little in both languages if they didn't know the Hmong word for something. We could follow along pretty well. Super friendly congregation. Eager to meet new visitors and a few tried to recruit us. ;). We went out to lunch with Cheniu. Nice to catch up. So proud of her!!!

Saturday night me and Noah had tickets to the Wild hockey game. Mom & son date night! Wild were playing the Columbus Blue Jackets. What a close game!  1-1 with many shots from both teams getting blocked. Overtime didn't break the tie so went into shoot out. Came down to last goal scored against Wild that had to have a conference of the officials because it looked like it bounced off goalie but the called it good. So we lost last second. But fun game to watch!! Never been to Wild and got 2 games in a month. Not bad!

Sunday was haircuts for the boys plus errands.  I went to our mtg too for a double dip. 

Poof the week flew by!!

Early March...a couple of fun "firsts"

March started off busy and we got invited to the graduation program for the Hmong class for those that wanted to start learning the language to join the Hmong congregation. Our good friend Cheniu was in the class and invited us. What a fun treat. There are only 3 Hmong Congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States and we have one local (other 2 are in CA). They showed how they learned words and tonal inflection that is do important in that language (same word can have multiple meanings depending on tone etc). Fun demos and even a drama of the Isrealites leaving Egypt and Pharoh perishing in the Red Sea...all in Hmong! Proud of the graduates who are now joining that congregation to help where needed. 

Monday March 3rd we joined a group at a MN Wild Hockey game. This was the first year we had attended Wild games and this was my (Jen) first game. Was a fun night! Pretty family friendly crowd. And we won, so that was fun bonus. Was also bobble head night so extra treat. 

We watched the practice down by the ice  kids tried to catch pucks but didn't get any (Noah and Jacklyn) and then we headed up to our seats. We took up pretty much a whole row with the group so that was fun. Had food and watched the game. Ben even arranged for Michelle to be able to ride in the Target cart zamboni thing on the ice (he has team and facility connections). All in all a fun night!!

Michelle is in there waiving her arm off! 

We were out in the hall chatting with Jere and the photographer lady caught us!

 Fun fun!!