Oregon Trip

  A couple of weeks ago my parents decided that it would be a good idea to take a train out to Oregon and see the family.  You may have already read the account of this story which was written by my aunt Candice.  She did a good job of staying on top of things and blogging about them right after they happened, unlike me.  Even if you read that story though that was only one side of the story.  Her account did not tell what happened from my point-of-view.  When this development started to happen I quickly realized that I was not going to be participating in this trip.  When I discovered this realization I started trying to think of stuff that I could do and still be considered out of trouble.

  The day finally came in which it was time for my parents and lovely sister to depart from North Dakota and go across the long tracks to a place which is know to you all as Oregon.  They did not know for sure if they were going to have a place to stay at or not because no one knew that they were coming.

  It happened at piano lesson after we had dropped our parents off at the station, I figured out what I was going to be doing the next couple of days.  I was going to be climbing a ladder about an hour away from my house and roof a friends house.  That is a good way to stay out of trouble.  If you do anything too stupid you will end up with a very fast and expensive trip to the hospital.

  The day finally came when they were going to be able to knock on the door of their parents home and deliver some "Sunday School Literature".  They definitely surprised their parents and, from the sounds of it, they had a great week.

  You guys are probably really feeling bad for us boys right now because we had to roof a roof, imagine that.  Well, you guys can't stop the tears because it was a blessing in disguise.  The good news was that we were going to get fed.  We ended up having to roof this roof for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Amongst this craziness I was having to study for a tournament that weekend.  The sad thing was now we were really have to scrounge around for some food.  The tournament came and went.  There was a good church service that Sunday.  It was now Monday again.  One week had taken place since dropping the parents off at the station. We were invited over to Preston and Garret's house for dinner and to spend the night.  We were aware of the chance of there being a nice snow storm, but we also were aware of the fact that we are North Dakotan and are suppose to be able to plow through stuff like that.  It turned out that the next day Jared got school cancelled, something that is very unusual.  Preparing for the worst we dropped off a vehicle at the train station just in case we were not able to make it into town and pick up our parents.  The unexpected happened and us boys were not there when our parents arrived back from Oregon.  We were still at our friend's house enjoying ourselves.  Wednesday we were able to get home and life went on as usual.  Here are some pictures that my mother took while she was west in Oregon...

Jessica's Birthday Party

  When you are turning eight years old and are accused of being spoiled a princess by some then I guess you are eligible for two birthday parties.  That is just the way it happened for Jessica.  She was able to enjoy a little birthday tea party with her friends at a place whose name just slipped my mind.  Then, two days later, she was able to again have a birthday party which attendance was limited to those simply in her family.  Well, I hope she had a great time at both...hear are some pictures.

Baby Doll

  If anyone knows my sister just a little bit they know that she just loves little things that are made out of pretty much plastic that are unable to move, breathe, talk, bring any sense of intelligence to a conversation, and are unable to do anything else for that matter.  A simpler way to describe something of this sort is to say that it is a baby doll.  Well, it just so happened that when she went on a trip to Oregon with her parents that her little cousin , whose name is Kaitlyn, had one of these things.  It also happened to be one that my sister did not possess.  I don't know if this story is still believable but there are a couple of more important details.  My sister wanted to have a baby just liked her cousins.  At this time I would like to give a considerably loud shout-out to my Uncle Anthony and Aunt Candice for finding such a baby doll that my sister both did not have and liked at the same time.  It is getting considerably hard for such an occurrence to happen unless you are willing to spend in the three digits before a decimal point is even considered.  In layman's terms that would be over $100.  It just so happened that here Birthday was around this time also.  She happened to receive some money for getting older, isn't America weird, and was able to buy this baby doll.  Here are the pictures...

Quick Review

As you all know, I did not blog about Christmas and several other things.  The sad thing is I do not have pictures for of those other things so they will not be mentioned.  I do have pictures for Christmas though.  I have created a little video that summarizes the beginning of this year.  I will be actually blogging about some of the more recent things that have hit the back burner because of the one pertinent thing in my which is called quizzing.

Recap of Extravaganza Trip

  We had a great time on this trip.  It was long, and sometimes goofy, but a lot of good things were able to come out of it.  I believe that it gave our quiz team confidence, it gave some of us some much needed rest, and we were able to make new friends and renew some old relationships.  I am very appreciative to my coaches for all their hard work.  They did a get job of keeping us focused on the task at hand.  We definitely have some things that we need to work but we also have a couple of months before finals to get all the kinks out.  The shopping was great.  I don't think you could ask for much more except maybe getting the first place trophy or something.  I want to say a BIG "Thank You" to every one that made this trip possible.  I do really appreciate you all! 

Extravaganza Trip Day 4

  Sorry about not saying anything about what happened yesterday at quizzing.  It turns out we lost our first quiz of the day yesterday against Bismarck.  Our last quiz was cancelled because of the time.  We had to quiz the first quiz of the day today.  We came out on fire.  And won.  That quiz we played against Hazelwood, Missouri.  The next quiz we had to quiz was against Denver 1.  That quiz we were not as fortunate in because of me blowing it at the end.   It ended up that we finished fourth place out of thirteen experienced teams.  I was able to finish first place on the all-tournament team with 112 ppq.  Our fellow North Dakota team finished 2nd place after being the undefeated team in the first round.  London was the only person from that team to make it on the all-tournament averaging around 75 ppq.   After quizzing we hit the road and made it to Minneapolis.  We enjoyed a great meal at the Cheesecake Factory.  Before we left we walked all around the building.  Very comical.  Tomorrow we will be enjoying ourselves at a certain mall which is rather famous but I will not tell so that we do not disclose our location. 

Extravaganza Trip Day 2

Today we finished the trek over to Moline and are, at the moment, enjoying ourselves in a fine motel.  Quizzing orientation started at 5:00, which we were late for.  We ended up having to quiz Indianapolis which we were able to beat.  Our next quiz was against a team from Oklahoma which we also beat.  Tomorrow we quiz Bismarck in the second quiz of the day.  All for now.

Extravaganza Trip Day 1

  Today was an adventurous in the life of the quiz team.  First of all, after leaving on time from the church, we stopped in a place called Minot and had some lunch.  Then, we started our trek to Moline with a slight detour in a town which, for the sake of time, we shall call Fergus Falls.  We stopped there to eat at a place which would be known to you all as Arby's.  We had to take one more stop at a place which would be considered a "rest stop".  Around an hour later we arrived in a small town outside the metropolitan of Minneapolis called Bloomington.  We stayed at a motel called the "Le Bourget Aero Suites" which turned out to be a very nice place to spend the night.  Tomorrow we will continue our trek to Moline and start the extravaganza, hopefully we will end it on top.

Sorry

Since last time I posted things got a little bit out of control.  First, there was nothing to blog about.  Then there was Jessica's Birthday, but nearly immediately following that there was District Conference.  We got back from District Conference went to church Sunday and when we got back we learned that our internet was down.  We just got back our internet today but I am leaving.  Today Jared and I are heading east to go to the North Central extravaganza in a particular place called Moline, Illinois.  Now before you get an idea that perhaps just me and Jared are going to Moline please remember that our Quiz coach (Vaughn Pearson) his wife and Garret and Clarissa and Guy are also going.  Just a thought.  Hopefully I will be able to post something interesting while I am gone.