First Day of School

Ellie has started another year of preschool. She now goes three days a week and loves it. Every day she asks whether today is a school day or not. We always get glowing reports from her teacher about what a good listener she is and how smart she is. When I've helped out in the class, I always enjoy watching Ellie interact with her classmates. She can be rather bossy (she's just a natural born leader according to her teacher), and many times will drive the activities in the classroom in whatever direction she thinks it should go that day-- she'll pick out the stories to read, the songs to sing, and when to move on to something else. I don't know where she gets that trait from.

Arizona family visit

My brother and his family came for a visit in the middle of July. Both Ian and Hannah celebrated their birthdays while they were here. There was lots of playing and lots of time spent at Monkey Joe's. Ellie and Max loved having their cousins around. Max followed Ian everywhere he went. I don't think Ian was as excited to have a mini-me as Max was to have a big boy to play with. It's always nice to get to visit with family, and we don't get to see them nearly often enough.

Lake of the Ozarks Week

We had lots of fun at the Lake this year. We of course spent some time at Miner Mike's. Max was big enough to play in the climbing jungle gym and in the balls, though he was little small for the roller coaster. All the kids loved the games and the cheap toys they got when they redeemed their tickets. What a racket that is.

Jason celebrated his birthday (#32...shhhh, don't tell). He got to be the chef for the evening and make his tasty sliders. His celebration was a little late though because we had a wine and cheese tasting event. Some of the ladies had a really good time...just ask them.

We played putt-putt at Pirate's Cove...the best mini golf course at the Lake, in our opinion. Ellie even got to play a round this year for the first time, and she had a great time.

But the highlight of the week was the birth of baby Cole. He was a few days early, but when he was ready, there was no stopping him. Valerie started having contractions, so she, Bryan, and Sue headed up to Columbia. They barely made it to the hospital before Cole was ready to make his debut. Then Mom, Dad, and baby came back down to the Lake the next day!!! Valerie is a wonderwoman.

Freed Cup 2010

The theme for the Freed Cup 2010 was tacky golf, so everyone turned out in their finest. We got quite a few looks walking through the clubhouse. As you can see from the pictures above, some people were a little tackier than others, but everyone had a good time.

We played the dreaded Spongebob Squarepants ball challenge this year. Each team had a Spongebob ball that had to be played on every other hole, and had to be played alternating shots by the couple. On the first hole, I hit first and put a good ball out into the fairway, which then allowed Jason to swing hard. Unfortunately, he was swinging hard with Spongebob (he was the brave one to hit it off the first tee), and it went straight into the woods. We were the last couple to tee off so we were able to spend a little extra time searching for Spongebob in the woods, but with no luck. What is so dreaded about Spongebob is that you have to take a penalty stroke for each hole that you don't play Spongebob, which meant we were starting the round 9 over...that's tough to come back from. On the positive side, it took the pressure off having to deal with Spongebob the whole round.

Most of the teams ended up losing Spongebob sometime during the round, though most lost him much later than we did. We knew we were pretty much out of contention for the trophy this year from the get go, so we just took it easy and had fun. We still ended up tied for second place, and actually played fairly well (minus the Spongebob incident).

The Freed Cup 2010 went to Kristin and Billy (tyed-dyed outfits). Congratulations!!! It was a smart move dating and getting engaged to a good golfer, Kristin. We're going to have to step up our game in the future if we hope to win back the trophy from the soon-to-be Gossetts.