Pictures of Nationals

Finally got my pictures downloaded from Nationals.....here are a few for you to see.

Jeremy spotting for one of his team members in silhouettes.

Courtney (far right) 6th place in rapid fire. Her cousin Jarrett (2nd from left) placed 9th in rapid fire.

.22 pistol team....Nina, Jarrett and Courtney-3rd place in Slow Fire. They shoot 4 targets for this one and on one of the targets Courtney got a perfect 100 out of 100 with 4 out of 10 bullseyes...Woohoo!

Nina, Courtney, Jarrett and Coach Harry (Nina's dad)-2nd place in Rapid Fire.

Courtney (far left) Nina (in dark blue sweatshirt) Harry and Jarrett working as a team in Silhouettes. Courtney and Jarrett are spotting for Nina shooting.

Courtney getting ready to shoot her slow fire target.

Jeremy shooting slow fire air pistol.

Air Pistol team shooting......Jeremy, Paul, Shelby and Paige.

Air Pistol Team placed 3rd in Slow Fire.....Paige, Shelby, Jeremy and Paul.

Courtney placed 5th in Slow Fire.

Whew.....what a week!

I'm Back!

We are finally back from our "vacation"! It was a good week, although there were a few storms that came through while we were there and it was about 90-95 degrees out while the kids were doing some of their shooting.

The kids did really good. Courtney placed 5th in slow fire and 6th in rapid fire. Her cousin Jarrett was also on her .22 pistol team and place 9th in rapid fire. Their team placed 2nd in slow fire and 3rd in rapid fire. They did not place in silhouettes. Then ended up placing 4th overall!

Jeremy's air pistol team placed 3rd in slow fire, but did not place in rapid fire or silhouettes (they only give out the top 3 placings....top 5 placings overall). They also ended up with 4th place overall.

It is so much fun to watch the kids shoot their guns. If you would have told me 10 or 12 years ago that I would put a .22 pistol in the hands of Courtney and let her shoot with hundreds of people around, I would have laughed at you. I am impressed at how much she has grown up and settled down (f0r the most part). Jeremy has always been pretty responsible and he takes his shooting pretty seriously. He is even thinking about joining the pistol team at college this fall.

I took lots of pictures but haven't had time to do anything with them yet....will post some when I get a chance.

Vacation!

I got the kids sent off on the bus to Nebraska today for the National Shooting Sports Invitational. They called a little bit ago and have made it there safely. Chad and I will leave tomorrow morning to catch up with them and watch them compete.

I will not be posting this week because I do not have a laptop.....hint, hint hubby....I want one!

We will return on Friday....hopefully all vacationed out and ready to get back to the farming and pigs....we started hauling them out this last week.

I hope you all have a great week!

Farm Fun!

Here is how my farm kids have fun on the farm..... Jeremy pulls Courtney around the yard in the cart behind the 4-wheeler....
he listens to her scream.....
while taking her over "hills" aka the driveway.....
and ties to tip her over.....
I know....they seem a little old for things like this but hey, at least they were getting along at the moment and having fun together!!! Oh, and nobody got hurt!

Hmmmm.....I wonder why Jeremy didn't let Courtney pull him around.....he's a smart one!

Fishing!

The Noem family actually took the night off and went fishing! It was so much fun and such a gorgeous night to go fishing. Chad driving the boat.....Jeremy eating.
Courtney....eating! There was one of me eating too but I chose not to post it!
The fish we caught......12 walleyes!
Aren't they nice??!!
Cleaning the fish! Guess what is for dinner tomorrow??!!

Awesome Story!

I got this in an e-mail and had to pass it along to all of you!

The Ant and the Contact Lens: a true story

Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. She was standing on a ledge where she was taking a breather during this, her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens . "Great", she thought. "Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry." She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there. She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she may find her contact lens. When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought of the bible verse "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth." She thought, "Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me." Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, "Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?" Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it! The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, "Lord, I don't know why You want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I'll carry it for You." I think it would do all of us some good to say, "God, I don't know why You want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it's awfully heavy. But, if You want me to carry it, I will." God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Yes, I do love GOD. He is my source of existence and my Savior. He keeps me functioning each and every day Without Him, I am nothing, but with Him....I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)

Kittens

I found this little kitten in our barn just crying away. I could not find his mama anywhere and he seemed hungry and lonely. He was a friendly little thing and liked to be held and pet. I tried to feed him some milk and bread but he wouldn't eat it. I checked on him a few times throughout the day and he was still out in the barn crying. I was afraid he would die out in the barn by himself so I did the only thing I could think of besides bottle feeding him......

I brought him over to Sharon (my mother-in-law). She has lots of mama and baby kittens around there. She put him in with a mama cat that had a few babies the same size as the kitten I found. She went down to the barn the next day and this is what she found! Another mama with kittens about half the size of the kitten I found had adopted him instead.
He looks a little big with his step-sisters and step-brothers but he is happy and content!

Father's Day

First of all....Jenny is giving away a Christian CD....head on over to her blog and sign up to win.

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Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!

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I would like to pay tribute to the father that I had. I was only 17 years old when he died but he taught me alot in those 17 years.

He was a kind, quiet, patient man of few words.

He was a hard worker but also took time to make sure my mom and us kids knew how special and important we were to him.

He taught me how to play softball and basketball and would take time out of his busy day to throw a few balls or shoot a few hoops.

He sat in the stands at all of my games and even sat in the stands to watch me cheer as a 7th grader.

He made sure we took family vacations which is something I still treasure to this day.

He taught me the importance of hard work and was very patient as he taught me how to drive tractor, run a swather or drive truck.

I don't ever remember him "yelling" at me while chasing cows which for all of you that have ever worked with livestock know what a feat that is.

He helped us "break"our 4-H calves and I remember him being drug around the barn each time he did but he did it because he knew we would love showing that calf.

I could tell you many more things but the point of my post is to remind you all to appreciate those fathers out there and tell them how much you appreciate and love them. My dad was only on this earth for 37 years but he made a huge impact on many people in those 37 years, especially on the 4 of us kids. I wish I would have told him more how much I loved him and how much I appreciated everything he did for me.

SDSU here he comes!

We spent all day yesterday at South Dakota State University attending orientation meetings. We now have Jeremy "officially" all signed up for classes and ready to head off to college. He can start moving into his dorm on August 28 and starts classes on Sept. 2.



Some parts of the orientation were very interesting and some were very B-O-R-I-N-G! For the most part, we learned alot. All I know is there are LOTS of decisions to make when attending college. Jeremy did pretty well.....he is not really a decision kind of guy!



He also had to take placement tests for Math and tested out of a few math classes and starts with Calculus 1....that saved him some time and $$$. He was pretty excited about that.



He changed his major already....he was signed up for Mechanical Engineering but isn't sure Mechanical is the type of engineering he wants so he changed it to General Engineering until he decides for sure which type of engineering he would like to pursue.



So.....in a few months, I will be sending my baby off to South Dakota State University.

SCORE

I scored some rhubarb....my sister gave me some (thank you Cheryl)! I think she may have gotten it from our other sister's mother-in-law (thank you Pauline). I have a rhubarb custard dessert in the oven as I type this....I love rhubarb and can't wait for the dessert to come out of the oven.

Summer

Ok, summer as we know it has begun around here! Courtney started her leagues and camps this week. She went to a Cheer Camp on Monday and Tuesday, she and the other cheerleaders put on a Cheer Camp for the kids here at Hamlin on Wednesday and Thursday, she plays in a volleyball league on Monday nights, Softball (got cancelled this week tho) on Tuesday nights, and basketball league on Thursday nights. She leaves on Sunday for the Hansen-Anderson Basketball Camp of Stars and will not be home until Friday (she will have to miss all the league games this coming week). The only night of the week she has free is Wednesday and I am sure she will want to hit Open Gym at the school on those nights. We did this last year x 2 but Jeremy does not have any of the leagues or camps to attend this year.....just Nationals this month for a week and next month he goes to Norway for 16 days.

The whole group of girls at Cheer Camp

Courtney with her group of girls at Cheer Camp

My niece Kennedy at Cheer Camp

Courtney "spiriting" with her group of girls

Courtney leading a cheer with her group at Cheer Camp

Poor Jeremy!

Ok, I am feeling a little guilty about my last post! I was so excited for Jeremy to start driving the semi to town.....but now I am kinda feeling bad for the poor kid (I know he's not a kid anymore, he's 18 but he will always be my kid). He took 2 loads to town yesterday and ended up waiting in line for over 2 hours both times. Then, first thing this morning he takes off with the semi and gets about 10 miles from home and a guy in a pickup starts flagging him over....
the brakes on the trailer are locked up and are on fire. The guy grabs a fire extinguisher and puts out the fire but while they are both under there putting the fire out, the tire blows.....right in Jeremy's face! Our mechanic came and looked at it and it was fit enough to drive to his shop so Jeremy drove it to the shop where it still sits right now, being worked on. In the meantime.....Jeremy's ear is really bothering him from the "explosion" so I took him to the doctor to make sure it hasn't ruptured his ear drum. The doctor couldn't see the full eardrum (he had a little wax build-up) but could see the middle which is where they usually get a hole so she is pretty sure he will be ok. His ear is still ringing and feels funny and if that continues on for the next week, he will have to see a Ear-Nose-Throat specialist to see if there was any hearing damage but we are pretty hopeful that he will be just fine.
You just never know what is going to happen around here!

Go Jeremy!

I am so excited today.....Chad is breaking Jeremy in..... hauling corn in the semi to the ethanol plant! YEAH! Jeremy drives semi alot but has never taken a load to the ethanol plant.

Several reasons for me to be excited.....

1. I drive semi but am not real comfortable driving it great distances and through lots of traffic.

2. The place they are hauling to is 35 miles away and on the edge of Watertown....4 lane traffic coming into town.

3. Jeremy will now (cross fingers) take over some of the hauling duties around here.

4. It frees me up to get some more things done here around the house (and more blogging time).

Fencing

All 4 of us have spent the last few days working on fences. We have had some arguments, some mishaps, some blonde moments (mostly Courtney and me), Courtney threw the hammer a few times (yes, she has a temper..wonder where she gets that from), a few...ahem...choice words escaped from my mouth (and Chad's too), Jeremy hit his thumb several times, everyone except me got at least one shock......but most importantly, we had many good laughs and some fun along with the work. We actually had LOTS of fun the last few days. It is so nice to be able to spend time with each other out in the fresh air without distractions (ok, the kids did do some texting so we weren't totally without distractions but they put the phones away when we asked them to). Ahhhh...spending time with my family...having some fun...while getting the work done....PRICELESS!