Life

by Jewel

 

Last Friday night, which would have been April 5th, we had four cute Aberle kids here.

 

 

We had a good time watching a couple cartoons before their parents came .

 

 

The next day, Saturday, Sarah, Josh, and I helped Dad fix the floodgates down at the big creek. Josh ended up swimming, and I got wet a little past my waist. The water was so cold. 

   Tim and Em dropped by to look at the old truck, which Dad was hoping to sell, and so while Dad and Tim talked, Emily and the kids came to the back yard. Tim ended up taking the truck for a month-long trial run.

 

Hank wasn't too sure about Brandi.

                                                                            

 

Meanwhile, Ben was at the Seven Rivers Regional in Wisconsin. They ended up ranked number 1, and in this picture their alliance became the first one to have  two robots up on the top platform. They got knocked out in the finals though, because one of their alliance partners' robot got messed up, and then, once that one was fixed, the other partner's robot had technical difficulties too.

 



 

Saturday night was the choir benefit dinner. Our whole family went (besides Ben), and some of the kids went early and helped too.

 

 

I'm not sure what's going on here. I guess Dad and Josh went fishing on Sunday afternoon.

 

 

Monday we met A. Sarah at Culver's for her birthday, even though her actual birthday wasn't until Tuesday. We still had a good time though.

 

A. Sarah also used the opportunity to give me some bars she made for my birthday, which was on Wednesday.

 

Josh apparently enjoyed the sunshine that day.

 

Levi and Echo went fishing but got skunked and then stopped by on their way home from the lake and just spent some time hanging out. Jesse and Lucy came over too, and so we all ended up out on the patio around the fire burner.

 

 

 So, it was a great evening, a lot of fun, and now everyone's sort of in summer mode (I am anyway). We're all really excited for the lake this summer, and hopefully we'll have lots of fun there.

 



Long Rambly Catch Up

By Sarah

 

Jewel and Kate went horseback riding one nice evening awhile ago.

 

 

This was a couple Wednesdays ago. Mom, Jewel, Josh and I had to pick up the sticks from when the apple trees were pruned. The sticks were all put in a pile, so that we could burn them.

 

Mom's Bose works great as a microphone for karaoke on a stump :)  

 

Wednesday night after church, we went to Culver's. Everybody wanted a turn with Miles!

 

 

Photographer Whitley.

 

Kids table.

 

Adults table.

 

Saturday we cleaned lots of windows.

 

Echo was doing some shopping, so Levi brought Kiowa and Flint out for awhile. Kiowa got to help us while Levi worked outside.

 

Sunday night Levi's came out for the evening. We set up the projector and looked back at old vacation pics on the blog. It was a great time.

 

Levi being dorky.

 

Trying to burn the stick pile. It was a little too wet, so it wouldn't burn. Plus, we weren't allowed to use gasoline :( 

We kids found this rope swing in the south grove, so we hung it up in the barn.

 

More pruning.

 

Wednesday we had a crowd of ten of our favorite kids! From left to right; Cason, Jack, Wyatt, Henry, Josh, Clay, Bristol, me (holding Jovie), Jewel (holding Ella), and Ben. August didn't get to come out because it was still too cold for him.

 

Three peas in a pod!

 

Jewel pulling Ben, Clay, and Ella, and me holding Auggie.

 

Little man thought he was pretty cool with Josh's pistol.

 

Auggie loved the swing!

 

Ella loved being outside.

All of the kids left around 2:00, and then at about 2:10, I watched Miles while Mom and Leann walked. He was so happy and SOOO cute!

 

And that's about it for now! Outside it is currently beautiful and sunny, so excuse me while I finish my school, so that I can go outside :)!

 

Backyard Mania

Favorite Little

 

by Jewel

 

Saturday, while we were at the CIR, Levi and Echo stopped by, and sent this picture of Kiowa out on the group chat.

 

Saturday after we got home from Peoria we got to keep Kiowa awhile, and when Dad and Josh went to check on the cows we all went along for the walk. The water at the lake was really cold.



While Kiowa was inside making cookies with Mom, Sarah, Josh and I were outside on the swings and trampoline with Jacob making a movie. Although it's not on this post, it was a lot of fun, and there were some pretty neat flips and back-crackers.



 



 

The End



CIR

 

by Sarah

 

Last Saturday we went to the Central Illinois Regional FIRST robotics competition which was held at Bradley University in Peoria.

This was the original robot.

(photo creds for these next few px to Jill H. Thanks Jill!)

 

 

However on Thursday at CIR, since the robot still needed improvements, they took it almost completely apart (as you can see in the pic below), and then they worked on it all day Thursday and part of Friday and put  it all back together.

 

And the robot is coming along! Friday morning they actually had to skip their first two qualification matches since the robot was still in pieces on the floor. They had the robot finished in time though to play the rest of their matches. 

 

And the robot is finally starting to look how it's supposed to look! This was Saturday morning when Mom took Josh to see the Pits. She even got a smile (kind of) from Ben.

 

Mom took Jewel and I to see the Pits a little later. This is where the teams would do brush-up work on the robot between matches. The large yellow Caterpillar sign with the pic of the bulldog in the bottom-left corner is team 1756 Argos from Peoria. They were ranked number 1 in the competition, and they picked 2481 Roboteers as their first pick alliance partner! Argos and Roboteers have worked together on previous occasions and won several times.

 

Coming onto the field waiting their turn to play.

 

 

The whole Roboteers team. The alliance of 1756 Argos, 2481 Roboteers, and 1781 Electric Eagles won the regional!!

(photo cred again to Jill!)

 

 

Sunday evening we went to Grandpa and Grandma Kaiser's, and as you can tell, Ben was a little exhausted from the high-paced excitement and the late nights from the past few days.