The Alzen Family

Ski Trip to Lutsen

2012-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

We recently had the chance to go to the Lutsen Ski Resort with our our church group. The ski hills were awesome, It was definitely a step up compared to the smaller ski resorts we've skied at: Afton, Trollhaugen, Spirit Mountain, and Giants Ridge. It was the first time skiing for the boys. They did really well, and we definitely had a blast!

On the way up, we went bowling, which was also a first for the boys.

Ari, Me, and Meagan

Most of the skiers

We stayed at an AmericInn that was about 20 min. away from Lutsen.

After we got back from skiing, we played lots of games.

After our last day of skiing, we went to an adorable little pizza place called Sven and Ollie's.

Top: Mrs. Wanschura, Mom, Lucas, Jacob, Jonas, Dad, and Mrs. Ostby

Me, Jesse, AnaLise, Daniel, Bill, Meagan, Christina, Nikia, Ari, Amanda, and Hannah

Lucas, Rob, Isaac, Dan, Phil, Jarek, and Dan

Memories from the Christmas Season

2012-01-14T17:13:00.000-08:00

As you probably can tell, by the lapse of time on our blog, we have been very busy! So I thought I should do a quick snap-shot of things we have been up to recently.

Cutting down our Christmas tree in our back woods

Jacob with his "mini" snowman (due to the lack of snow we've been getting) :P

Christmas concerts also kept us busy.

Mom and Dad went into court for the second time, to officially finalize our adoption.

Here we are, going out to eat, to celebrate the two new additions of our family that have been such a blessing to us.

Then, on top of that we hosted Christmas. We had both sides of our family over for a joyous celebration.

AnaLise and our cousin, Jack

Jonas, Jenna (cousin), and Jacob =P

Mom is a wonderful chef!
We celebrated with sparkling pear juice.

Mama, Uncle Mike, and Grandma Pat

Our cousin Shane, Isaac, Eric (cousin), and Lucas

Grandma Dolores opening up gifts

Posted by Tessa

Happy Birthday, Jacob!!

2011-12-03T09:49:00.001-08:00

Happy 10th Birthday, Jacob!!!

It's been fun to get to know his personalities over the few months. Jacob and Jonas stick together basically all the day. Whether it be hopping in the car with "Pop" as they call him, or throwing snowballs at each other outside, or building neat machines with different odds and ends. :)

Jacob is a very sweet and sensitive boy. Yet, when it comes to boy things like baseball, he is all boy. :D He is very caring. For instance, when Jonas falls down or gets hurt, he'll be right there to comfort him. He likes to be active, so I have fun jumping on the trampoline with them or simply playing with Legos. He is very creative, Jacob has built several bow and arrows with sticks and string. For his birthday he received his own real bow, so he has been doing that a lot. Outdoors is one of the things he loves to be doing. He always tells us that he wants to hunt like Papa, which he sometimes does by going out in the woods sitting next to Dad just waiting and watching. :) He has been such a sweet brother to me. I love having younger siblings!

Isaac enjoys playing catch with the boys or, in this picture they built a giant snowman with the little snow we had. ;)

Mom and Jacob when we first got introduced to them in Ukraine.

Jacob and Jonas enjoyed to make "pillow forts" in our little apartment in Kiev, Ukraine. =D

Posted by Tessa

Family photos

2011-11-10T12:44:00.001-08:00

I finally got all of our new family photos uploaded on this post! :) This is our first photo shoot with the boys. They're taken in Biwabik MN, at Storybook camp. We go there twice a year for our church family camp, and the T.E.A.C.H retreat. So we thought it would be a fun idea to take them up there. Thanks to Meagan Wanschura who did a great job on these pictures! Visit her blog http://www.meaganwanschura.com/ to find more information about her photography.

Enjoy!

Posted by Tessa

Georgia Relatives

2011-11-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

We have relatives from Georgia that came up to meet Jacob and Jonas, and for us to meet their two-year-old, Charlie. Charlie's dad, Nick is my dad's nephew. Our house was full of life with a two year old, Mr. Energetic, in our house!

Here's some pictures from their visit:

Jonas with his huge tower...he didn't have any trouble grinning in those pictures!

Nick and Jacob

We played a little bit of football. Here we are high fiving Charlie for his touchdown :)

Grandpa and Grandma took everyone out to eat at the end of the visit

Carly (Nick's wife who is pregnant with a girl :D), AnaLise, Grandma, Mom, and I

Big smiles!

Posted by Tessa

Catching up on the Alzen Family =)

2011-10-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

After completing our adoption of Jacob and Jonas about a month ago, (you can read all about that process @ http://www.alzenadoption.blogspot.com/,) we have been so busy adjusting back to our regular and busy lifestyle, that I thought I would share some of the things we have been up to.

Fishing!! One of the boys' favorite hobbies.

Canoe Race

Tubing

Family Reunions

Tis the summer for weddings!

On the mini train at Lake Itasca music festival

Jonas, zipped up in Isaac's bass case!

Up to the cabin with the Godins :)

2011-10-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we went up north to a friends cabin, who have been a big part of our adoption. Another family went up to join us for a day, we went to their cabin for a day also. We had a blast enjoying the beautiful cabin, swimming, fishing, badmitten, pool, board games, and tubing. Here's some pictures of us kids having a great time!

Jacob and Jonas fishing

We brought our fishing boat up. The cabin had a pontoon boat and a speed boat which we definatly put into use!

Here's Isaac concentrating on a shot of one of the many games of pool in the garage....including some crazy games of "crud" that Amanda taught us... super CRAZY!!

Jacob, Lucas, and Josiah on the tube

We had some great sunny days there :)

Riding the waves

Tyler, Ryan and Isaac...

Speeding on the wake...

And doing some stunts. :P

Jonas on the speed boat

Beach Volleyball. AnaLise, Emily and myself

Jonas and Jacob getting dirty

Josiah and Jacob in the hot tub

Jonas and Abby - aren't they cuties?!!

Isaac and Tyler...lol

Hot Tub Fun

Yes, we had a nice time! =D

(Thanks to Amanda who took all the awesome pictures above!)

Posted by Tessa

Glasses

2011-09-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

Jonas got glasses! He had a problem with one of his eyes: it was a lazy eye, but when he didn't get treatment for it, his mind blocked out that eye, so it was basically blind. So we brought him to the eye doctor, and now he has glasses!

Here's Jonas being silly: closing his eyes, and sometimes making weird faces...typical Jonas!

Posted by Tessa

Happy Birthday, Lucas!

2011-06-13T04:13:00.000-07:00

Happy 18th Birthday Lucas!!! I miss your sweet smile and your love of nature. I miss playing chess and Othello with you...even if you almost always win! =) I miss going on bike rides with you, collecting and selling chicken eggs with you, and beating you in Ticket to ride. ;) You never cease to amaze me with all the interesting facts you know, and I will never stand a chance against you in Science! =P I hope you have a wonderful birthday...and know that we are celebrating with you across the ocean. May the Lord bless your journey into adulthood, and may you continue to seek Him with all of your heart. I love you Loons Lan!

Isaac's Birthday Post!!

2011-04-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

It's Ize's Birthday !! Happy 20th (supper belated) Birthday!!

He has been such an awesome and inspiring brother to me. He is such a light to his college, and people can tell he is brimming with the love of Jesus. I love his wacky sense of hummor, and his knowledge of the Bible. (Sorry I haven't posted this earlier!) Some thing he enjoys are:

Playing softball

Bass

Board games

Ultimate frisbee

Snow football

Spanish

Broomball

Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

- Tessa

Outdoor Wedding

2011-03-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

Hi! This is Tessa here, this is a post on a wedding that we played at a couple years ago. This wedding was at the Groom's parent's house. We played on their deck. We had a great time, even though it rained through part of the Ceremony. The rain got on my bow, and it wasn't making a sound! Yep, we had an interesting time!

Tessa (Me)

AnaLise

Lucas

Isaac

Mom

Dad

It was a beautiful harvest-time setting.

Here we are on the deck.

Family photos

(Don't they look spiffy?)

Getting ready before hand. :P

Relaxing before the wedding

Mom and dad at the reception.

They had the reception at a church, we played at that also.

Brianna, the bride, sang a song with us.

Kicking it up with bluegrass at a wedding!! =)

Tessa's B-day post cont.

2011-02-23T12:55:00.000-08:00

Please scroll down to the first part of this post entitled, 'Happy Birthday Tessa!!' before reading this second half, thanks!

Ahem.....that didn't work out the way I wanted to! :) I sort of forgot that the first picture you upload always has to be last, at least with our computer, and it would have looked weird to say, "Judge for yourselves on the pictures and photos I'll share with you above." Anyways, Tessa's birthday post continued! (And no, I'm not blond...:P)

Right off the bat, I'll start with six facts about Tessa.

Favorite food: Italian and Chinese

Favorite color: Blue

Favorite subject: Math

Favorite animal: Dog

Favorite season: Spring

Favorit sport: Ultimate Frisbee

In the summer Tessa enjoys gardening and taking pictures of the flowers in our yard.

She's a pretty gifted musician, and plays the Violin and Dobro as well as the Banjo

Tessa is a wonderful business partner! We sell our jewelry and various crafts at our concerts, and it's always fun to see what creative idea she's come up with next!

Tessa is definitely the early bird of the family, and how she does it ....well...ahem...let's just say I'm not a very good person to ask! Her alarm goes of promptly every morning, and because I am always to tired to climb off our loft bed and turn it off, she always has to do it, and once Tessa is up she is, (more or less,) wide awake! Believe me, I know....:P She is also the sleep walker of the family, (although I have also been found guilty before,) and because I share a room with her, I am the put-her-back-to-bed-er! She also delights me (NOT!!) by mumbling and acting out very unclear and abstract parts of her dreams in the middle of the night!

Tessa is pretty good at making people laugh, even without trying to, and is called a 'ham' by many of her friends! :) We did many plays when we were little. (Above)

When she was little, Tessa loved to pretend. We have many memories playing Little House on the Prairie together, and being that Tessa was the youngest of our foursome, she usually played Carrie, and a pretty cute Carrie at that!

Tessa is quite the crafty girl! =) She enjoys knitting, quilting, sewing, jewelery making, sketching, and card making. She has won ribbons for her quilting and knitting abilities, as well as various art projects. Recently she has picked up the hobby of drawing, and as we are taking an art class together she has come up with some remarkable sketches, especially of people.

I love you like crazy, Tessa! Happy 13th Birthday!

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. -Psalm 106:1

Happy Birthday Tessa!!

2011-02-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

Happy 13th Birthday Tessa!

As of Febuary 20th, my sweet sister Tessa is a teenager! This markes an important day for the Alzen family history.....because now, for less than a month until Ize turns 20, all four of the Alzen childern will be teenagers!

Tessa is a darling sister, and she adds so much joy to our family. Although she may seem shy at first, her smile and happy outlook on life will convince you otherwise. Judge for yourself on the photos and facts I'll share with you below about Tessa Katelyn!

Nikolai

2011-01-24T14:11:00.000-08:00

About three weeks ago, Nikolai once again left for Ukraine. This Christmas's hosting program went even better for us, because Nickolai was used to his surroundings and it wasn't quite as bewildering for him. We loved having him with us for the festivities of the Christmas season, and he loved giving and receiving gifts! :) Nikolai picked out an adorable pair of slippers for me, and practicly glowed as I unwrapped, squealed, and thanked him for his sweet gift. He added so much to our celebrations, and was the best li'l 'Christmas gift' I could have asked for! Below are a few random and cute pictures of Nikolai.

Our little 'fish' swimming with Grandma

Nickolai adores riding on any type of boat or machine, particularly Jet skis....it was hard getting him away from them!

Nikolai's buddy

Nikolai certainly wanted to belong! He would get out his mini guitar, banjo, egg shaker, or croaking frog and diligently practice along side us. He sure brought the cute factor onto the stage! ;)

Speaking to one another in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual songs; singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. Giving thanks always, for all things, to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:19-20

Happy Birthday AnaLise!

2010-12-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

Happy 15th birthday AnaLise!

AnaLise has been such a great sister through the years. What a blessing it is to have her as a role-modle. AnaLise has such a loving heart for children. She is always ready for a challenge in some sort of sport. Her talents for music, crafts, sports, and cooking have been very apparent. She plays the violin, mandolin, guitar, and picking up a few other instruments. Her bright voice is a great blessing to our band.

Happy Birthday AnaLise!

Love, Tessa

Oh Christmas Tree!

2010-12-25T07:21:00.000-08:00

I love this picture!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches!

Nikolai stepped off the plane into a winter wonderland, and absolutely loves the snow! He loves to play in it, to throw it, to climb it, and to eat it! He also is excited about Christmas. To think that probably never had a real Christmas tree and real Christmas presents blows me away. So in order to give him the 'full' affect, we waited till he came to go chop down our tree from our woods in the back.

Isaac carried the tree all the way back home in the blizzard, it didn't help that the wind was blowing the opposite direction down the hill when we were going up it, and that the huge tree acted like a sail to his disadvantage! :P

All of us gathered around the tree in the pine tree forest behind our house owned by our neighbor. He has wonderful trees for wonderful prices at a wonderful distance! :) (My snow pants do NOT normally look like that!! That was totally the light of the camera...trust me. :)

Dad and Lucas took turns pulling Nikolai in the sled. The snow was so deep that it would have taken a year to get him there and back, so we found the perfect solution...a sled!

The not quite finished product! (Photo complements of Nikolai ;)

Adoption Benifit Concert

2010-12-07T16:47:00.001-08:00

About two weeks ago we did our fourth benefit concert for the adoption. We were so amazed at what the Lord did that night. To GOD be the glory! Our friends the Garms family graciously agreed to put on a double concert with us, and did a fabulous job! We had around 400 people show up for the fundraiser...what an answer to prayer. Along with the concerts there was a huge silent auction. Mom, Tessa and I had been soliciting donations from local businesses for the past month, and it really paid off. We are so thankful to all the companies, businesses, and friends who so generously donated; what a blessing!

To save time, I would like you to visit the blog of our friends the Armour family, who came to our concert. Their daughter, and my dear friend, Hannah, did a great job of taking pictures and then tried to send them to us, but the attachment files were having problems. The Armours put up a really nice post about the benefit concert, so visit their blog at http://www.armourclan.blogspot.com/, scroll down to the November 30th post entitled The Alzen Family's Adoption Concert, and just pretend I posted about it! :P Or go to the Garm family's blog at http://www.greatadventurefamily.blogspot.com/ at check out their November 23 post called Alzen Adoption Fundraiser as well!

We are so grateful to all of you who helped out, either by donating, performing, cleaning, cooking, announcing, or just attending, for you are playing a big role in bringing our two little boys home. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Sincerely,

AnaLise for the Alzen family

Vist from the Kenneys

2010-11-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

Our new D.V.D is now released all because of Hannah Kenney's filming and editing talents, and her determination. We were hoping to have it finished by our fundraiser this Friday, so last week Hannah and part of her family stopped at our house on the way to fix Hannah's harp. Their family greatly blessed us with their helpfulness in preparing for our fundraiser. A week later we found a box on our doorstep the day of the fundraiser all ready to go! So if you need someone to get the job done well and fast, ask Day Star Productions!

Hannah at the computer desk

Playing outside in the fresh snow.

Ethan

Lydia

Tessa showing of our, ahem, beautiful sled. =P

Our (lame) sledding hill. :)

Thank you for all the wonderful cooking and hard work!

Live D.V.D

2010-11-14T07:52:00.000-08:00

Live D.V.D coming soon!

2010-11-02T15:12:00.001-07:00

....love your enemies! :)

Psalm 148

2010-11-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

Praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD from the heavens,

praise him in the hights above.

Praise him, all his angels,

praise him, all his heavenly hosts.

Praise him, sun and moon,

praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, you highest heavens

and you waters above the skies.

Let them praise the name of the LORD,

for he commanded and they were created.

-Psalm 148:1-5

Christmas Memories

2010-10-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

You're probably wondering why I bring up Christmas in October...well it just so happens that my Sr. High Writing class wanted us to write a Christmas letter this week. So with Dec. 25th on my mind, trying to chose some photos to blog about and I came across these! :) Some of these Christmas photos were from 2004 all the way up to 2008, (below.) Even though we still have two months, I decided to put these up just because it's so much fun to look at old pictures...enjoy!!!

Christmas 2008 at our house! This picture is of us with our Wormuth cousins.

Wow do we look tiny! This was about 8 or 9 years ago at our Grandma's house. We ended up using this picture, (or one like this,) for our Chrismas newsletter.

My Mom's side all gathered around the table at my Aunts house.

Time to open presents! This was always the highlight of the day when we gave and recived gifts. (Boy, are we a photogenic family or what!)

Almost every year we go to a Christmas party that a company we bought from puts on. It was always a blast because of the huge banquet, fun presents and games, and most of all the unlimited free characatures we brought home!

Getting ready to cut and bring home our christmas tree from our neighbor who sells beautiful pine trees from the woods behind our house. We often would play hide and go seek in his pine tree forest because the huge trees were perfect hiding places right in our back yard! We miss our exchange student "sister" Luba, who now lives in Moscow, Russia.

It was always so exiting to wake up and find our huge stockings stuffed full of odds and ends, even if we knew who really filled them! :)

Tessa and I were always some of the first ones up on Christmas morning because we had to look, shake and guess at our Christmas presents and wake everyone else up so we could open them up. The reason we probably look so sleepy is because I came up with the interesting scheme of setting the alarm off in the middle of the night, so we could pretend what it was like to be Santa Clause (we didn't believe in him,) and put out all of our presents under the Christmas tree and surprise everyone in the morning....the result? Sleep deprivation! :P

An anuall tradition that we did at Christmas was that anyone that played instruments would play Chrismas songs at the gathering.

Here we are at the stocking stuffer party that our Grandma gives us every year. We meet with our cousins and open the stocking with our name on it...sorta like a second Christmas! The girl standing in the back, however, was not our cousin but our exange student, Luba, from Tadjikistan who now lives in Moscow, Russia. She was with us for the school year in 2005 or 2006 and went to St. Croix Central High School in our district. She spoke very little English and we didn't know Russian very well, but she became just like an older sister to us.

Taking orders for the deserts and drinks was our special job that our cousins and us still do. :)

This picture totally cracks me up because I remember exactly what happened. We were in Florida for Christmas break, at Disney World. It was so weird it to see Christmas trees and decorations with no snow in the middle of hot weather! We were walking through a section of Disney World that was all litt up for Christmas, it was late at night and almost closing time. Two 'elves' that were goofing off and acting crazy invited us to come talk to Santa. So we walked over to the North Pole and stopped inside. None of us kids really wanted to talk to him, but I did because I wanted candy. :) After Lucas, Tessa and I sat on his lap and got our presents, we started to leave, but the crazy elves who were pretty much done with their jobs anyway, decided that 16 year old Isaac needed to sit on Santa's lap and talk to him too! So they pushed and prodded the extreemly reluctent and embarresed Isaac to Santa's side and procceded to take a picture of him and ask him what he wanted for Christmas and if he had been a good boy in front of giggiling children. It was hillarious! Of course looking at Isaac's bright red face, he didn't think so!

Story Book Lodge

2010-10-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Storybook lodge is a camp up North that we go with our church and also our home school organization called T.E.A.C.H, that Isaac graduated with. (See graduation post from 2009.) It is a really interesting place, not only because of it's ministry, but also it's theme. Almost every cabin is a different place from a story! This post is when we went up with our church, Normandale baptist, this last weekend.

Emily and Tessa

My friend Amanda and I

They are right on a beautiful lake, so in the Fall when we go with our church we can go kayaking, cameoing, and if the weather permits, (which it didn't this year,) swimming. With T.E.A.C.H we go in the Winter so we get a whole different experience with the lake; we play broom ball, hockey and sled onto it, so fun!

Here is one of the cutest cabins, although I'm not sure what particular story book it came from. =)

Story Book is completely surrounded by woods and in the fall it is truly a beautiful sight. It reminded me of the verse,

'As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people, from this time on and forever more.'

Psalm 125:2

This is the room/cabin we were staying in called the Oasis.

The windmill that actually fits a bed in it!

Ize with some of his friends, after coming back from a caneoing trip.

'Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.'

Psalm 127: 4-5

If you read the post on family camp, you'll probably know what this is all about. Dad and another man from church, Mr. Hall, put on the game called, "the Mighty Mighty, Super Duper, Noodle Scoop Challenge!" (The only part of the name that has to do with the game is the Noodle part. :) It's like a kick off of capture the flag except way more fun.

Don't we look scary! (The face paint is to tell the teams apart. There was a red team and a blue team, I was on the blue team and the blue team won!!!)

Smiles!

Kya

Aspen

Kirsten

Tiara

2010-09-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(sorry I got a little carried away ! =)

We are the American Central Division... CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Favorite Player

I am so proud of my team. We have won 6 out of the last 9 championships! I mentioned in the preivous post that I am a very oppininated person, and passionate on certain subjects...Well the Twins happen to be one of them! :) No one will ever be able to convince me that there is a better team than the Minnesota Twins. Nope, I am stubbornly convinced that they are the best team ever, and the best team to be a fan of. This team is amazing. They have played great even when some of their best players have been injured. Danney Valencia, (Valence in my launguae,) Is a wonderful example of that. This Rookie has stepped up to the plate and amazed Twins fans, encluding me, every where. In my humble opinion he should be Rookie of the year.

2. Favorite Player

3. Favorite Player: Justin Morneu 9 (I couldn't get a picture of him on Tuesday becuse He's injured.)

Looking forward to the Post Season,

AnaLise Alzen

Thoughts on Nikolai and Dima

2010-09-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

Today while I was practicing my Russian, I almost started to cry because I realized how much I missed Nickolai. I miss his constant talking in Russian. I miss his dramatic exclamations, his adorable smile, his Curious George type excitement, his nick names for me, his cuddly affection, his hugs, his sleepy look when he first wakes up, his giggly laugh, his never ending energy, his "Ochens" ( which means very in English), his love for airplanes and boats, (he had to point out every single boat or plane, lake or river :), his more than willingness to eat every single banana in the house leaving none left for me, which for me is a good thing =), his love and playfulness for Shelby, his eagerness to help with chores, and so much more. To some of you he might have been an extremely shy little boy, to others he might of been an extremely active boy, to me he is a sweet, affectionate and yes, active brother.

Today, while I was doing my morning devotions, I came across these verses that practically jumped off the page at me:

Matthew 11:28-30

(28) "Come to me, all you are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

(29) Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (30) For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Now I am not a born worrier like some people, but I do have a few things that I find myself worrying about, Nikolai and Dima are one of them. I worry if they have enough food to eat, if they are getting bullied by the big kids, if they are picking up bad habits from the other children, if they're is feeling alone etc. Occasionally I wonder about the process itself: How long will it take to adopt Nikolai and Dima? What If we don't get enough money? What if Nikolai and Dima don't get along? What if the whole adoption thing fall through the cracks? When I read these verses I realized that I needed to put this 'Nikolai Dima burden' totally in God's hands. I know that I pray to Him all the time about, it but am I really trusting Him? Verse 28 reminded me of the song that goes '"Lay your burdens at the feet of Jesus lay your burdens at His feet.' A song that a number of our family band friends sing. I used to kind of think of a burden as the burden of sin that you lay at the cross like in Pilgrim's Progress when you first become saved. I am learning, though, to lay our every day burdens at the feet of Jesus. Not just to lay them there and pray about them but to truly entrust them to my Prince, knowing that He will take care of them however he deems best. Even if we aren't able to adopt them I have to realize that God has a purpose for everything we went through, and even if I, in my fleshly ignorance, don't understand why, He does. He knows why we go through the things we go through, He knows that it's for our own good.

Nikolai is teaching me so much about two main things one is patience and the other is love. I am learning that love is not just a feeling it is a commitment. It is easy to love him when he is his cute and cuddly, but it's harder to love him when he wakes me up in the middle of the night, or when he's constantly tickling me, or throwing a tantrum in front of other people. Loving him is a journey. A journey of ups and downs. I am learning to love him not only in the good times, but also the bad. Don't get me wrong; most of the time he is so easy to love for he drinks in affection like he does grape juice , :) and is really a good boy, but I have to keep in mind that he probably has never known true love before. It is a hard concept for me to understand because I have known love ever sense I was born. I have known the greatest love in the world that I yearn for Nikolai to accept, understand, and feel.

'For there is know greater love than he that is willing to lay down his life for another.'

The love that my heavenly Father demonstrated is the example of true, perfect, never ending love. I never cease to be amazed that my Prince loved me, a wretched and undeserving sinner, so much that he would give his life for ME!!! That kind of love is incomprehensible. Here is one of my favorite chapters that explains what love really is, and how I should love my family, Nikolai, and every one for that matter.

1 Corinthians 13

'And now I will show you the most excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.'

I think that is the most beautiful and meaningful poetry, if you would consider it poetry, I have ever heard. I like to write poetry but I general don't like to read poetry out of a book. I know I will never tire of reading that passage along with the Psalms and Proverbs. I also know that I will never be able to write something as true and beautiful as that. :)

So I will conclude my post about Nikolai by asking for your prayers for our adoption journey. (I am very passionate on certain subjects and am a very oppininated and talkative person, so I'm afraid that I got a little sidetracked! =)I believe that prayer is a very powerful thing, for God hears all the prayers of His children.

In the Bible God commands us to,

'Pray with out ceasing'

Here are a few specific points that I would appreciate your prayers for:

- For the finacal needs to be covered

- Nikolai and Dima to feel God's presence

- That both Nikolai and Dima would be able to come with the hosting program

- That we would be able to adopt them as soon as possible

- That it would work out to talk with Nikolai on Skype

- To be able to communicate clearly with the adoption agency and the orphanages involved

- That God would show Mom and Dad wisdom in how to parent these little boys

- That the details and confusion in the whole thing would be smoothed out

- That we would be following God's direction and not our own

- That God's will would be done

- That He would be glorified through out this process

We can't thank you enough for the part you are taking in our adoption by praying. We are so thankful that God adopted us into His family, giving us the ultimate example of adopting Nikolai and Dima into ours. God has a heart for orphans and the fatherless that He has passed on to us, that we might be able to fulfil His plans. This adoption not about us, Nikolai, or Dima, it is about God.

May the Lord richly bless you with His everlasting love, and may you continually seek Him in the journey He has for you.

Love,

AnaLise

Iowa Travels

2010-09-17T16:48:00.000-07:00

This is at the Floyd Gospel Sing that we played at in Floyd Iowa. It was a neat festival to play at that mostly had Southern Gospel music, with a few bluegrass and other type bands mixed in. We played on Friday and Saturday, except that on Friday night, when we arrived, it was raining hard enough that we had to play inside the church. We didn't mind that though because it gave it more of a cozy feeling, plus the were a very welcoming and attentive audience. I really appreciated how they freely talked of Jesus Christ, even the MC. That is getting less and less common even in Gospel festivals.
Well, you're probably wondering why I have a picture of a policeman and a guy that looks like a pastor; instead of a picture of a Southern Gospel band. If you look closely at the policeman you might recognize him; maybe his uniform or his stance? That is a Barney Fife impersonator! Ever seen the Andy Griffith Show from the 50s? Barney Fife was Andy Griffith's deputy from Mayberry. If you have seen the show than this is the guy that probably jumped out at you the most. He is hilarious! This impersonator from, I want to say Branson Missouri, does a great job! His actions, voice, and appearance are all just like Barney, that you have to look twice every time he speaks.

He also was a fabulous harmonica player, unlike the real Barney Fife. :) He played the Orange Blossom Special and was just ripping it up. He was playing so fast that it sounded like he was playing all sorts of notes at once! There were a few harmonicas handy so that he could do different octaves on the same song. When he finished, he was so amazing that he got a standing ovation from some of the crowd.

And no that other guy isn't a pastor, he was our friendly MC and did a nice job.

The festival was a really large festival; so big that I wasn't able to get all the people on our camera. I think someone said that it had a few thousand people as a guesstimate. It was bigger than Itasca, I know. Being that it was so big, we were blessed with very good amounts of Cd sales, and Tessa and I sold a really good amount of jewelry.

A different angle of the festival.

During sets we went to a nearby park to eat dinner and to recreate. They had beautiful scenery there, and plenty of ducks and geese. They also had a bridge that was under construction that we decided would be nice to take a walk on, so we climbed over the construction stuff and took a walk on the bridge. Later we found out from our hosts for the night that it was in the newspaper the night before that no one was supposed to walk on that bridge! Oops! I guess they were replacing a former bridge that had collapsed and they weren't finished with this one. At least no one saw us. :)

Lucas feeding the hungry ducks.

These geese were a little too friendly for me. :) They would follow me around even if I didn't have food!

Family Camp

Now I am going to switch gears and bring you to home school family camp near Lansing Iowa. We arrived on Sunday when camp started, and left on Wednesday, although the camp goes till Thursday. This family camp was hosted by some friends of ours, the Bontrager Family and the Wissmann family who we know as well. This was our second year, this time with Lucas and Dad. Last time it was just us girls, and Isaac couldn't come both times because of conflicting collage classes. As last year, it was a sweet time of fellowship with like minded families. We received good counseling from the Bontragers and Wissmanns that really encouraged us, and were able to spend quality time with our family and friends. We totally recommend this camp for conservative Christan homeschoolers like these families.

This is a weird photo of Mr. Wissmann who does most of the family sessions. He used to be a preacher so he does a great job getting the message across.

This is the Bontrager family who we first met at Itasca four years ago, and have gotten to know their family well over the past three years. They have a family of 12 and have a wonderful family band.

This is a really fun game that we play at family camp called the Super Mighty Noodle Scoop Challenge. It's kind of like Capture the Flag, except it has lots of different objects and slightly different rules. We had so much fun with this game that I think we are going to try to do it at our other family camps this year.

These these pictures of the Scoop Challenge were taken by this little friend of mine whose name is Margret.

They lined the girls and boys up differently so they could more even teams. Then the kept track of who was on what team by putting face paint of the color of your team on your face. For example I was counted off as blue so I was on the blue team and had blue strips painted on my face so that the opposing team would know weather or not they could tag me.

At camp they have different morning sessions for Mother-Daughter and Father-Son. At the sessions they do different activities. This is one of the activities that the guys did but we got to watch. They made their own potato guns, and then shot them off in a valley. Being a girl, I couldn't help but think what a waist of food it was :) It was very creative and noisy! =)

First you chose a good size potato,

shove it down the gun,

check to make sure everything is ready,

and watch it fly!!

Mr. Herrlinger shooting with his potato gun.

Our good friends the Herrlingers were able to make it to family camp this year except only half their family were actually able to come out of the lodging place because of chicken pox!

Lucas and Dad having a blast with their contraptions.

Some more of our friends, the Nobles (part of the family) who came from Missouri.

All of us girls watching and covering our ears.

A fun thing that they did for the girls was to get their hair done. Mine was done by Jessica (sister of Margret) who does hair for weddings.

Mom also was brave enough to have her hair done.

This is actually after all the sports of the day including volleyball, catch and throw, floor hockey, ultimate Frisbee, basket ball, tug of war and Mighty Noodle Challenge so my hair does not look the way it did when it was first finished. Mom wanted to get some shots anyway.

Lucas using his muscles in tug of war. (Mine are still sore :)

Here they're practicing for the big night games of speed volleyball that go on after the evening session and snack.

Volley ball photos are also curtesy of miss Margret. :)

This concludes my long post of the different things we did in Iowa. I hope y'all had a great week too!

- AnaLise

MN State Fair 2010

2010-09-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hi!!! Well here we are on our last day at the Minnesota State Fair (last Sunday). Wow did that go fast! Once again we had the privilege of playing in the Heritage Square, this time it was on Monday and Tuesday. We thought that because we were playing on week days instead of the weekend this year that we probably wouldn't as good of crowds. Wrong. We had even better crowds than last year; it was full almost every concert on Monday but not as much on Tuesday! Weather wise it was totally opposite than the year before. Before it was bitterly cold especially in the mornings, this time it was extremely hot! Off stage we went around wearing ice wrapped in a towel around our necks!
Another interesting plus was that we were asked to play for Garage Logic show on 1500 ESPN that Joe Sucherey or whatever his name is hosts. It was a pretty um well memorable experience. The only problem was that they weren't able to use our mic because they were missing something needed. So we used there two mics which obviously weren't meant for a band. It would of worked OK except that we were so squished that when one of us took a break there wasn't enough room to get over to the mic so you couldn't hear very good. Oh well it was still a fun experience to meet Joe and to play a couple songs on his show.
Of course we had so much fun that we had to go back, so we went the first Saturday that it started and also the last Sunday of the fair, which this post is about. Because we weren't performing, I actually remembered now and then to take a couple of pictures. Wow, sorry I didn't mean to write you a speech I just had so much to say; I guess that's what happens when I don't blog often enough!

Yeah, I know, this is a really bad picture of the screen but I thought the sky looked cool.

Tessa and I impatiently waiting for the talent contest to start at the grandstand. We got there 45 minuets early so we could get good seats.

Dad and Mom talking with a few of the friends we unexpectedly saw at the fair.

Okay, so this talent show is for all the winners of all the county fairs across MN who came to the fair. All the winners did another smaller contest earlier in the week those who won did another bigger one and then all of the winners advanced to this final contest at the grandstand. It's always a really fun event to see, because there is a lot of different talents. In this contest there are three different categories, the pre-teen division, teen division, and open division. (anyone)
Here are some of the variety that we saw there: Singing, Guitarists, rock bands, (definitely not my favorite,) jazz bands, tap dancers, dancers, pianists, harmonica players, jugglers and a beep boxer. And not an ordinary beep boxer either. Because we don't listen to that type of thing, I had never heard one before but had heard of them from my cousins. This guy was amazing! He made a billion different sounds with his mouth and it sounded like a whole band! I have no idea how he does that; he makes so many weird and cool sounding noises at once. The audience loved it, and he, (a boy around 16 or 17) got a standing ovation and one first place in the open division. Second place was a fabulous guitarist, and third was a seventeen year old boy who tap danced.

The picture above is of last years winner, Sedra Bistideau who played while the judges were making their decisions. She is probably the most talented fiddle/violin player I have ever seen, especially at the age of 15 or 16, I can't remember which. Her family used to have a bluegrass band so we've seen her at a lot of festivals and fiddle contests.

The beautiful fireworks display after the show.

This is in a creative arts building and it certainly is creative. All of the pictures were made with seeds!

A very detailed seed picture.

My favorite :)

An ethnic band that we heard.

Well that concludes my post for the fair. The talent show didn't end until 11:00 PM which means it was three hours long, so we got home really late. That means I was very tiered and in the morning you could tell :) I accidentally poured apple cider into my cereal instead of milk, shredded my finger instead of the apple, and almost sprinkled chili powder into the french toast marinade instead of cinnamon!

Well I should probably go now; were heading out to Iowa to do concerts and go to a family camp for a week so stay tuned for more posts in a week or two.

2010-09-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

-Three Generations of Mother Daughter-

Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God

who keeps covanent and mercy for a thousand gerenrations with

those who love Him and keep His commandments.

- Deuteronomy 7:9

Family Photos

2010-08-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken a week ago because we wanted to get some nice photos of our family with Nikolai before he left last Thursday. We asked a friend of ours, Meagan Wanschura with her buisness Carpe Diem Photography, to take these photos and we were very impressed with the way they turned out.

These next three photos are a few of our school photos.

Thanks Meagan, you did a great job!

Lake Itasca Family Bluegrass Festival 2010!!!

2010-08-15T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hi all! A couple of weeks ago we went to the annual Lake Itasca Family Bluegrass Festival and once again really enjoyed our time there. They had a great line up of family bands, quite a few of which we knew or had played together at previous festivals. This time we went as onlookers instead of performers which was nice because it was more relaxing and we were able to enjoy listening to more of the bands. Along with listening to music this festival for our family is a great time to fellowship with the many people we know there. It makes it much more fun because at most festivals we are meeting new people; but at this festival we already know two thirds or more of every one there!
Here I've posted just a few pictures of our short concert on the open stage which Hannah Kenny (see post entitled 'Filming With Hannah') took and gave to us. Thanks for the photos, Hannah!

Tessa and I singing on 'Wondrous Love.'

Ize playing, (and bouncing :) on his base.

Dad and I with our concentrating faces on; (I managed to get rid of my other face when we were first starting where my tongue would sneak out the corner of my mouth,) while flat picking 'Salt Creek' with Dad backing me up on the guitar.

Playing our fairly new song, 'There Is A Fount.'

Kelliher Open

2010-08-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

Kelliher Open is always a great time to get together with our relatives on my Moms side and do fun things together. This year there was another added element to add, Nikolai! He enjoyed the cabin, liked swimming, tried tubing, and loved boating.

My cousin Jenna and I after a game of flashlight tag. Thankfully this picture isn't zoomed up to far or you would of seen dirt all over my face. I also came in with skinned knees and black feet because I was able to crawl under cars, (don't worry, they were parked :) campers, and porches. Yes, our games of flashlight tag get intense!

Fishing on beautiful lake butter field

Our dog Shelby is afraid of the water but loves to ride in the boat.

Lucas went fishing on the paddle boat but unfortunately the only thing he caught was seaweed!

Nikolai (Kolya) absolutely loves to fish! Every day he would tell us how many fish he caught and how big they were and then ask when he could go fishing again. He was so excited when he caught this northern, it was his biggest of the trip; the rest were Sunny's. He kept on exclaiming on what a balshoy (big) fish he caught.

Tessa and I took turns fishing and driving the boat. Tessa probably enjoyed the driving more because she had a fish less day!

I caught two fish, a Northern and a Bass.

A little fisherman.

Tessa, my cousins Jenna and Jack, Mom and I spent a lot of time playing a scrabble game called Banana Grams.

My Mom's cousin Michel, his girlfriend Judy and Aunt Kathy before the family pictures were taken.

My cousin Shane with Shelby.

Uncle Mike and I made it all the way to the championship in our canoe race and then faced defeat against Isaac and Jenna.

Some other things we did that weren't pictured were knee boarding (I did a 180 but failed (after many tries) to do a 360. Shane did like twenty something 360s in a row!) croquet, canasta, an American History game, our photo contest with the theme of transpotation of whom Aunt Kathy was the winner with a beautiful picture of boats in Vietnom, mofia, and more.

Jenna and Jack love their pictures taken; can't you tell! =)

Mom and Nikolai with Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy

Our little giggly boy.

Having a cast certainly does not slow him down at all! Dad bought him a removable water proof cast cover so he could swim and tube with us. Swimming is definitely one of his favorite sports, at least it's a sport he can enjoy with one arm!

This was probably his first time tubing and he liked it. Fearless Nikolai was a little unsure at first but then went so far as to show everyone that he could do no hands for a quick two seconds and wanted to go even faster.

Boats, airplanes and cars are definitely his thing. When ever we drive over a lake, he points out all of the boats and oohs and ahhs at the big ones. Whenever we drive near an airport or a plane flyes over head, he has to show us and looks at them for as long as he can. Whenever we drive by an especially big, long, weird, small or colorful car he is the first to notice and often goes around making vrom vrom noises. Oh my goodness this boy is cute!!!

Family Visits

2010-07-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago we had some families stop by from out of town. The Anderson family (above) live in Missouri where we met them at a concert we did down there. They were coming up here to spend the Fourth of July weekend with relatives so it was fun to see them again; in a different state!

Isaac usually jumps so high that he hits his head on the tree branches!

Mom and Mrs. Anderson preparing the food

We had fun playing ping pong, around the world ping pong, Foosball, ultimate Frisbee, catch phrase, jamming, and an interesting game of volley ball. :)

My mom knew both of these moms through college and they have a lot of good memories together. It just so happened that they both called our home in the same week and asked if they could stop by while in the area. We don't see either of them very often because they live in two different states so of course we were happy to have them over. The funny thing was neither of them knew the other one was coming and they both planned for the same day! Mom told Mrs. McCormick who was coming so she could get there early to open the door and surprise them. It was pretty funny.

Mr.and Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. McCormick (her husband was at home,) and Mom and Dad.

All of the children in order of age. From left to right: Isaac, Lucas Jonathan, Me, Nathan, Emma, Abby, Tessa, Max and Caleb.

Max and Emma are sibs from the McCormick family and Jonathan, Nathan, Abby and Caleb are from the Shaw family.

Taco salad

We had fun playing catch and throw, bachee ball, trampoline games, ladder ball and Fooseball.

If you can't tell, there's someone in there!

Alzen Adoption Blog

2010-07-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Follow this link to our Adoption Blog.

Canada Music Festival

2010-07-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

This was our second Canada music experience and also a very interesting one. This festival was like the other one, (see other post about Canada,) in that it was run by Mennonites, but different from the other one in that the people that they were ministering to were Canadian people from their community and any one who wanted to come, instead of Native Americans and Ojibwa and Cree tribes. My Dad did the captions on this post because I am cleaning rooms getting ready for Nickolai our Ukrainian orphan who is coming THIS SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Enjoy!

Here we are standing beside a beautiful blooming field of Canola preparing for a set up music at the Thousand Oaks Gospel Camp near Morden, Manitoba, which is southwest of Winnipeg. We had never seen Canola in a field, but it has gorgeous yellow blossoms cover fields hundreds of acres across. The Gospel Camp is run by Mennonites in the area, who mostly are immigrants to Canada from eastern Europe and South America who speak low German as their first language. They were wonderful hosts and very friendly and welcoming. The festival was very nice.

We had to play four sets of music, so we had to brush up on some old dusty songs!

It is not hard to sing to the Lord in such a beautiful setting as this.

We stayed in a little motel in town each evening. Here I am firing up the engine one morning to head to the festival, which was out in the country in a nice park area with lots of shade trees (and next to the beautiful field of Canola).

Doesn't Lucas look "spiffy" in his suit and tie? This was Sunday morning before we sang our last set of music.

My two crazy girls!

A brook near our motel in Morden, Manitoba.

Glorious Canola field. Unfortunately, the yellow doesn't show up very well in this photo.

Festival goers in their seats. There were easily more than 1000 in attendance.

The sound man is preparing for the next group of musicians.

Another view of the festival seating area under the trees.

Sisters forever!

Door County

2010-06-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

Door County WI was a fun place to have a mini vacation. We took a few days off of concerts to just have fun around the area in which we were playing . We stayed in Fish Creek which was a cute little tourist town with lots of places to shop, eat, bike, and swim; which is just what we did. We also got to experience a neat tradition called a fish boil that I will tell you more about later.

- Swimming

They had beautiful beaches with soft sand and some pretty big waves. When we went to the beaches we could hardly believe we were in Wisconsin! It seemed like the ocean or something.

We had really nice weather which was great because we found out that before we came it was cloudy and rainy.

It was cool 'cause when you swam out to where it was kinda deep, It got so shallow that it was bellow my knees!

Our Frisbee comes with us where ever we go.

- Biking

They had some beautiful trails in Fish Creek so we decided to get hot biking and then cool off swimming.

This is after the long biking trip so apparently we were both tiered and hungry!

Along the way there were little stops so we were able to take breaks and take pictures.

There were some pretty interesting boats out there!

-Shopping

We found this funny little hat shop called 'Hat Head' where they had a wide variety of all types of hats.

They went all the way from regular base ball caps...

to strange irregular hats!

Isaac found a new best friend!

I thought these coats looked like they came from the wardrobe of the Chronicles of Narnia.

One store had baskets and baskets of beautiful flower arrangements.

When we were in the store with the coats I found these sunglasses that I really liked. I thought about buying them until I looked at the price tag...$87 dollars!

Fish Boil

I don't know if you've ever been to one of these but you've got to try it sometime.

First they take the fish and put it in a kettle to cook outside. Then they add whole onions and potatoes and they light it on fire to make it boil over in one big burst of flame!

As you can see in the previous picture Isaac got a little too close!

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of Memorial Day Weekend most of which are from Wilderness Fellowship. We had so much fun there despite the mosquitoes and sun. (I came home super sunburned from playing volleyball!) We also played a lot of Ultimate Frisbee in the dark, don't ask me why, and we had no light so most of the time you didn't know where the Frisbee was until it hit you in the face! ;)

Lucas helping the Bruggentheis set up their tent

This is the archery station and no those are not real deer!

This man and his wife did the devotionals at Wilderness. It was really interesting because he had painted that picture and did other sculptures while his wife read scripture fitting to the theme. He also had a really good voice and sang some neat country gospel songs. (He has an amazing voice range, he can sing really low and really high!)

Lucas and Dad are in Alert and it's a really neat program for fathers and sons. Many of them volunteered their time to help out at Wilderness.

Nathan, Caleb, and Lucas

The station where our old-time photos were taken

All the activities going on over the weekend

The campfire where they sang songs, ate marshmallows and listened to 'Daniel Boone's' stories.

This is a gigantic slingshot where you put a tennis ball into the sling, pull back and try to aim for a bucket way down the hill in a mowed area. Only one person actually got it in the bucket but mine actually bounced off it! :(

Dad tearing down after our Saturday concert. It was really fun because we had such an interactive audience!

Lucas carving

Tessa and friends, Anna and Tabby doing crafts together

This was before we left for the weekend. We went with our Grandma to put flowers on the graves of our relatives because it was Memorial Day weekend. Incidentally we ran in to our Great Aunt and Uncle who were doing the same!

Great Aunt Marie, Great Uncle Bill, and Grandma. Uncle Bill is the brother of my deceased Grandpa Jim.

Hope you had a fun Memorial Weekend too!

Old-Time Photos

2010-06-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

These Old-Time photos were taken at Wilderness Fellowship Family Fun Weekend over Memorial Day. . . .for free! They have a really neat ministry over there and we always enjoy coming. They have prayer cabins, tent grounds, lake access, plus lots of fun activities if you come over memorial day weekend. Hopefully I will get some pictures up from that once we get our camera uploaded!

Tessa, our friend Laura, and I

2010-05-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

Both my parents' birthdays come in May, and both Mother's and Father's day are in May also my parents anniversary is April 23, very close to May, so I thought I would do a short little post on them. First of all I'll start by telling you...THEY ARE THE BEST PARENTS IN THE WORLD!!! (That's a fact not an opinion! :) Both my parents are very fun loving, hardworking, caring, selfless, kind, friendly, happy, etc.

Ten things my parents enjoy doing together

1. Traveling

2. Taking walks

3. Taking

4. Going to B&Bs

5. Playing Scrabble

6. Raising kids

7. Going out to eat

8. Learning langauges

9. Going on dates

10. Singing

I feel so blessed to have such wonderful parents. They have set such a wonderful example for us kids and have shown us what its like to live out the marriage covenant.

Ten things you might not know about my Dad.

1. He is very good at learning languages.

2. If he played a sport professionally it would be baseball.

3. He would make a very good gourmet chef.

4. He has consumed one of the spiciest peppers in the world.

5. Dad is pretty good at golf.

6. He loves trying ethnic and very strange foods.

7. He very easily gets motion sick.

8. He has a sweet tooth.

9. Dad is awesome at drawing funny cartoons.

10. His favorite color is blue.

Ten things you might not know about my Mom

1. She used to cook for an International Student boarding house.

2. She has been chased by a wild boar.

3. Mom loves learning foreign languages.

4. She is fearless when it comes to rides.

5. She is the champ of Scrabble.

6. Mom is an amazing cook, and she usually doesn't use a recipe.

7. She, like my Dad, is not picky at all.

8. Her favorite color changes monthly.

9. She played the saxophone in high school .

10. She enjoys embroidery.

Happy Anniversary, Mother's and Father's Day, and Birthday Mom and Dad!

Filming with Hannah

2010-05-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

This post is from a concert we had about a week ago. What made it different from other concerts was that a family we know came to our concert, and afterwards their daughter, Hannah Kenny, filmed us for a D.V.D. She did a great job and we were so impressed by her video and photography skills. After the concert, the church had a yummy banquet and then a big drawing with many prizes. We were so blessed and amazed when the church gave our family a hand- made bench made out of beautiful wood! Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it, but if you stop by you'll see it right above our stair case. ;) We kids also had a fun time playing fhoseball, ping pong, and air hockey; but I don't have pictures of that either because there is no way you can get me to stop in the middle of a competitive game to take pictures! :D

Hannah and I after the filming was done.

Mama caught by surprise while taking down the c.d. table

Hannah's sister Lydia and Tessa

Hannah and Dad discussing parts of the video

Isaac is helping Mom look for something. (Or else Mom is trying to hide her face. :)

After the filming was done Hannah rode with us down to the Vest's home where we dropped her off to do a documentary on Amy Vest and Loving the Lord Ministries. We had a lot of fun playing games with Hannah in the car!

Practicing

Taking down the jewelry table.

April Twins Game

2010-05-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

Target Field was amazing! After having the metro dome for so many years I definitely vote that the outdoor stadium was a great improvement! (Especially with the weather we had! :D) My Dad's boss got season tickets and split them with the co-workers!!! We got really good seats too. I was in the front row of left field in foul territory; right next to the yellow pole. It was cool because I was right next to Young who made some pretty good plays in that game.

The field

Now for my families favorite Twins Players!

Dad: Justin Morneau

Isaac: Denard Span

Lucas: J. J. Hardy (Because he was a former Brewers player and Lucas likes the Brewers better than the Twins! Booooooooo!)

AnaLise: I am still currently mourning the loss of my previous favorite Twins player, Carlos Gomez, (as you can tell by my shirt number 22.) He got traded to the Brewers so even though he's still my favorite base ball player, I've had to make the tough decision of a new favorite Twins player. Announcing... Justin Morneau!!!

Tessa: Denard Span

Soldier raising the flag

Here's us kids standing with former Twins player, Tony Oliva. It just so happens that my grandmother is the honorary godmother of Tony Oliva's son!!

Lucas doing a score card

By the time the game was starting it was really packed!

The Twins players leaving the stadium with another victory.

Fun with Friends

2010-04-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry that this blog has been neglected due to computer problems and busy schedules. Here are a few pictures of the latest get-togethers that we've had recently. eeeennnjoy!!!

Glerums/Berthons/Borchardts

I'm surprised the trampoline didn't break! :)

My sweet friend

Watsons/Klepnevs

The ping pong experts

Yummy!

Bruggenthies/Armours/Borchardts

Adorable little Hope

Sweet sisters

Family Birthdays

2010-03-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Here we are at our 'Kelliher Family Birthday Party.' We have one every few months with our extended family on my Mom's side. We are so grateful for our wonderful devoted family that we love spending time with!

Isaac, Uncle Mike, Shane, and Tessa posing for their birthday shot.

Aunt Kathy made the delicious chocolate cake that she is cutting, and Auntie Laurie is scooping the ice cream.

Jack and Jenna sitting down to eat.

Mom and Grandma Pat enjoying their cake.

Auntie Laurie scooping and Mom serving.

Frisbee Fun

2010-03-24T16:20:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have been wondering, 'what do the Alzen kids do in their freetime?' well, we play frisbee, play frisbee, and play more frisbee! No, actually frisbee isn't the only thing we do, it just happens to be the easiest sport to bring with us! We enjoy playing almost any sport there is, whenever we can; as you can tell by us playing frisbee outside when it is pitch black and late! We got these light up frisbees that are really fun to play with, so Tessa and I tried to get them on the camera, we ended up with some pretty weird/cool photos!

This frisbee changes colors, one color at a time, but I was able to get a bunch of them at once!

Besides playing for fun, Isaac is on an Ultimate Frisbee team at his collage.

That weird squiggely thing is an actual frisbee flying through the air!

Adoption Benefit - Ridgeland

2010-03-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, we feel so blessed by how God has been helping and prompting us to move forward with our adoption! Below are pictures from our adoption benifit concert last weekend. We are so thankful for all of our friends that volunteered to help; we could of never been able to put it on without all of their work! We would especially like to thank our friends, the Herrlinger family, for giving up so much of their time to do cooking, shopping, baking, and learning new songs for the concert. We appologize on the shortage of pictures; we were so busy with everything that we didn't have much time to take a whole lot. (You might be able to tell by some of the humor on these posts, that Dad did the comments on this post and the post before!)

Hannah and Hope

These two girls helped make the food, and Larrisa, (left,) is a part of the Herrlinger family that performed there.

Timmy, the cutest little toddler in the world!

Andrea was also an amazing help by cooking the Sloppy Joes. The song she wrote (and we heard for the first time) is amazing.

I guess our music was so loud that Kelly had to use sign language in the kitchen to communicate with the volunteers! :)

Ruth and Kelly were a great help by managing the bake sale table. We also love their smiles!

Ruth and AnaLise, (The social bug of our family.)

Children playing games outside the Community Center. It was such a beautiful day on Saturday - thank you Lord.

Naomi Herrlinger enjoying the day. She did some fancy fiddling and nice singing during the concert.

Friends from different walks of life connected at the fundraiser event.

Mikenna and big sister Amanda. It was so nice to see them at our concert.

Missouri Tour

2010-03-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

What a fun time we had on our tour to Missouri and Iowa! It was great to see so many of our friends/family bands down there that we don't get to see very often. We also enjoyed ministering to churches in both states, in Gospel Bluegrass fashion. We were happy to leave the cold Wisconson weather to go to the beautiful Missouri weather, only to find that when we arrived in Missouri the weather turned cold, and Wisconson's weather turned beautiful. It's funny how that works .....? :) Thankfully Iowa welcomed us with the sun, and altogether we had a really nice time.

Our first concert in Missouri was in Sedalia at Maplewood Church:

Lucas standing with our hilarious host and MC, Duane.

We were so surprised to see our neighbors the Zurns from Wisconson walk in the door! It turns out that they planned their vacation around our concerts in Missouri....How amazing is that!

Lucas standing with some new friends.

Here we are standing next to the Izmail market. Our connection with this Ukranian food market is a long and amazing story. If you're curious, come to one of our benefit concerts that we're doing to raise money for our adoption, or check out our adoption blog (coming soon).

Another concert in the middle of nowhere in Missouri. The nearest town was Cole Camp, the scene of a Civil War battle. The little village was called Brauersville, and the only thing in this village is the church! Our host, Harry Brauer, shares the name of the village (his ancestors named the town.)

This is when the people started filing in. It ended up getting packed! What a sweet time we had with these folks in Brauersville.

Our beautiful mom, Denise, poses in front of the neat little church in Brauersville.

Isaac starting the long process of setting up. It takes us about 90 minutes to do all the setup, and about another 60 minutes to tear down and pack up the van. Dad has an exact place for ever piece of sound equipment and instrument, or it would not all fit!

The instruments are getting nervous waiting for the concert. (They learned that from our dad)

Our family sign, made by the sign-maker at the Minnesota State Fair (Heritage Square). He did the lettering free-hand. We think he does beautiful work.

Our CD table at work. The fabric lettering and table skirt sewing was done by our friends, the Froiland Family.

Tessa and AnaLise have begun to make jewelry, and sometimes sell their handiwork at concerts. Here is a sampling.

Two homeschool families traveled all the way from near Kansas City to see us play at Cole Camp. They also play Bluegrass together. We had a nice time of fellowship with them.

Here are a few of the families we stayed with during our trip:

Our good friends the Nobles, who just recently moved from Wisconsin, now live near Springfield, Missouri in Billings (in south Missouri near Arkansas). We hadn't seen them sense the move, so it was a blessing to be able to see them again!

Isaac, Jill Noble, Denise, AnaLise, Lucas, Tessa, Brook Noble, Jonathan Noble, Wesley Noble, and Austin Noble. We miss having them as our neighbors. The dad, Jon Noble, had already left for work at 3M Corp, so he isn't pictured.

Some more of our wonderful friends, the Bontrager Family Singers, in Kalona, Iowa.

AnaLise and Tessa playing Dutch Blitz with Chelsey and Allison Bontrager.

Lucas and Isaac played a LOT of chess with the Bontrager boys. It gave the Bontragers a break from their farm chores, as they have a dairy farm to take care of when they are not on tour singing and ministering with their wonderful music.

AnaLise jamming at the Curry's house.

The Curry Family, (otherwise known as 'CurryCorn' in their family band.)

We actually first met the Currys in Silver Dollar City located in Branson Missouri. It was at the time of Silver Dollar City's Bluegrass and Barbeque Festival. We were both playing in their Youth and Bluegrass Talent competition. It was fun to get to know them better at their house!

Band Memories

2010-02-01T16:29:00.001-08:00

Celebrating four 1/2 years of being a band! I know this is kinda random, but I thought that I would put out a picture from each year. Unfortunately I don't have a picture from 2010 yet, because we havn't been very diligent in taking pictures in 2010. But I decided that I would put out the pictures that I have so far, because I know I havn't blogged in a while. This problem will hopfully be solved soon, because we will be taking a trip to Missouri and Iowa this week.....So be looking for more pictures!

2009 MN State Fair

2008 Mache Confrence

2007 Lakeville Arts Center

2006 MABOTMA Bluegrass Festival

MN State Fair

2010-01-27T15:36:00.000-08:00

The Parents

Bradley Wayne

Denise Anette

The Minnesota State Fair???!!! Little did we know that day, about four years ago, when we were walking through the Heritage Square and heard a bluegrass band for the very first time that we, the Alzen Family, would one day play on the same stage ourselves. If you would of told us that then, we would of told you that you were crazy!!! Yes here we are at the Heritage Square in the State fair. We had a great time playing our music, eating delicous greasy food, listening to other great bands, enjoying different comody shows, looking at 4-H entrys, animals, and other arts, and everything else that comes with the state fair. We had really good crowds, fairly chilly and windy, (as you can tell by Tessa's missing sailor hat, :) but sunny weather, and a blast. We have always been really big State Fair fans; Isaac has worked there, and Tessa and I have entered quilts in contests there, and altogether we go there at least once a year, so actually being hired to play our music there was a fun experience.

The Children

Isaac James

Lucas Anders

AnaLise Rae

Tessa Katelyn

Itasca Family Bluegrass Festival 2009

2009-11-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

Itasca 2009!!!

What fun we had at our favorite festival ever! We look forward to this festival every year. It's great to see so many families we know, yet we love meeting new people there too. This festival is run by the Berge family, (below,) of whom we are good friends with. Here I put the list of all family bands that played on the main stage this year, and after that are a few additional pictures of us playing away. Hope to see you there next year!

The Berge Family

The Link Family

The Alzen Family

The Easter Brothers

The Durocher Family

The Kingery Family

Isaac's Graduation Party

2009-10-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

Lots of people = lots of fun.

Wow has time flown! I'm sorry it took me, (AnaLise,) so long to get this post out, especially sense the open house was in June!!! This is a picture acount of Isaac's graduation party of which many of you helped take part in. We had beautiful weather, a good turn out, didn't even come close to running out of food, plenty of helpers, and plenty of fun. Thanks to all those who made this a memorable experience.

Adorable Drew.

Jamming away.

Yum Yum!

It was a warm day so the water ballons really came in handy, (unfortunately for Isaac!)

Taking with friends.

Below are some of the various activitys we had.

Play set.

Chess; thanks to Mr. Pullman Lucas's chess teacher.

Bocce Ball.

Ladderball. (Isn't she cute!)

Water balloons; complete with a water balloon launcher!

Volleyball!

Ultimate Fribee and Football.

Catch and throw, (aka; Nucume.)

Mrs. Ender graciously arranged gorgeous bouquets of flowers for us. What a blessing!

Isaac's Graduation

2009-10-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

Isaac graduated on May 30th 2009 from a home school organization called T.E. A.C.H.

Isaac with diploma in hand. Congrats! You made it to the finish line with honors!

Isaac delivering his brief "acceptance" speech. He couldn't resist an opportunity for a little dry humor.The graduates sang a few songs together with harmony parts.

The T.E.A.C.H. Superintendant, Mr. Newhouse, conducted the graduate choir.

Isaac played his bass as the Alzen Family performed a song at the graduation.

We sang "On the Sea of Life"

Denise with her harmonica.

A wonderful graduating class with some very impressive graduates!

Milwaukee Music Trip

2009-10-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

This summer we had a concert trip for Millwakee, Michigan, Green bay, and Illinois, so we made it into a 'vacation' by going to Six Flags theme park in Illinois and to a Brewers vs. Twins game at the Millwakee Brewers stadium. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Riding the log flume.

Riding one of Six Flags' many wild roller coasters.

Eating breakfast before six flags.

Twins-Brewers Game in Milwaukee

2009-09-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

While on our music tour in easter Wisconsin, we took in a Twins-Brewers game in Milwaukee. It was a beautiful day, and we had a great time. The Twins won!

Standing inside the beautiful Miller Park in Milwaukee. Lucas is the only Brewers fan amongst us!

Check it out!!!

The Brewers have an awesome stadium, especially compared to the Metrodome but soon that will be different.

Brotherly conflict. (Notice the different shirts.)

Here we are at the Brewers vs. Twins game.

Beaver Lake Camp, Ontario Canada

2009-09-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

On July 31, we drove up to International Falls, MN, where we spent the night at a very nice family-owned motel. The next day, we crossed the border into Canada - the first time in Canada for the Alzen children. Hard to believe they had been in England, Ireland, Sweden and Kazakhstan, but not Canada! After crossing the border, we continued driving three hours north through beautiful scenery until we arrived in Dryden, Ontario. A few more miles north from Dryden we arrived at Beaver Lake Camp. This is a camp run by Mennonites as a ministry to the First Nations People of Canada. We were invited to come to the camp to share our music with a family camp consisting primarily of Ojibway and Cree tribes. We had a delightful time, in spite of the cold, rainy weather on Friday and Saturday. Following are some more pictures during the camp. Lucas loved interacting with the Oji-Cree of the First Nations peoples

It was a joy to meet so many First Nations people that love Jesus and came to the camp with their families. There is a wonderful passage in Revelation that came to Brad during the Family Camp. It talks about how there will be someone from every tribe, tongue and nation in heaven. Here it is: (Revelations 5:8-14) Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying:

"You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood. Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth."
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures , and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand , and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to recieve power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!"

And every creature which is in heaven and on earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: "Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne forever and ever!"

Then the four living creatures said, "Amen!" And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever.

-Revelations 5:8-14

Singing praises to the Lord. Wonderful music!

On left: Albert, Mathilda and family. Many families came great distances, some even used sea planes.

Lucas making friends.

Smile!

People gathering in the tent despite the mud and rain.

Lucas managing the CD table.

Alzen girls in the dining hall with Mathilda.

At the entrace to the camp.

Silver Dollar City Youth Bluegrass Contest

2008-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here we are at the Silver Dollar City Youth Bluegrass Contest in May 2008. We had so much fun meeting several like-minded musical families in Branson. We met family bands from North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, New Mexico, Arkansas, Ohio, & Tennessee. The quality of the family bands was excellent, and we were so impressed with the skill level of so many kids there. We didn't win the contest, but we had a wonderful time. We were amazed with the large crowd in the opera hall to watch the show!

Silver Dollar City quickly became our favorite amusement park. The staff are modestly dressed in pioneer-day clothing, the buildings are also cleverly themed like the "old days", and the park is built in the Branson mountains with lots of trees. There are artisons making their crafts all around the park, and music is everywhere! We were there during the Bluegrass & Barbeque festival, so you can imagine how much we liked that. The shows are all included in the admission fee, and we got to see some of our favorite bands.

Tessa, Denise, and Isaac seemed to really enjoy this "giant swing" ride (it was a HUGE and really wild). However, the lady next to Isaac looks like she is about to lose her lunch!

This ride, called Wildfire, was decided that it was the funnest, of them all. We had a blast riding this crazy, looping, spining, jet speed roller-coaster ride. All but dad, that is :)

Just prior to Branson, we spent a couple of days with the Bontrager Family in Kalona, Iowa. They farm there and travel with their music in their "spare" time. We had a wonderful time with them. Pictured with AnaLise and Tessa are their eldest daughters Alison and Chelsey.

After Branson, we had a couple of days alone as a family to enjoy a cabin the Smokey Mountains south of Gatlinburg, TN. We had an awesome view from our cabin! Brad got really sick, but that didn't diminish the restful time there.

Initial Blog Posting

2008-05-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone out there, and welcome to this, our first Alzen Family blog! As we're new to this cultural phenomena, it might take us a while to get our blog up to speed. We hope to post some family photos and keep our friends & family a little more up-to-date on our comings & goings as a family and a family band. Stop by for more postings in the days to come.