Halloween 08

Halloween his was a rare beautiful night. Many years we are truging through snow but this year we had a nice warm night for "trick or treating". When it came to costumes this year Jordan was a "no brainer". Jordan has been marching around the house as a pirate ever since he watched The Scooby Doo Pirate Movie.

Jaden decided to be a Vampire.

Megan was a punk rocker (my little girl wore makeup).
Austen was a duck with "quacks".

Mommy & Daddy Go Trick or Treating

Mommy and Daddy enjoyed an evening out at the 2nd annual Cargo Halloween Party. Todd and Bridget throw terrific Halloween parties. Bridget always goes "way out" in decorating for this holiday. Half way through the evening Bridget has everyone go into a room in which she has all kinds of costumes and masks and you can either change your costume or add to your current costume. The costumes were great. As you can see below we went as tourist. There were three pirates, a construction worker (or Village People member), doctor and a nurse that were handing out pills and medicine(skittles and shots), a gangster, a clown, the Pink Panther, and a witch. It was a fun evening but a short night as we were out late and kids were up early as usual.

Oktoberfest

On October 17 we celebrated our 100% German heritage with our annual Oktoberfest. Traditional German food with homemade beer(thanks to Jerry). Guest included family: Mom and Dad Zander and Wentz, Curt & Marti, Michael, Morgan, & Mathew, Jodi, Sean & Mandy, Tammy & Curt, & Rob; friends included Tom and Donna, Kathy and Jerry.

Loretta and Donna with some clown in the back ground(Curt).

Family enjoying good food and good company.

Rob and Kathy blow out their birthday candles.

Grandpa shows off his accordion skills to the grandchildren.

Last weekend at the Lake

Labor day weekend was our last weekend at the lake for the summer since the weekends will be filled with Megan and Jaden soccer games. It is too bad since fall is such a beautiful time to be in Northern Minnesota. We had a beautiful weekend. It was a windy weekend for most everyone but we were on the right side of the lake so we had a beautiful days. We went the days tubing, swimming, boating, and spent hours creating sand castles. We even got grandpa tubing as shown below.

Austen enjoys the last summer watermelon.

Austen finds his own boat.

First day of school

Megan started the 4th grade while Jaden is now in 1st grade. Jordan and Austen enjoy watching for the bus but are still a little confused why Megan and Jaden are gone all day. Both seem to have great teachers and we are looking forward to a good year (hopefully).

The bus stop is now in our driveway (we kind of sort of moved it) with 8 kids catching the bus. The race is still on every morning to see who can be in the first position. As you can see Megan won out on the first day.

Jaden getting use to his new desk.

Never too soon to "brown nose" the teachers.

Weekend at lake

Spent a wonderful weekend at the lake. Janelle's whole family was there along with Michaela's sister Lucia from Slovakia.

Jordan gets to open a few birthday gifts from uncle Rob.

Jordan and Elli (Elizabeth) relax by the fire.

The Zander men.

Canoe Trip

This weekend Megan and I along with Janelle's brother, Rob and Gary, and Sheri and Lucia went on a little canoe trip. We started at Rob's place on Lake Plantagenet and headed north. We ended up going through 5 lakes and on the Mississippi. In all we went about 7 miles (if we canoed straight) in about 3 1/2 hours. It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.






Megan & Jeff





We fall behind
Gary & Lucia

Cool Megan

Rob & Sheri