Soccer End-of-Season Tournament

The 2014 Youth Sports Season has come to an end. After 2 weeks off because of the Thanksgiving holiday and the monsoon rain we've had lately, it was nice to get back on the field for one last day of games.

Hawkeye Nation proud!

 Camden and the Tigfernos warming up

 Camden assisting Coach Paul on the sidelines

 Going for the block

 Nice corner kick

Emma played goalie the entire tournament and did a great job!

Coach Kasparek gives an intense pep talk

Emma's loud voice comes in very handy as goalie.  When she decides to go get the ball, she yells, "KEEPER!" and falls on that ball!

 Hawkeyes on 3...

1, 2, 3, HAWKEYES!

Best buddies and teammates

Deck the Halls: 2014 Edition

Here are some highlights of last Saturday's fun. We set up our Christmas tree and pulled out all our ornaments.  The kids especially loved getting their ornaments out of boxes and hanging them on the tree.

 Emma's annual Santa's Little Helper picture

 Baby's First Christmas ornaments

 Ta-Da!

Saturday evening, the Zimmermanns and Mel came over for dinner and some Friends Scene It

 Cheers with Mel and Sherri

The guys enthralled with the football game

Herky cuddles with Ron :)

Happy Thanksgiving 2014

Gobble Gobble! 
Thanksgiving 2014 was a wonderful day with great friends and delicious food

My sous chefs peeling potatoes. They were a big help all day long! :) 

Emma meets 2 week-old Fiona :)

Chris carving our big bird, Bob

Emma and Arianna at their "kids table"

Oscar is ready to FEAST!

Cheese!

Post dinner dance party

Ron and Chris

 Oscar, Laura, and Matt

 Emma's ready to baby sit :)

 Silly boys

 We thought there might be 2 new babies at our feast, but Baby Boy Neal is still happy in his mom's tummy.

 Kasparek family picture 

Camden went for the stoic look

 The Kolls and Grandpa John

 The Neals and Grandma Ginger

 Time to kick back and relax

Apparently Ron's leg is a comfy pillow for Camden

 Friendsgiving tradition

The One With the Football

 Oh Camden Lee

 Arianna hanging out with Chris

Olive Picking

We celebrated Veteran's Day with an adventure to the mountains near Naples. The Oropallo family invited a group of us from school to see what goes into making their delicious olive oil.

Here's Camden hiking up into the olive grove

Beautiful olives ready to harvest

 

Emma and Kelli used teamwork for the electric machine that knocks the olives out of the tree

The traditional way to harvest

 Antonia, Maria (our outstanding hostess), and Kelli

 Adorable olive pickers

 Camden loved climbing in the trees

 Cheesy kids 

 Next stop: the oil making factory

Here are the olives moving up the conveyor belt before they separate out the leaves and get washed

 These huge marble wheels smashed the olives 

 YUMMY!!!

 Kelli, Me, and Mel at the wine tasting portion of the day

 Handsome guys

 After lunch we visited another Oropallo olive grove and saw this special 300 year old tree.  

Emma needed to test out her climbing skills

 Family photo time

 Goofy guy hanging from the tree

 love these ladies!

 Wonderful scenery as we headed back home