Date Night!!!!!

Big night at the Dovolos household! Julia had a date with Josh and Stephi went to the Shakopee High School Prom with Joey. Both got all dolled up for the occasion.

Early morning mom treated the girls and 2 of their friends to a mani/pedi at the local nail salon. Its always fun to get pampered once in a while. And those soccer player feet needed it!

After we left the nail salon the girls rushed to shower so they could get to Missy's house so Julia could do their makeup and Stephi could get her hair done. 2 hours later.... we finally made it back home only to have Josh show up minutes later. Needless to say, Julia wasn't even close to being ready. Thank goodness she's a natural beauty. ;-) She changed into her dress, pinned her hair back, brushed her teeth and was out the door in less than 10 minutes.

Stephi, on the other hand, took MUCH longer to get ready. Between the nails, hair, makeup, lotion, shimmer spray, etc... it was an all day affair. It was all worth it though. She looked like a movie star. Joey was in awe when he walked in the door and saw her.

They rushed to meet their friends for group photos and were off for an evening in their "time-machine" party bus, dinner and the dance.

After the dance ended a group came to our house and hung out. They got good use out of that new ping-pong table. The last of them left at 5:15 a.m..... Yes, it says "a.m.". Yet, both girls woke up with a smile at 9:30 and happily went out to brunch for Mother's Day. However, I think we'll ALL be needing a nap later.

White Christmas

And some thought we weren't going to get any snow before Christmas... ha, were they wrong!

The storm started Christmas Eve making travel to Lynn's house for the Luhring Christmas a little more adventurous. When we called to tell them we were going to be a little late we were told that all but 4 of the pickle roll-ups were gone. Since those were specifically requested by Julia and Stephi, they were pretty upset. Of course, that was just my family's warped sense of humor... We got there and there was a whole tray of them. We enjoyed time with Michelle's brothers and sister and their families, which is a rare occurrence, and ate way too much. By the time we left, the roads were pretty quiet, but we were thankful we had the Durango and 4 wheel drive to get us home safely.

By Christmas morning we had over 14 back-breaking inches. In good spirits John and our neighbor shoveled everyone's ,which made for a very late start to the day.

Regardless of the weather, all of the family made it safely to our house. We were even fortunate to have Grandma Molkenbur join us this year. The ham was in the slow cooker and the potatoes in the oven. John and Jeff took their usual spots in the garage minding the turkey in the deep fryer and enjoying a cold beer, while MaryAnn and Michelle enjoyed some warm Christmas wine inside. As usual George, Sarah and Tony made it just in time for dinner.

After we all sufficiently stuffed ourselves and enjoyed the gift opening we sent the kids outside to make a snowman. Stephi took control and started rolling, while the rest of them broke out into a big snowball fight. As John was out snapping pictures Tony thought he was going to be funny and chuck a big snow ball at him. John knew he had nowhere to run so he put down the camera, kicked off his slip-on shoes and ran after Tony (in stocking feet) to tackle him in the snowbank! Wish we could have gotten that on video!

It was an enjoyable Christmas, and as we reflect on the past year we are very thankful for the wonderful friends and family that we have.

Another Year of Saber Soccer Gone By

Another year of Varsity soccer has passed. Its almost painful to think that they will only have one more year left. As we look back on the season there were a couple of noteable moments. Of course, there's the 1-0 win over Holy Angels in overtime(the first win over Holy Angels in Saber history!). Then there's Julia's helicopter spin move after being demolished on the field by a Northfield attacker (its amazing she came out of that unscathed).


Overall, the season was a success over the previous year with a record of 8-8-2. Both Julia and Steph were forced to move into new defense positions due to injury and the coach's lack of confidence in some of the other players. Thanks to Julia playing right defense and Stephi playing left defense, the number of shots on goal was cut in half from the previous year and our goalie was ranked in state for having one of the highest number of shutouts and lowest number of goals allowed.


Their hard work payed off. At the annual banquet Julia received the Riggs Award for her toughness and was named one of the Team Captains for the 2010 season, and Stephi received the All Conference Award.

Hoping for a succesful 2010 season...Go Sabers!

Pumpkin Pie Anyone?

Ok... so we've had the pumpkins for a couple of weeks now. We we were lucky to have actually gotten them carved before Halloween arrived. After a nice family dinner Dad, not wanting anything to do with the festivities, disappeared in the basement to watch tv while mom, Julia and Steph carefully picked out our patterns and began the disgustingly fun task of gutting, tracing and carving our pumpkins.

Stephi picked the easiest pattern (hers is pictured in the middle) and was done in no time... Mom (right pumpkin) and Julia (left pumpkin), on the other hand, decided to be a little more daring and go for the patterns labeled "challenging". Mom was next to be done and Julia, who nearly quit because she was so frustrated, finished last. Regardless of the time and effort it took to complete, it was fun to see the finished product. Those carving kits make for some pretty cool end results.

Ahhhhh The North Shore

With a weekend finally open from soccer, we were able to squeeze in a trip to Minnesota's North Shore. What was forecast to be a cold and overcast weekend, turned out to a beautifully warm and sunny one. The girls asked Dawg (Rachel Tanner) to join us.





We started the weekend out at the Split Rock Lighthouse by taking a tour of the lighthouse and grounds. We then spent the next several hours hiking the area.

Our next stop was Gooseberry Falls where we spent a LONG TIME hiking according to Steph. The girls spent sometime checking out partial caves and attempting to find areas to cross the river around the falls(Rachel found a crossing, just not a dry one).

We then took a hike down to Lake Superior, where we found a nice little beach and the girls laid out for an afternoon nap in the sun.

On our way back to our hotel we decided to stop in Duluth at Canal Park and eat dinner at the World Famous Grandma's. I am surprised that everyone was able to make it through dinner with their eyes open.

The girls decided that while they were in the beautiful North Shore Area with all of its wonderful natural attractions, that the best way to spend their last day would be to go shopping at the mall for Homecoming Dresses.

The ride home may have been the quietest ever. It was an exhausting weekend.

Soccer In The News

It was a tough week for soccer, playing very good teams. But the team fought hard.




You can click on the picture to zoom in and read.

Steph in the zone