Kiersten participated in the regional science fair on Saturday; she received a Merit Award for her participation. She was very disappointed that she did not get to move on to the state fair but is ready to try again next year. Pictured to the left is her display board for her project "Does following the guidelines of the Food Pyramid improve your health".

This weekend Bob and I will be going to a summer camp fair; many different summer camps in the area attend this fair and pass out brochures about their camps. Kiersten usually picks four or five day camps to attend during the summer, it is a great way to keep her busy and learning during her time off. We have one camp picked out so far that I found online, it is at the local humane society. They spend a week doing activities related to animals and learning about careers that are animal related. She is very excited for this one:)

We are also going to watch my sister Jessica do the "Polar Plunge" for the Special Olympics on Saturday. It is an event where they raise money for the charity then jump into one of our Minnesota lakes....BRRR! It should be a fun time:)

Here it is! This is our family picture that we took in November right before Thanksgiving. I love this photo of the three of us, we will probably try and do a family photo every year from now on. Kiersten has been working diligently on her science project display board this last week. We are going to St. Cloud, MN for the regional science fair this weekend. She participated in the county science fair and won a medal! She was one of twelve that won out of about 200 students. She is very excited to participate in the next level; I will post a photo of her board when she gets it done.

Her experiment was whether following the guidelines of the Food Pyramid, (eating and exercise) for a month would improve your health. Guess who the guinepigs were?! We tested our cholesterol, weight, blood sugar and BMI prior to the start of the experiment. It was the most difficult month ever!!! It was very time consuming to cook all the different food groups and get the reccomended amounts of exercise. Overall, it was totally worth it and the experiment created some greate habbits in our family. I will be sure to post next to week to tell you all how the fair goes:)

Hello and welcome to the Rades Family blog. For those of you that are new to our family, it consists of myself, my husband Bob and my step-daughter Kiersten. I am at work right now so I don't have any current photos to upload with this post; so I posted a picutre of a chicken. I didn't know that chickens could look like this:) Kiersten would love to have chickens as a pet, but we drew the line at a dog a lizzard and a fish. I will be sure to post a photo of the family next time.

This weekend is Valentines Day and the three of us are going out for lunch together on Saturday. Kiersten just finished a French language unit in school and we are taking her to a French restaurant to try her new skills. It should be fun! On Sunday, Bob and Kiersten have some daddy/daughter time planned. They will be going fly fishing for carp, Bob wants her to catch a big one. I will not be going fishing...at least not until it gets a little warmer. Its hard to read a book with mittens on:)