Family Birthdays

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

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

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

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!