The story of the donut tree

Thanks to Uncle Elmer-Joe, our very own family Henry David Sprick Thoreau, for this lovely essay on the donut tree at Waldesruh. To make it large and legible, click on the image.

No. 1 with us

Cousins turned out in force to cheer for Moriah Miller and the Centennial High School Cougars in the Class 4A state high school girls basketball championship game Saturday night (3/21/09) at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The Cougars lost 68-61 to Minneapolis South, which was led by that team's dynamo unstoppable superstar Tayler Hill, but played well nonetheless, and hey, No. 2 in the state is TERRIFIC! Of course, Mo is always No. 1 with us. Here are some snapshots. We regret that we don't have any of cousins Sam, Bridget, Tyler, Alex, Zachary, Ted, Jane and Katie, all of whom came to cheer but were lost in the crowd by the time our camera came out. Thanks for coming, all of you! Moriah, upper left, prepared to high-five the Cougars starters during the introduction.

Mo ready to high-five Kahla Becken, #15.

Mo, center left, and her teammates listened to Coach Jill Becken during the intense game.

The girls were teary-eyed to lose -- but hey! Look at that gigantic second-place trophy! Not bad! Almost as nice as the coveted Burnt Wienie Award trophy!

That's our Mo, headed to get her ribbon, reflected in the gigantic TV screens that hang over the Target Center.

Dad Chris Miller couldn't hoot and holler much because little Elizabeth fell asleep in his lap near game's end after doing a lot of exhausting hooting and hollering of her own.

Zachary and his UW-Stout pal Josiah came to cheer Mo on.

Zack took his turn carrying snoozing Elizabeth after the game. Seems like those two big strong Wolves players coulda helped, too.

Hannah and two of her lovely look-alike friends wore Centennial collars, scarlet and white.

Mary and Pam, looking a little loopy, after the game.

Mary and Pam, a little more composed.

Chris and Uncle Freddy Eischen, Mary's brother, in the Target Center lobby.

A fair young lady

Love this pretty photo of our beautiful cousin Cindi, singing and playing the guitar back in the era of classic folk music.

They did it! Mo's team reaches championship game

Moriah's Centennial Cougars girls basketball team beat Eden Prairie Thursday night at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis, which means they'll play in Saturday night's Class 4A championship game against Minneapolis South High School! Here's the Star Tribune story. Cousins, come on down for the big game! It's at 8 p.m. at the Target Center, general admission tickets. If you can't make it, tune in on Ch. 45 (12 on some TVs). Congrats, Mo and team! Dad Chris Miller, pictured at right, was a tad anxious during the game! He needn't have been.

The golden boy's golden birthday

Thanks to cousin Katie Hagberg for these nice photos from the golden birthday of her brother, Teddy, who turned 19 Thursday. Teddy, Katie and their proud Hagberg aunts.

Teddy and Katie with parents Ted and Jane.

The Hagbergs went all out for Teddy's birthday. Look what they got him! A toaster! An OSTER toaster! We're not sure if they were toasting him or burning him. He looks happy though!

Happy Birthday to two cousins!

Happy Birthday to two wonderful cousins... Cindi...

... and Teddy. (No no, Izzbee, it's not YOUR birthday!)

A Miller is part of March madness

Yeah, baby -- Mo is going to state! Yes, we're very proud of cousin Moriah Miller, whose Centennial High School Cougars basketball team beat Champlin Park in the section finals Thursday and will be playing in the state tournament next week (2 p.m. Wednesday). Thursday update: Moriah's team won in the quarterfinals yesterday and will play those cake-eaters Eden Prairie tonight. If they win, it's to the state championship Saturday! Mo cut down the net.

The winning team, which is coached by Jill Becken. That's our Mo in the back row with the rosy-red cheeks. (The scrapblog editor is very fond of rosy faces!)

Mo with proud sister Hannah after the game.

Mo with little sis Elizabeth and teammate Celia.

Lamar in la snow

That's cousin Davy with the donut tree at Waldesruh a few years back. The tree is famous in Sprick family lore; wonder why it grew that way? Got a theory, Uncle Joe?

Weather wizards

The Strib may be down, but it's not out. We still have fun there! Recently weather reporter Bill McAuliffe dragged a bunch of us outside during a snowstorm to teach us how to take official snow-depth readings. You think it's easy to measure snow depth? You're right! It is! And fun, too. The weather wizards: Mary Lynn Levandowski Smith, Bill McAuliffe, your scrapblog editor, Chao Xiong and Maria Elena Baca.

McAuliffe had a hard time keeping his class on task. We kept cutting up and lobbing snowballs. At one point, one student who we won't identify but who may look familiar to you cousins plopped to the ground and made a very large snow angel in the little park in front of the Star Tribune's entry in downtown Minneapolis.

Miller moments

Miss the Millers? Here are some things you're missing if you miss 'em ... Oh! My! Gosh! A horse talks to Moriah and Chris!

The three girls, all dressed up for something, probably not church.

When little Elizabeth is sleepy, she wants her binky and her big sis, not necessarily in that order.

Sprick-o-rama in Eau Claire

Scenes from a recent gathering of Elmer and Mavis' brood in Eau Claire, Wis. Mavis and Katie Jo. Two very lovely Spricks!

Perrin entertained his great-grandparents, Elmer and Mavis. "He's a pistol!" Mavis said.

Cousin Tanya Cook, mom of Perrin, Maria and Sonia.

Cousin Cindi and son Monty Leiser, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

During his visit, Uncle Joe took this photo of a deer out of cousin Davy's picture window.

The great white north

Cousin Dan sent these photos of his and Marty's Presidents' Day weekend Boy Scouts trek to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Snowbank Lake at twilight.

Marty worked on a quinzee (snow cave). Dan slept in one, but Marty and his friends choose to sleep outside in a lighter shelter. The nighttime low was 13 below. Before they retired, Dan read the Scouts Jack London's great short story "To Build a Fire," which he described as "a good bedtime story about freezing to death in the Yukon."

Keep cruisin' in your minds ...

We swiped these delightful photos of Sam and Bridget's New Year's cruise off their Facebook sites so we can all feel the rays of sunshine from them as this winter drags on. Sam, Tyler, Bridge, Zack and Alex.

Our cousins with their other lovely relatives, Bridget's sister and parents.

Bridget smooches a dolphin!

Remembering...

Remembering dear ol' Dad (Uncle Bill to the cousins), William Alton "Brother" Miller, 4/13/25-3/01/96. (That's him dancing at a USO club in Schwabisch Hall, Germany, after the war, where he met Mom/Aunt Alverna.)

Noah and Jamie

The scrapblog editor's favorite son, Noah, and his favorite person, Jamie. Ah, youth!

A treasure of a photo

We are thrilled to have received this wonderful historical submission, back from the era in which family photos included chickens. Here's Uncle Joe's caption: "This photo was taken about 1939 on the north-facing side of the Spricks' L-shaped farmhouse. The characters are Grandpa Henry Augustine, seated center; from left to right, Uncle Henry and Aunt Emma Augustine, Uncle Henry and Aunt Emma Stegemeyer, Uncle Otto and Aunt Annie Leonhardt, Claus and Maria Sprick, and front left, two curious leghorn chickens. The economy was still bad, but we were starting to recover from the Great Depression, as you will note from the fine wearing apparel." Click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to check out Grandpa Claus' stern expression and Grandma Maria's sensible shoes.

Dreaming of spring

We love winter, but enough, already, most cousins are thinking as we enter what seems to be its 13th month. Ah, but before spring can come, the ice on Lake Pepin has to honeycomb, wilt and and vanish. The first step in that process is the passage of an ice cutter, and that won't happen for a while. To whet your appetite, here, courtesy of Uncle Joe, is a photo from a past year of the cutter going through. This was taken on March 27, Easter Sunday, 2005. The ice was still 2 feet thick and tough going, Joe recalls. Meanwhile, here are two stories that ran on the Associated Press wire this week about our favorite body of water: How thick is it? LAKE CITY, MINN. -- In an annual sign that spring is coming, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it's about to start measuring the thickness of the ice on Lake Pepin. The corps will begin the work Feb. 18. It measures the ice in different spots on the lake each year to predict when the navigation season on the Upper Mississippi will start. Lake Pepin is usually the last part of the river to break up because the current there is slower than on the rest of the upper parts of the river. The average opening date of the navigation season in St. Paul over the past 10 years has been March 20. Not very, apparently OLD FRONTENAC, MINN. -- Two men pulling an icehouse off Lake Pepin fell through the ice while riding an ATV Tuesday [Feb. 10, 2009]. Robert Hoeft, of Frontenac, Minn., and Scott Balster, of Red Wing, Minn., were pulling the icehouse off Lake Pepin around 4 p.m. Tuesday when they fell through near Florence Beach. A passerby called Goodhue County deputies to the scene. Hoeft and Balster were able to pull themselves and the ATV out of the water by the time deputies arrived.Signs were posted in January on Lake Pepin warning ice fishermen of dangers.

Miller on ice

It's the old "march, march, push, push" for Little Izzbee Miller, age 5, who is learning to ice skate from her dad, cousin Chris, who used to skate for fun with members of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic hockey team. We love her pink ensemble, but note that the incongruous orange hat looks suspiciously like a Lake City Tigers leftover (next-day update: Chris says it's a Centennial Cougars hat). Chris sent these photos right from the ice via his groovy new Blackberry.

Hat trick

Uncle Joe said of this one: "Styles have changed since we got married 60 years ago," but he's just quipping, as he's liable to do in that great dry way of his. It's one of those cool time-period photos, taken a few years ago. But it makes us wonder, as do many vintage photos -- why don't people wear hats anymore? Hats are so, way, cool.

The wrestler

Forget Mickey O'Rourke, the resurgent star of the hit movie "The Wrestler" -- we have our own rough-hewn wrestler, cousin Marty B., shown here during a recent match his team from Hopkins High School had in Rosemount. Here the referee holds his hand high after he pinned the blurry fella at left. Hey, you'd be blurry too if you had to wrestle Marty, who's just in 10th grade but is wrestling at varsity level. Says his biggest fan, his dad, cousin Dan: "It makes Marty's dad a little nervous to see him step into the ring, and especially nervous when he is facing an opponent that outweighs him by 25 pounds. [Marty weighs 188 but wrestled in the 215-pound-and above heavyweight category.] This varsity stuff is a whole lot more competitive than JV was last year, and the guys he typically faces look really strong."

Zack's very fine day

Saturday, Jan. 31, was a great day for young cousin Zachary B. ...

For one thing, after weeks and weeks of freezing cold weather, it warmed up! The sun shone brightly and the temperature soared into the 40s, and Minnesotans everywhere were blissful; everyone was outside soaking it up. Zack, for his part, built a snowman wearing a T shirt.

Earlier in the day, our young scholar studied a show on the Food Network and decided to make his own signature salsa. He chopped up jalapenos, hot red peppers, sweet red peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic. Man, does that sound good. Zack, send us the whole recipe so we can post it!