Christmas day!

This Christmas has been about the best ever. I can't think of any gift more precious than having my family home with me. We know that we won't be together again for at least two more years, so it has been a tender time for us.

My boys had quite the experience getting home. They were stuck in Minneapolis for 7 hours waiting for a flight. They were supposed to arrive around 6:30 pm and didn't actually come until 10 pm. After getting luggage and driving home it was nearly 1 am before we saw them. Christmas Eve was a day of waiting, waiting, waiting. Apparently the plane wasn't ready, then the crew wasn't there, then the captain wasn't there. When they finally got in the air the captain decided to make amends for the long wait by giving free vodka to everyone. Hmmm, what a treat.

Here are the kids choo chooing down the stairs:

Some random photos of gift opening:

We finished off the day with a big dinner:

Gettin' the tree

Each year in our family we cut down our own Christmas tree. Living in the tree capital of the world helps, as well as having a friend with acres of trees and a generous heart. So off we went this year to find our own special tree.

In years past the search has sometimes taken hours, interspersed with lots of murmuring and mumbling (my hands are cold! my feet are frozen! can we go now, please!!!)

This year we didn't have alot of time and spotted our tree just by the edge of the road.

Dad sawing with "excalibur"

Tyson demonstrating his muscle power



Loading the tree onto the box car


Decorating the Tree


The finished job!

New Traditions

We are enjoying the Christmas season with some new found traditions from our eldest daughter and her husband. Mari and Tyson have eagerly embraced creating their own family traditions and wanted to continue them while visiting with us. The first on the list is making gingerbread houses, sans gingerbread. Graham crackers work just fine.

Care was taken to mix the right shade of colors:

Of course, special tools were used to apply the "glue":

After some diligent work, a few mishaps (Emily's roof caved in, but was happily transformed into an adobe style) the projects were completed:

Some special features: a lego horse and rider, candy fences and a licorice pathway. I hear another project underway in the kitchen!

Every summer we take a trip to Arcadia, where we have 10 acres of heavily wooded pines, and our small camper, and stay and play in Lake Michigan, go hiking and just relax. After the trek a year ago, camping has seemed relatively easy for me. I used to not be so fond of being away from my creature comforts, but having water and a bed to sleep on is all I need after experiencing 4 days in my own skin and same clothes and sleeping with mosquitoes buzzing in my ears on the trek. Last year for Christmas Adam got a skim board, which is a small piece of wood used to float on top of the water in a lake or an ocean. Here he is trying it out:

At my age, skim boarding is a dangerous sport, but I was longing to try it--just not too eager to break a bone in the process. So we found a shallow area and Roger and Adam each took one of my arms and propelled me across the water. It was a great feeling, gliding smoothly across that thin film of water--I got the longest ride of the day!

That was all I needed to lift my spirits and feel young again. I was content to watch Adam continue slipping, sliding and falling in the water for the next hour. Looking forward to next summer!

Here are the boys from Adam's dorm in their Halloween preference costumes. Adam, if you couldn't tell by the light saber, is Anniken Skywalker. His date was Padame.

You got to give points for the brave guy in the red tights.

Well, I've been remiss in posting lately (has it really been more than 2 weeks?) I wanted to post this picture of the scene we awoke to on Thanksgiving morning. We have had such a lovely fall, wonderful warm weather even just a few days before Thanksgiving, that this was a shock!

Well, since then we have had more snow, ice and cold than you can imagine. Church was canceled last Sunday, which hasn't happened in my recollection, EVER! Wow, it was strange to be home.

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful holiday--who doesn't love a holiday focused on food? It was a bit lonely without my other family members, but we made up for it by inviting all four missionaries for dinner. I don't know why, but it does my heart good to see them eat and relish the food. They came over again the next day to help chop wood--and eat, of course.

Hope you all are enjoying the holidays!