December/January Update

http://www.kxly.com/Global/category.asp?C=156596

The weather here has been nuts. Above is a link to a local news station. They have quite a few stories about the craziness around here. First we had tons of snow which caused roofs to collapse and school to be cancelled for several days. Monday was nearly impossible to get around. Needless to say we spent most of "Christmas Break" shoveling. Jesh one day spent about 4 hours shoveling our tiny driveway—after which we ordered a snow thrower right away. Now that we finally have it (took a couple weeks to ship) the snow is melting fast and flooding everything. We should have invested in a water pump. Oh well!







Pretty much every year we go on a Santa Claus Cruise. We take the resort's dinky cruise boat across the lake to the "North Pole" (it's dark, no one can tell) and peer into Santa's workshop from about 200 feet away to the shoreline. He reads anyone's name that signs up over the loud speaker—which usually ends up being a list of nice boys and girls. Sometimes, however, little jokes, a la Seymore Butts, sneak past. On the way there and back we see thousands of lights shaped into Christmas sillyness. Christian's beginning to understand Christmas a little better than in years past, so it was a little more enjoyable than usual.





We got some awesome toys from Santa this year. Christian's way into taking pictures, so we decided to get him his very own, cheap-o camera. He loves it. As soon as we loaded it with batteries he straightway took pictures of Collin. He'll say, "Say cheese, Collin." and Collin actually says cheese back. Christian also got a little cheap-o MP3 player. He'll sit and listen to it and sometimes sings along. Very cute. Grandma Johnson got Christian a couple airplane track sets—which he loves, loves, loves. He plays with them all day long with his train tracks too.

Collin got some fun ball toys, but I think he'd rather chase Christian around, stealing his toys. Nana Barlow gave us money for the kids, so we get to go shopping again.







Lucky for us we had lots of family and friend visitors over the holidays. We played lots of games and some Guitar Hero. I got to hang out with the girls for a full-blown baking day and a little spa time. It was so much fun!



These pictures display what we do all day long. Christian and I build a very metropolitan layout of train tracks and Collin comes right behind us and destroys it like a baby Godzilla.