Mid-December

Since my full-time baby-sitting job ended at the end of October, I've started going to Kiera and Blake's school assemblies which are every other Friday and I take Haley with me. I like to see what's going on at school and since this is the first year I'm not volunteering in Kiera's class, I get to see her teacher and her classmates there. Kiera and Blake came home that day and said, "Fake Santa came to visit each of our classes." That made me laugh! They have never believed in Santa and I'm perfectly happy with that. On December 18, Haley had her Preschool Christmas program. It was supposed to be on the 17th but was postponed one day due to bad weather and school being cancelled. I was glad that they were still able to have the program. When I arrived, my friend was sitting in the 2nd row and there was room next to her, so Jared and I got good seats this year. :) I think this song was to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-oh" except it was "J-E-S-U-S...." Cute little angels! Haley showing off one of her new outfits

Kiera let me use my old waver on her hair, so she had "curly" hair for Christmas this year. :)

I was going to start posting Christmas Eve pictures but there are so many that they will get their own post! Until then, Happy Valentine's Day! ;)

The First Half of December

Right after we got back from Florida, we went for family haircuts. I got one 2 days before the other 4 got one. This was Haley's very first haircut!

Blake picked out a pirate set at Dollarama, which Haley enjoyed trying on.

We had our first Christmas gathering in early December and the kids got chocolate treats.

I first saw these blue and white icicle lights on Target's website a few years ago and REALLY liked them. Fast forward to a year ago in December, we were in the States for our anniversary and had measured our house beforehand, in case we found those lights at Target. It turns out that Target was having a Christmas lights sale and they had a bunch of them in stock but not quite enough. We bought all of the boxes they had in Fargo, then stopped in Grand Forks on our way home and bought a few more boxes. Jared only put them up on the garage that year since it was right before Christmas. This year, he put them up in fall and I was delighted with our full set of Christmas lights this year! We had never had Christmas lights on our house since we got married, so I definitely enjoyed them! The sky at 9 a.m. on December 9, my Dad's birthday. Kiera was a "Who" (one of many) in their school Christmas program (How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

Haley's favorite song this Christmas that she loved to listen to over and over and dance to over and over was "Light of the World" by Lauren Daigle. She wanted me to take pictures and videos, so I did.

Our first snowman of the season. We have since built 2 more.

We had an incredibly mild December (until the day that Art, Jenene and Sophia came on Christmas Eve), that we still had geese that hadn't flown south on December 14! For me and probably many others, the mild weather was a gift from the Lord as I have a really hard time when the weather drops down to the -20's and -30's.

Many more Christmas photos to come!

The End of Our Trip

Our last day in Florida we had one last swim at our resort pool, went out in the afternoon, did laundry, tried to finish the last of our groceries and packed up. There was a loop in front of the resort clubhouse and this was the fountain in the middle. This is what we saw whenever we were exiting our resort. I thought it was neat that this hotel was made to look like a ship. The world's largest McDonald's We took the long way to the Florida Park Mall to avoid the toll road and got stuck in bad traffic. When we finally got there, we had forgotten that it was only a few weeks until Christmas and it was a Saturday, so the mall was insane!! We didn't end up buying anything but we let the kids play and we looked around a bit. This was in the kids play area This was inside the Crayola store, which was pretty neat! We all enjoyed it.

The Orlando Eye

We passed this restaurant which was close to the mall. A restaurant with a big fish head sticking out of it doesn't make me want to eat there! We ended up eating supper at TGI Friday's where I had a $10 steak dinner with sweet potato fries and broccoli! The whole time we were in Florida, I kept eyeing up the Twistee Treats that were close to our resorts. We finally went there on our last night and it was yummy!

We were planning to catch the Epcot fireworks at Disney Boardwalk since we couldn't the night before due to Kiera's fever, so after the kids had showered and bathed and we were all ready to go, we stepped outside and it was pouring rain! So, we put the kids to bed instead and watched some HGTV, which Jared and I enjoyed throughout our trip, since we don't have any regular t.v. service at home (just Netflix).

At lunchtime on Sunday, November 22, it was back on the plane to head home.

When we connected in Chicago on our way to Orlando, the ground was green/brown. On our way back, it had turned white! The interesting thing was that Minneapolis didn't have snow but Chicago did. I liked seeing the tall buildings next to Lake Michigan! Christmas had arrived at the airport! This was inside the airport which I thought was cool. The kids discovered this play area when we landed at the Minneapolis airport.

After being held up at the airport for 2 hours due to Haley's lost luggage, we finally left with a check and a travel voucher and started driving. It was suppertime, but we didn't want to stop because we knew we had 8 hours of driving ahead of us, so I just gave the kids some snacks and then they fell asleep. We stopped at 11 p.m. in Fargo for supper and the kids ate a bit but were too tired to care, so I was the only one who finished my meal (a skillet at Denny's). We drove the rest of the way home with just one stop for gas and got home at 3:30 a.m. I let the kids sleep in until they woke up around 9:30 and then I brought them to school halfway through the morning. It was a tiring end to our trip but I was REALLY glad I had already done all of our laundry, so I didn't have that to do in addition to all of the unpacking! 17 days felt a bit long by the end, but we were really glad that we had a 2nd week there as Jared spent most of the first week sick. I wasn't ready to leave the heat but I was ready to get back to normal life and to have the kids back in a regular routine. The kids are already asking when we can go back, ha ha! Next up: Christmas pictures!

Busch Gardens Part 2

There are less pictures in this post, so you won't have to scroll for as long! ;)

I didn't go inside this cafe & pub but I really like how it looks from the outside!

The kids went in the tornado capsule thing but I didn't put any money in, so they didn't know about the crazy wind that it could produce.

This is the one roller coaster (it was called Montu) that I skipped, which Jared went on.

We got to see a hippo... ...and the back of a really big turtle. The hippo almost ate us. It was a close call. This was the train station and the last thing we did at the park was go on the train. We had to wait for about 15 minutes for the train to show up. I got a picture of the last roller coaster I went on with Kiera. It's called Cheetah Hunt and it was one of her favorites. It was also one of the longest roller coasters we went on and it included a corkscrew and a couple of significant drops! I like that the train was decorated for Christmas! I'm not sure what the antelope were all looking at. There were beautiful bushes right next to the roller coaster Jared went on. One of my favorite pictures of the day. It was incredible to see giraffes and zebras together and in real life instead of on t.v. or in a picture. I think this tree could be on a scary movie. We got to see rhinos, too.

I like this cute picture. I think they look a bit younger in it and I could just squish their cheeks!

We walked back through the park after the train ride as it was closing time.

There was a show on this stage called "Christmas From the Heart" which we didn't watch but it was a contemporary Christian and Gospel celebration. The Christmasy exit. Driving back to our condo, we got stuck in a bad traffic jam on the highway that added an extra 30 minutes to what should have been a 1-hour drive. We went to Smokey Bones Bbq & Grill for supper and I had pulled pork, smoked wings, garlic toast, steamed broccoli and cinnamon apples! YUM!!!! We were going to go watch the Epcot fireworks from Disney's Boardwalk, which is free, but then Kiera suddenly got a fever, so we stayed at our condo and called it a night.