Friday, December 31, 2010

snowed in with family - the photos!!

I just got photos from Sheree (one of Matt's many fun cousins).... so here goes!

We did a fair bit of this...... watching the weather forecast and road closings.
Question: Will we travel today?
Answer: NO WAY!


Too bad there wasn't anything fun to do inside (ha ha ha!)


Michelle's two girls, Brenna and Nicole, were like full time babysitters.  I miss having them around!  Brenna is in the red shirt in the photo above, Nicole is playing with Isaac below (try not to notice that Isaac is playing with a pink and purple jeep - he he he).


This is definitely the game-playing-est family I have EVER seen!  Card games, board games, family games... they play all the time!


Sometimes though, you just need a little quiet snuggly book reading on the couch.





Grandma Ruth with three of her four children (Luther, Lowie, Bev) and a daughter-in-law (Jan).  Speaking of games, Grandma Ruth will beat you, hands down, every single time you play her in cards.  I mean, EVERY single time!  Seven of us ladies played Hand and Foot (a card game) one night and her score was double the second place score!



I'm sure you are all wondering how I managed to land in this coveted spot for one meal :)  The highlight was a "how long can you keep your eyes wide open without blinking" contest.  I didn't win. 



One of my favorite memories?  Watching (and listening) to Isaac watch his daddy and the other men outside moving snow.  It was like an Isaac-version of the best movie of all time, starring some of his favorite characters (Daddy, Uncle Andy, Grandpa) all outside doing manly things - using snowblowers, moving cars and trucks around, shoveling and shoveling and shoveling.  He still talks about it! 


[A snow blower is an impressive piece of equipment, especially for a little man like Isaac.  After all, it's a closer relative of the lawn mower, makes loud noises and is larger than he is.] 

Fun times and great memories!

on the snowy road

December 29th we drove to Elk River for a Christmas gathering with Jan's side of the family.  The girls called this "the party with Grandma and all her sisters".  Grandma and her sisters like big families, which means big parties :)  [Grandma Claudine, Matt's mom's mom, was the matriarch of this clan, and Lydia was her 23rd great-grandchild.  She died shortly after Lydia was born, but the family just keeps growing :)]  It is always a treat to be with these folks!

Photos from the actual event are on another camera, so I'll come back and post some later.  We left the morning of the 30th, knowing a blizzard was forecasted for later in the day.  Sure enough, it started snowing at lunch time, and the afternoon drive got pretty hairy.


This was my view from the passenger window.  White, white and more white.  Snow falling and snow blowing, everywhere. 



The interstate was already closed west of Fargo and the eastern portion closed right after we arrived at our destination.  Oh man were we glad to be inside a warm home, full of food and family! 

The next morning the snow stopped falling and the kids went outside, for about thirty seven seconds.  Actually, Julianna was out much longer than I thought she'd stay.... It didn't help that I hadn't planned on being snowed in - a (lucky) packing mishap meant that we had their snow bibs in the car, but their boots were MIA.  Uh oh.  It was SOOOOO cold.  As in temperatures barely above ZERO.  When the forecasted high is 2 degrees, you can be sure of at least one thing, and that is that the snow that blew inside your car the previous evening will not be melting any time soon :)




A second snowstorm showed up a few hours later, and there was no way we could return home as scheduled.   The interstates remained closed, our stay lengthened, and our children were delighted to be there.  It was so much fun I found myself thinking "this should have been the plan all along".

We finally gave up waiting for the interstate to re-open and decided to try another route.  The initial miles were no fun, but the road cleared, the stress level fell, and we arrived home safe and sound.

But, honestly, a bit frazzled.  Not so much by the weather, but by the delay.  We were scheduled to move out of our home by noon Saturday (another family arriving from Turkey overlapped with our time in the US and we were anxious to let them move in and settle, while we finish our time here living at Matt's parents).  Anyways, not only were we not moved out Saturday noon, we were still stuck out of town with closed interstates!  Aggghhhh!  Good news is, the newly arriving family was stuck too :)

So we got back to town, ate some dinner, got our kids in bed at Grandma's, and went over to begin the packing frenzy. Thank goodness I had done some preliminary work last week while Matt was ice fishing!

We finished, thanks to a late night and huge help from some friends who came over Sunday afternoon to lend a hand. 

With hearts full of mixed emotions we said goodbye to this sweet house we have called home these past six months.  I miss this house already :)


Goodbye Chestnut Street, Asia here we come!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

ice fishing

On December 27th Matt, Andy and Luther headed out for a little ice fishing at Lake of the Woods (northern Minnesota).  I didn't go, and I don't really understand ice fishing, but the photos are really cool, and they had a great time.  Plus, Matt doesn't get a lot of blog time (or blog photos), so I thought it would be fun to include these.

Ice fishing happens on the ice :)  Frozen lakes, that is.  The little house on the right was where they spent the night.


Pretty cozy looking, huh?  The guys say it stays pretty warm in there, but no one sitting on the ice wants to think about ice melting, so I know it doesn't get too warm!


That's Matt, holding the cooler full of fish next to a set of fishing holes. 


Turns out they caught a lot of fish.  I mean, a whole lot.  Here they are the first night, getting ready to cook dinner. 


It was a fish fry :)  And it looked like this....  We have more in the freezer here and are planning to cook it up one night soon. 


It pays to have a brother who is an avid fisherman.... Andy promised lots of fish, and they caught plenty. 



And who knew frozen lakes were so darn photogenic?  This photo makes me want to join them next year (almost!) 

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

favorite pictures from Christmas

the whole gang (we've all been living together since Christmas Eve)


kids in cousin heaven





fancy little girls


Isaac loves all the attention





so MUCH yummy food (the glowing ball in the middle of the table is a birthday cake for Jesus)

Monday, December 27, 2010

a splash park birthday

For birthday party #2 we hit the local splash park on Sunday afternoon.  (Indoor splash park, obviously.... brrrr!)

It took Julianna a while to warm up, but after a bit she decided that she and Kaelynn needed to go down the yellow slide at least seven hundred and twenty nine times.  Whew!  They wore me out just watching them. 

The happy 5 year old celebrating with her cousins :)


We opened a few more presents too - the highlight was certainly this wedding dress that Grandma found on the Halloween clearance rack and altered to fit Julianna. 


The girls have been in dress up clothes non stop - they leave their pjs and dive right in, and the other day it was lunchtime before I realized that had yet to put on 'normal clothes' :)


Pretty fun stuff for a five year old and her cousin Kaelynn and sister Lydia! 

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Thursday, December 23, 2010

FIVE

Julianna Faith - my best Christmas gift EVER!  Five years old today.

We kept it simple today - party #1 was last week, party #2 is on Sunday.  I found this dress at a thrift shop earlier this fall and Grandma altered it to fit her perfectly.  Her "fanciest" dress up clothes ever.... I knew she would love it, and she did. 


(the sash ends in a bow with long ribbons that drag the ground behind her when she walks)  She put it on right over her pjs and wore it until we left to go sledding.   


She put it on again for her afternoon birthday date with Grandpa and confidently told me she was the "fanciest dressed" person at Starbucks.  I don't doubt it :) 



Sweet Julianna, your Daddy calls you "Treasure" and you are.  What a gift, what a blessing.  Happy 5th Birthday!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Grandmother Hodges

My only surviving grandparent, my Grandmother Hodges (mom's mom), died on Wednesday afternoon.  Oh how grateful I am for the full, rich time we enjoyed with her over Thanksgiving weekend.


She leaves behind 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren, many of whom fill the photos below (taken Thanksgiving weekend).



My Grandmother was a committed blog reader and I enjoyed writing posts that I knew would bring a smile.  Even at 91 years of age, she knew how to open up my blog and catch up on the family news.  I'm so very grateful for the years we spent together, the way she loved my kids even from afar. 

Crissman Christmas

Saturday my mom hosted our big family Christmas gathering - it was a blast!  Some people in my extended family are hilariously funny, which means we laugh a lot :)  We do two big gift exchanges - one where we draw names and one "chinese auction/white elephant style".  Once again, the Chinese auction gift exchange did not disappoint.  The girls were a smidge confused by the whole idea, Lydia lucked out with a gift that fit her to a T (a small purple jewelry box with a gaudy butterfly on the lid) and Isaac mostly entertained himself playing 'horsey ride' with Justin (married to my cousin Julie).

The 3rd generation kiddos (8 of them) ate picnic style and won all sorts of points for charm and general entertainment value.


There were 20-something of us in the "middle generation" - but only a few of us have children, so there were plenty of folks around to help with the kids, like my cousin Susan :)  I love this about big gatherings... all three of our children really enjoy gatherings like this and are deliriously happy to be in the thick of things.  (Although at one point in the evening Isaac asked to go to bed - I think he had about as much stimulation as one little guy could handle in any given day!)


It was a special treat to meet Eric and I love this picture of Matt cuddling him - my cousin Julie edited hours of video tape and created a compilation of "cousin clips" from old home movies.  It was so fun to watch the video she created - all the video from her dad's camera that included the cousins (there were 9 of us in the original bunch, plus 4 'baby cousins' that joined about ten years later).  The footage, mostly from the early 80s, brought back lots of memories.... and now my husband holds her baby and we are officially grown up.  Where did the time go?



PS - This is Graham, married to my cousin Susan.  Does he look like anybody you know?  (The hat is not a typical part of his wardrobe... I told you my family was funny!)

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

welcome to REAL WINTER

We made it!  Yesterday was seriously one of our most stressful travel days ever.  Actually, our morning went really smooth and everything was golden right up until check in.... when things took a dramatic turn for the worse :)  Lots of snow and more falling, all over the upper midwest region.  They offered us seats on a flight the following morning, but we opted to try and make it last night, and I am so glad we did.

The best moment was definitely about ten minutes before taking off for ND when all three of our kids finally slept (we had been waiting for an open, snow plowed runway for 90 long minutes before we took off)!  It was a very quiet ride until Isaac woke screaming as the wheels touched down.  The girls cried all the way off the plane, into baggage claim, and didn't calm down til they were buckled in car seats.  Mercifully, they were asleep again within minutes.

We woke to six fresh inches of snow.  Isaac took a few looks around, grinned at me and said "Mommy's house"!  Yes, we are back in the house we have called home since July.

And we're busy getting used to our "new outside normal".  This is what Matt calls REAL WINTER  :)




Friday, December 17, 2010

guess who's here?

The short answer is: lots of people :)  And more are coming tomorrow!  Fun filled times and a very full house!

My brother Stephen and his wife Jennifer, Jennifer's family, my cousin Julie and her new baby Eric are all here now.  The rest of Julie's family, plus about 30 other family members arrive tomorrow.  Don't worry, we have lots of food :)

It's been years since I have seen some of these folks, and it's been really fun to catch up, and also to realize how easy it is to "just start where we left off, almost like I was never gone".

Earlier tonight Julie and I did a little baby trading.  She had Isaac...



and I had Eric.

 
Isaac, however, is never far from the baby and is super attentive to "baby ewic". 




We even opened some presents :)



And uncle Stephen read some books too



These big family Christmas gatherings were super fun for me as a kid and I know that tomorrow will be really special.  It's kind of the grand finale to our time in NC, we head back to ND on Monday.  A few weeks there and it's back to Asia (mid January).  Wow. 

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

her birthday party day

I cannot believe that Julianna is just days away from her 5th birthday!  I know everyone says this, but it goes so quickly.  I almost wish she wasn't getting any bigger, I love the season our family is in ....

So today was round one of the birthday celebrations.  Mom and Dad took us all to Build a Bear and the girls were beyond entertained. I mean, seriously, what little girl wouldn't be?!?!


Julianna and Lydia love frilly dresses so this morning when I asked Julianna what she was going to pick for her birthday party day I knew beyond a doubt that this would be their attire :)


Granddaddy was appropriately enamored with the girls' creations.



And because this little man got very little camera time today, I thought I'd include this shot.  Life as the third child is good stuff in the birthday party department. 


oh sweet little Julianna, how in the world did you get THIS close to your fifth birthday?!?!