Dustin's Hopes and Dreams

In the car yesterday Dustin was telling me all about what he wants to be when he grows up. I'll let him tell you about it.

Skiing and Funny Faces

Whitney has picked up skiing this month. As part of a class field trip Whitney's class went to to a local ski hill, Afton Alps, and went skiing for the day. Turns out that Whitney really enjoyed it so her and Dad went skiing again last Saturday and had a blast! Sorry no pictures of the skiing - here is one of us sledding the back yard.

Believe it or not this is the first time that I have ever skied in Minnesota--it was such a shock to go from skiing in Utah to the small hills in Minnesota that I could bring myself to go skiing here until almost 12 year later (lost time). Whitney did a great job going down easy and medium slopes while I got to go down some black diamonds and prove that I still have it! We had a great time and Kelly and I have already discussed getting the other kids out skiing sometime. Maybe some day we'll have a tradition like the Andersons of skiing all day Christmas day.

We do have two snowboards that the kids will use in the backyard on our sledding hill. Katelyn is getting pretty good at it so we'll see where that takes us.

On the lighter side we took this funny video of Dustin and Lauren making funny faces after seeing Madagascar 2 the other day. These two are quite the pair with all the things they dream up. Rare is that day that I don't come home to a new fort begin built some where in the house with any material they can find. Sofa cushions seem to be their favorite materials right now.

Glasses for Whitney

Whitney got glasses this week. She had a friend that got glasses during the summer and she told me she thought it would be cool to have glasses. Then shortly after school started she mentioned she couldn't see the board very well. I thought she just wanted glasses because her friend had them. It wasn't until I took her for a check up and they tested her vision that I realized she wasn't kidding. Anyway, it took us a while to get in to see the Optometrist and sure enough she needed glasses. Am I a good mom or what? Next time I won't be quite as skeptical. Her glasses are really cute and she looks good in them as you can see from the picture. Katelyn says they make her look "smartacle". Whatever that is.

Ice Fishing and Winter Carnival

If you can't beat 'it, join 'it. That's what we say about the weather in Minnesota. A couple of weeks ago we had weather as cold at -40 with the wind chill and several days where the day time high never got above zero. So you can either cry about it or get out and find some way to enjoy it!

This last Saturday one of the ways we enjoyed it was by going out and doing some ice fishing!! One of my friends from work had a get together and brought his ice house, snow mobile and four wheeler. It also happened to be a day where the temperature got up to 45 degrees--break out the shorts and flip flops! So Whitney, Lauren and Dustin and I got in the car and drove out on the ice. Turns out the ice was about two and half feet thick. Plenty thick to even drive a dump truck on. As a matter of fact I saw on the news the other day they moved a house accross the lake. They just jacked it up the 60-ton house on a few trailers and on some trailers and moved it across the frozen lake about 15 miles from our house! Here is a link to the video!http://wcco.com/watercooler/house.moving.ice.2.919794.html

Of course Dustin's favorite part was riding on the snow mobile. We had all four of us on the snowmobile cruizing around the lake with Dustin yelling "faster, faster" and "Ready, set, go" every time we stopped. We also played some snow golf and played with a dog that was running around (it took Lauren about 30 min until she was willing to pet the dog).

Also during last Saturday St. Paul had it's annual Winter Carnival Celebration. One of our favorite things to do is to go look a the ice carving sculptures that are created as part of the carnival. On this particular Saturday it was -5 so we only hung around for an hour or so and didn't stay to watch the parade later that day in the freezing temperatures. Here is a few pictures of our favorite scupltures.

Back in Time to Tom Gibbon Teeny Bopper Days

Okay so this is a late post but it is one that I have been intending to write since this summer when we visited Cheyenne Wyoming on our summer trip. We hit Cheyenne about dinner time while driving back to Minnesota from a family reunion in Bear Lake.



Now Cheyenne has been described to me as a cowboy town out in the middel of know where. But for us it is also the home town of Tom Gibbons our brother-in-law (married to Becky). So we called up Tom and asked him where we should take the family for dinner as we quickly passed through town. Now Tom hasn't lived in Cheyenne for many years so his recommendations where a little rusty. However he did tell us about a Taco Johns next the state capital that he use to work at as a young cow poke. So after feeding the family at a local Sonic we headed over to the Taco Johns to relive a little slice of Tom Gibbon's life.



Once we got there Tom told us that he had created a menu item that still might be on the menu. It was called the the Super Ole and when Kelly saw it she called it a "Gut Bomb." Of course we had to order one and try it out to experience the culinary genius of young Tom. Imagine making nachos with every imaginable topping but instead of using chips you use tater totes. We had each kid try a bit and it got some mixed reviews. I personally thought it was a fantastic gut bomb creation and it took me back to my teenage days when I could have eaten the whole thing without any health implications. Unfortunately those days have passed but for one night in Cheyenne we got to relive them. Yee-Haa!!!


By the way, Kelly wants me to make sure that everyone knows that Todd is writting this. I think she might be imbarassed by this post...oh, well.

Merry Christmas!!

We had a wonderful Christmas yesterday and we hope all of you did as well. Amazingly enough all of our kids slept until aftef 7 a.m. except Whitney who was up at 5:30 begging to wake everyone else up. Todd and I had time to get up and shower and I even made cinnamon rolls before most of the family got up. Dustin had his deepest wish come true and he got a gun for Christmas. We decided that if he didn't have toy gun he just uses other things as pretend guns. He likes to walk around telling people to "stick them up". Santa brought Lauren a surprise. She got a scooter for Christmas and since we live in the frozen tundra she has been riding it back and forth across the kitchen. The most exciting thing for Whitney and Katelyn, and lets be honest about it Todd too, was the Wii. I think that we are the last people on earth to get one, but better late than never.

On Christmas Eve we had some friends over. We had a Mexican themed dinner with authentic tamales. We played some games and the kids acted out the Nativity. Lauren was a wonderful Mary. She wouldn't let anyone touch the baby Jesus. Dustin was a shepherd. We realize that shepherds didn't carry around toy cars, but we couldn't get him to put it down.

A Chat with Santa

Santa Claus paid a visit to our ward Christmas party. All of the kids sat on his lap. Lauren stressed and stressed all day about what to tell Santa she wanted for Christmas. She never did narrow it down so she ended up telling him she wanted a surprise. Also, Dustin was looking forward to telling Santa he wanted a gun for Christmas all day long and when it finally came time to sit on Santa's lap he lost it. It wasn't until I picked him up and we were walking away that he yelled, "Santa, I want a shooter gun." We also had a close call with the Santa secret. The Santa looked a lot like Santa, but he sure sounded a lot like Ray Larsen from our ward. Lauren decided that Ray must be one of Santa's helpers.