Merry Christmas

The holidays started off with a great celebration at Taylor's school called Colonial Days. Colonial days is an event that takes place at Taylor's school every year around this time, but with this being our first time participating in the big event, we weren't sure what to expect. We do know that Taylor has spent a majority of the past two weeks pouring herself into learning about Colonial times. The kids even get to come up with a name for an individual and a job that they may have held during those times. On Thursday, everyone set up a booth in the atrium with items they would have made from their trade. After about 20 minutes in the atrium, we all poured into the gym where the kids all did a class presentation & a dance! Grandma & Panod got to join in on the fun & I owe all of the picture credit of Taylor dancing to Grandma, who was kind enough to stay and take them while I had to run and pick up Ian at school. Thanks Grandma!

Colonial Days 2006

Sunday was a day to make phone calls to family, make a big dinner (thanks for the ham, dad!), and to let the kids each open up one present. The kids each opened up a model car - Taylor got a Nissan 350Z & Ian got a convertible Mini Cooper. By about 7:00pm last night, we did our annual Christmas Eve viewing of lights. This year was different - we had a destination. We had heard about this house over in South Minneapolis (Longfellow) that had coordinated music to their lights using a computer. It was the most amazing light display we've ever seen! We must have spent at least 30 minutes there laughing, and oooo'ing & aaahhhh'ing! If you'd like to see the house we went and saw, check out this video on you tube or watch the report on WCCO news.

Today was a blast. The kids woke us up at 7:00am on the dot & ran down to open presents. Taylor received some much-loved Dr. Who goodies & Ian received some really nice Thomas stuff. We went on to have breakfast & then headed out the door to Uncle Rob's house to gather with more family for a while. The food was wonderful and the company was even better....Ian even decided that Kane is his cousin, and not Taylor's! lol

Christmas 2006

A special note to our family that we could not be with today: We love you and miss you very much. Please know that we think of you often. Thank you to you and your families for the love and support we receive from you every day. You are our greatest gift.

Need a good Christmas morning breakfast?

I found a recipe for Baked French Toast on the web awhile back. We have had it several times now & I've changed it around a little to fit our taste. We will likely be having this on Christmas morning and thought we would share the recipe...






Baked French Toast

INGREDIENTS

* 1 (1 pound) loaf of day-old French bread, cut diagonally in 2 inch slices
* 6 eggs
* 1/2 cups milk
* 2 cups half-and-half cream
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 3/4 cup butter
* 1 1/3 cups brown sugar
* 3 tablespoons light corn syrup


DIRECTIONS

1. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange the slices of bread in the
bottom. (I usually have to squish the bread a bit in order to get
it to fit. Sometimes I have two or three pieces leftover that I
cannot fit) In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cream,
vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and
refrigerate overnight.
2. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup;
heat until bubbling. Pour over bread and egg mixture.
3. Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 40-50 minutes. (This tends
to spill over for me, so I recommend putting a baking sheet
covered in aluminum on the rack below the French toast while it is
baking)

One week to go...

Merry (almost) Christmas!

I don't have much time for a lengthy update, but we do have some fun pictures to put up from our annual family Christmas party we went to today. We have attended this party since before Taylor was born, and it is always such a blast to see how big all of the little ones have gotten in the past year. We had some seriously good potluck food, the kids did a pinata, and then there was Indian bingo.

Christmas Party

Taylor and Ian have one more week before school is out for winter break. They are looking forward to the time off of school, but Taylor does have her science project due when winter break is over. We're still not sure about a topic yet and she has to turn in her sheet stating the topic of her science project on Thursday! We'll be sure to update on how things are going.


Ian had a field trip to go and see a play with his school on Friday. They took the bus and it apparently went right past Panod's office. The only reason I know this is because when I picked Ian up Friday afternoon, his teacher told me that Ian started jumping up and down on the bus and yelling, "That's my daddy's work! That's my daddy's work!" Ian also had a good time at the play and said that it was very funny.


On my end of things, my last day at CVA will be on Wednesday! It has been an interesting and very educational three years working in the IT department, but it is time for me to move on to new challenges. I have been accepted to St. Kate's this fall for their Physical Therapy Assistant program. I will also be taking a few classes starting next month at a local community college in order to get the ball rolling. I am very excited to have this opportunity! I also need to say that Taylor has been a very big inspiration in making this decision. Watching her go through the motions of heading off to a new school over the last several months - how hard she has been working and the rewards she is finding in her newly found self confidence has sparked something in me. I told her how I felt the other night, and while I'm not sure she fully understood what I was trying to say, I hope that someday she will.

A Winter Weekend

While we missed the fun that the rest of the Midwest seems to be experiencing this weekend with the first big snowfall, we still managed to have some fun this weekend.

Earlier this week Ian and I set out to Choo Choo Bob's on Cleveland & Marshall. Immediately upon our arrival there Ian went to work on the six (yes, six!!) train tables they had set up, while I set off to find Engineer Paul for some tickets to see the movie, Trains, at the Riverview Theater on Saturday. While the train movie is free, you have to have tickets from CCB's in order to be admitted to the Riverview. We ended up spending 45 minutes at Choo Choo Bob's - it was during the early afternoon and I'm guessing that since that time of the day is nap time for most Thomas the Train enthusiasts, that must be why it was probably the most peaceful part of my week last week. I would highly recommend going to CCB's on an early weekday afternoon vs. hitting it up on a weekend.

Saturday morning, Ian and Panod headed off to the Riverview with their free tickets in hand. Apparently there were some clips from The Polar Express, Thomas the Tank Engine, and other train movies. This was our second experience with these free train movies and I'm sure we'll be going back again.

While Ian and Panod were over in Minneapolis watching the movies, Taylor and I headed over to the Como Zoo for the unveiling of the Winter Carnival button. It turns out that all of the submissions for the design of the button were done by CVA students this year. The student who won had graduated back in May and it was a treat to see her again. We bought our buttons, watched the Polar Bears lick the banners, and headed inside for the rest of the celebration. Taylor made some arts and crafts, we danced to the Teddy Bear Band, and we entered some contests. Taylor ended up winning a really great stuffed camel and a $50 gift certificate to Schuler Shoes, a local shoe shop! She also had this great caricature drawing done of her - it made me laugh so hard because it is so good!! Before we left we had to go the new Tropical exhibit. We've already been a few times, but there's always something interesting to watch in there.

I have a few pictures from the zoo to share & that's about it for now. ((((All our love))))

Dec. 2

Happy Holidays

Nothing says Happy Holidays like the first round of conferences with the kids' teachers. We learned a lot about their daily schedules, and how well they are both adjusting to their new surroundings. We came home with so much great stuff that the kids had been working on, I decided to go ahead and share them on the blog!

Fall Conferences

Bluefin Bay

We took full advantage of the days off of school that the kids had last week, and we set off for a full weekend of relaxation and adventure at Bluefin Bay, in Tofte, MN! We really enjoyed the resort - it is a great place to take a vacation with kids in tow - we were even able to bring Toby!! We all enjoyed the indoor pool area and the rec. room there. We were also surprised to find that they let guests use really nice mountain bikes, trailers, bike helmets, lawn games, board games, and pool floaties - all complimentary! We did eat at the resort for lunch and dinner once or twice & the food was wonderful - more so at the Coho Cafe located on the other side of the resort, than the Grille. But we were also thankful that we packed some Easy Mac, and makings for PB&J's for the kids to make in the room whenever we needed something quick for them to eat that didn't cost $10 a piece.

We also took trips to both the Split Rock Light House & Grand Marais. We decided to hit Split Rock on Saturday since we received an email (did I mention that the rooms all had free wi-fi!) from my dad letting us know that there was going to be a lighting of the lighthouse ceremony that afternoon. The lighthouse has been decommissioned for many years now and they only light it up one weekend a year - the weekend that marks the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald 31 years ago.

Grand Marais was fun, too. We went into the Trading Post to look around, and we found many neat items for the outdoor enthusiast. We also went into the Ben Franklin. If you've never hit the Ben Franklin in Grand Marais, it is like taking K-Mart and smooshing it into a store with about 1/4 the square footage! It was hilarious to see the toilet paper stacked to the ceiling, in the same isle as the Tylenol, baby teething rings, and rugged outdoor socks! The last stop for us in Grand Marais was Sven & Ole's Pizza. While we were not very impressed with the pizza itself, we had a blast joking around and playing games while we were there.

The pictures below are mostly from a stop we had on our way up in Duluth, the Split Rock Lighthouse & a couple of us at Bluefin. All in all, I think that we all would like to go back there again someday soon.

Taylor's favorite part: the pool
Ian's favorite part: the loft in their room
Panod's favorite part: the lighthouse
Lori's favorite part: the good time we had at Sven & Ole's
Toby's favorite part: the heated floors in the room & the windows that went all of the way down to the floor so that he could see out

Bluefin Bay 06

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!!

Taylor (Dalek) & Ian (Chip the Chipmunk) on Halloween night

We have been so busy with getting ready for the big day - sorry for the lack of updates!

Taylor and Panod have been wrapped up in creating the ultimate Dalek costume from the show 'Dr. Who.' They cut cardboard, glued styrofoam, painted a lot of things gold and even made it have the correct weapons. We had hoped to be done before the Boo Bash celebration on Grand Ave. in St. Paul on Saturday, but we didn't make it. Taylor grabbed an old costume for Boo Bash, and we asked Grandma to join us and we all had a blast. It was a bit cold, but there was free hot apple cider and other treats to help keep us all stay warm. I hope that we make this a family tradition for many years to come!

Sunday, we spent a good part of the day cooking and getting ready for the neighborhood Halloween party on Monday. We found a great and easy recipe for Meringues, and using confectioner's paint, we painted little black eyes and a mouth on each cookie. If you use the recipe from this site, add one more egg white to what they recommend.

Monday night was spent finishing up Taylor's costume, and cutting pumpkins at the neighborhood Halloween party. The food was wonderful, and the pumpkins all turned out great! And those of us who felt the need to watch the Vikings during the party quickly lost the urge to yell for our team, and started yelling at our team!

Yesterday was the big day - Ian went as the chipmunk, Chip & Taylor finally got to wear her finished Dalek costume! The windchill was in the teens last night, and Ian only lasted about thirty minutes. But Taylor and Panod headed back out after Ian and I were done, and they quickly filled up Taylor's bag to an insane amount of loot! (Guess Panod and I will have to help her get that down to a reasonable amount.) The neighborhood kids were all so cute, too!!

Here are the Halloween pictures

Halloween 2006

Tomorrow we will be using some free passes that will allow us to see 'The Santa Clause 3' over in Roseville a day before it opens. We will be sure to update the blog and give our feedback on the movie.

**UPDATE** Santa Clause 3 -- not so good! Recommend Happy Feet as a better alternative.