Happy New Years!!!

Aunt Angie had everyone over for New Years Eve. Erik came down with scarlet fever so he and I ate junk food and watched T.V. It was a nice quiet night. Poor Erik fell asleep at 8:30. The boys spent the night at Angie's. Thanks Ang for a quiet, peaceful night!!

Sometimes when I see how beautiful snow is, I think for a second (only a second)that I would like to live in it. And then: we hit the roads, the kids are crying about their frostbitten fingers and toes even though you spent 20 minutes getting them ready to go out, there are muddy and wet shoes everywhere, and it is cold!!! And then I remember it is great to visit and go home to the warmth. These are some pictures of the roads on the way out of Ely. We stopped to help someone stuck in the snow, and then we pulled over to help a truck that rolled over. It took us 8 hours to make the 5 hour trip home.

We are not big "snow" people, so my kids have never been sledding. This time in Ely, we took them the walking distance to the park so they could sled. The boys had a great time. Cousin Paul came with us. He showed us how it was done.

Road Trip!

We have been spending quite a bit of time in Ely this year. We always go on Neil's next days off after Christmas. So we headed out two days after Christmas. I go a new camera for Christmas (Yeah!!!) so I snapped a lot of pictures to figure it out. This is us waiting outside the pizza place in Vegas. We love it here. We feed the whole family for $10!!! Now that's a great deal. We even remembered paper plates and water bottles this time.

Chrismas shopping

This year we stole a friend's idea and took our boys shopping for eachother at the dollar store. When we shop at other stores, they are really limited on what they buy. The usually want to buy $500 power tools or $5,000 flat screen T.V.'s. This year every suggestion was perfect. The gifts were totally thier ideas. Neil and I split them up and took them one at a time. It was great to spend alone time with them. We had to drag one boy along (I won't mention names:). Once we got on the road though, we had great conversations about dreams. He also had great questions about life like, "What would happen if you drove through the car wash backwards?" I gave him my normal answer of "I'll let you know after I go home and google it." Can't wait to see all that they picked out Christmas morning.

Magical

We went to the Magical Forest to see Santa Clause. They had a little train, a slide, and a merry-go-round. There is a "forest" to walk through that is wonderfully decorated. It was awesome. The best part was that the boys got to set on Santa's lap. Erik took it very seriously. Afterwards he said, "I was not shy of him." Thank you Grandma for coming with us.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

We usually use our artificial tree for Christmas, but this year we decided to get a real one. The boys were real excited. I had to get a picture of the tree on top of the car. It was just like the movies. Can't wait for Christmas.

Crazy Nights

We could get rid of two beds in our house and the boys wouldn't even notice. They insist on sleeping together. They are like little puppies. We found Seth laying on top of Erik one night while at a hotel. Don't worry, we moved him after the pic.

I'm not sure how Seth ever learned in school without his turtle, ninja, home depot apron, super cape, roller skating, baseball gloves, survivor buff, etc. costume. He assures me everyone needs baseball gloves and rollerskates to do school in. One benefit of homeschooling.

Help!!

What would a Dad do without the help of some MEN and a Superhero??