Almost Minnesotan

Today we had a thought of going to the zoo for a bit. We got a zoo membership this year for Christmas and our church is only a block away from the zoo. So after church we decided to stop by for a bit to see some animals. My "great" idea was to go see a new exhibit that was built last summer, but we haven't been there yet (due to lack of membership, thanks Grandpa). The exhibit is called Russia's Grizzly Coast and it is outside! If you just go to the front page of the website you get the idea of what it was like to visit today. Well, it was around 20 degrees so we thought "hey, it's warm, let's go see it". That's the part where we look and think Minnesotan, however we proved we are not true ones. After looking at the animals for about 15 minutes, I was frozen and so was Lance. We were in "church" clothes and my toes were frozen solid. My excuse of course is that we were not dressed for looking at animals outside, but the true thing is that we are still wimps and not very Minnesotan yet. We did go in the zoo and walk through the tropics section to thaw out. The next zoo we will be visiting will be in Central Florida and it will be more my style of weather hopefully.

P.S. I really can't complain about the snow and cold yet. Not because I don't want to, just because it is too early in the winter and it would be a lot of complaining. However if anyone wants us to come live with them in one of the warm weather states, I'm there when you offer!

Play time

I just had to post something cute. I wish I had audio, although I don't know if you would want to really listen to it. Last night, as part of our classic movie watching, we watched Oliver. Today, I have two boys playing "Survivor" using Star Wars figures and everyone has a British accent suddenly. It is fun to listen to.

First Day of Winter Break

Yesterday was the last day of school for 1st semester, so the boys are officially on vacation until January 20th now. Since we were just sitting around the house today and we got some new snow, they went outside to play in it. We haven't been hit as hard as a lot of places around the country, but we still have some white stuff to play in. Ryan went out with them to have some fun also. I elected staying indoors to get the hot chocolate ready. With the short days, they haven't been out much because it is almost dark after school.

Liam thought it would be fun to jump off the swing, he came up laughing, so I guess it was.

Independance

Update: Thank you all for the nice comments about the boys and for wishing us a quick recovery. As of Thursday, everyone is healthy again, back to work and school. Thank you also for putting up with my random stream of consciousness talking with no ending punctuation. Ryan finds it hard to believe that the comma splice queen can be an English teacher also.
This has been a rough week around our house because we have all had the stomach flu. Tues. morning at 2am Ryan and I came down with the fun bug. We kept both boys home from school because Liam was still recovering from his bout on Monday and Lance because we didn't want him to get sick at school and we needed someone to take care of everyone. I have never felt so helpless and with Ryan out of commission also it was quite the day. We had Lance carry Ryan's cell phone and I had mine and we called him when we needed something. Today I woke up feeling better and finally made it downstairs to the BIG mess that greeted me, however I just wanted to share all the wonderful things Lance and Liam did yesterday to help out.
Lance helped by
1. Bringing us water and Popsicles when we asked
2. Entertaining Liam
3. Making his own lunch of a PB&J sandwich
4. Making rice for dinner for them (I walked him through it on the phone)
5. Putting clothes from the washer on the line downstairs (Oh yes, our dryer decided to break during my laundry frenzy on Monday, so I had to make clotheslines downstairs)
6. Emailing his teacher and told her he was home and he was going to email her his homework ( I found that one this morning, but he couldn't work it enough to actually email the homework)
7. Taking all of the phone calls from family that wanted to know how we were doing
8.Feeding Liam throughout the day
9. Helping make Liam's bed (which I stripped the day he was sick)
10. Feeding the dog and letting her out
11. Overall taking good care of everyone
Liam helped by...
1. Not fighting with his brother
2. Not being too demanding
3. Helping with laundry
4. Resting and being good
5. Helping Lance by being errand boy
We are very proud of our two helpful boys and we are sure they are going to make fine adults some day.

Christmas Card Chaos

I guess I'm a procrastinator this year, okay I know I am. Today the boys went to get pictures taken professionally after church, so I decided since I had them dressed I would take my own photo for our Christmas cards this year. It took me over 30 pictures and many minutes to get one picture I thought would maybe be suitable for our card. These are a few of the many bad photos we got today. You can make up your own captions. I know that ALL of the blame lies in the unprofessional photographer, but they could have helped me a little:)

Wordless Wednesday- First gifts in the mail

Thanks Pea!

Christmas fun

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