Christmas Eve and Minnesota Vacation

We spent Christmas Eve 2008 at my parent's house. All of my relatives from my mom's side of the family were there (the Keller's, Noll's and the Fruth's).

This is my youngest niece C3 who is 2. She is so cute with her red curly hair. What a character she is.

At the right, are my aunt and uncle with their grandchildren. It was great to see everyone there.

L1 spent Christmas Eve at her father's house in Missouri. (Her cousins really missed her.)

We had a spread of delicious appetizers as well. I made Brie' cheese with pecans and brown sugar on top. I wrapped it in filo dough first and then baked it. There was bacon wrapped livers (my brother and sister-in-law made) which are always delicious. My cousin's wife makes a great buffalo chicken wing dip that is awesome. My aunt brings lots of different cookies, date balls are my favorite. I will include some of these recipes in a future post.

Santa also made his special visit to my parent's house on Christmas Eve. The kids were sooooo excited about this. He always brings the kids a treat. We really appreciate it.
(Thank you so much Santa and Mrs. Claus!)

L1 came home on Christmas day. She had been gone a week and we really missed her. L2 couldn't stand it any longer and we opened our gifts from Santa and each other. L1 got a neat suede/fur handbag with bath goodies in it. She got new clothes, boots and snow pants to use in MN.

L2 got a toy rifle. When he sat on Santa's lap at the Lion's Hall, all he asked for was a gun. Santa replied, "You'll shoot your eye out kid!" Hee! Hee! (Mom tipped Santa off about that one.) L2 said, "NO! Just a toy gun Santa!"He also got another V-Smile controller so he can play games together with Sissy now. He got the Cars V-Smile game and some new movies for the long car ride up north. Mom got a new food processor and Dad got a guitar song book and some music CD's.

We left the day after Christmas for Duluth, MN. We stayed at Grandma Walker and Papa John's house for a few days. My sister and brother-in-law came down and we got to spend the afternoon with them on Saturday. L2 got a timber building set and a silver piggy bank.
He loved both gifts. L1 got a lot of neat baking things in a cool basket, lip gloss and a make up kit.

Unfortunately, Papa John was sick most of our trip and we hope he is feeling better soon. He was planning on taking his sled dog team on a trip next week across Canada to Maine and run them at different points along the way. We hope he gets well enough to travel there.

L1 may write her Young Author's story about Papa John's dog team this year. She interviewed him and asked a lot of questions about the dogs and what it is like to drive a team. While S and I were in Alaska we got to see the Iditarod headquarters in Wasilla, AK. In a future post I will talk a lot about the famous Iditarod Dog Sled race that takes place there every year in March. The dog's names from left to right are: Dawson (the lead dog), Schubert , Foxy, Togo, and Taz.

Layne's favorite dog is Schubert. It takes a lot of harnesses to hook them up to the sled!

The kids got to ice skate at Congdon Park Elementary School (where S went to school as a kid). We also visited a closed ski run and had fun sledding down the ski slopes at night. In Grandma Walker's woods, L1 and I made a snow house in the creek bottom. We had two separate rooms and a roof overhead of tree limbs.

We dug out the snow and made a 200 yard bobsled trail that took us all the way down the hill to the snow house. What a fast, wild ride it was and we ended up riding the last turn on the edge of the sled (see picture below of us actually coming down the hill). Even though it got down to below 0 outside, we didn't feel it. It is a dry cold there. We had a lot of fun playing in the snow!



New Year's Eve 2009 was spent in Minneapolis at the Mall of America. This was L1's dream come true. She has wanted to go there ever since she watched the Mary Kate and Ashley movie.



There was an American Girl doll store. L1 found some things (below) that she would like to have for her birthday in February.


Of course we found a doll that looked a lot like her and a lot of baking things to go with her.


L2 and Dad loved Leggo Land. They played there for quite awhile. This was amazing to see. Everything was built out of millions of Leggos. The dinosaur, robot and motorcycle rider were completely made of Leggos.



We all had a great time riding rides. L2 went on a big roller coaster for his first time. It was called the Orange Crush. We loved it so much we rode it twice. We were lucky he is 43" tall. For all the fun rides you had to be at least 42" tall so he just made it! L1 made a few new friends there.


L1 and L2 rode the ride Swipper's Sweeper (yellow car #2 if you can see them in the video below) in the Nickelodeon theme park. It went around the corners really fast. It looks like you would get whiplash!



We all got Hawaiian leis to wear for the New Year's celebration. They "dropped" a huge glowing ball and hundreds of balloons at 10:00pm for all the kids to enjoy.

We also went to the acquarium in the Mall of America. It was really cool. You stand on a moving "sidewalk" and the glass is all around you and over head. You can see sharks, stingrays and other fish swimming right over you. We also saw an octopus. There was a play area where the kids could climb through a ship. This was a really neat experience for all of us. The shark picture below is only a background picture but looks really real!


The live coral reef was totally amazing to see. The fish were just beautiful in it. The kids couldn't believe that the coral was actually a living being. The seahorses were fun to watch as well.


The kids got to pet a live shark and stingray. L1 enjoyed petting them but L2 was not ready to do this yet. He just watched everyone else do it (see video clips below).

We RODE out the new year by staying up until midnight in the hotel room watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin'Eve on T.V. Then the kids ran in the hall shouting happy new year with all the other kids on our floor. Then they crashed hard!!

On New Year's Day we went to Uncle Dick's house and saw all of the Crouser cousins (see pictures of them below). I hadn't seen them in years. It was a great visit and we got to watch some home movies of all of them as kids.

We had a great time spending this trip with our little treasures!