Christmas Break- Cody's Parents

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that Cody's parents were driving through Sandy while we were in Utah. Brad and Lisa flew from Homer, AK to Panguitch, UT to spend Christmas with Cody's grandparents. They then borrowed a car and drove through Utah up to Idaho to see Cody's sister and brother. Cody's sister and her family live in Boise and Cody's brother and his family live in Rexburg, so they all met in Idaho Falls. We were not able to meet everyone in Idaho because we flew out the next day :(

We met Cody's parents at a Red Lobster and as you can tell it was a warm, sunny day. We enjoyed having lunch with them and then went to Target and bought a remote control airplane. Even though their visit was short, we are grateful that we were able to see them. 

Cody's parents continued up to Idaho Falls and Cody's sister-in-law Brit had her baby the night they got there- talk about good timing! Their baby John was also the first baby of the new year in Idaho Falls. We are grateful that they are doing well and that Cody's parents were able to be there for the birth of their grandson. 

That night we went to dinner at Zupas- we really miss not having one in Minnesota! We then spent the rest of the night playing games and packing. We had a great time in Utah and can't wait to visit again! Hopefully this semester goes by fast :)

Macy's Christmas Display and the Holidazzle Parade

Every year the Macy's in Downtown Minneapolis has an animated Christmas display on the 8th floor. This year the theme was "A Day in the Life of an Elf". Since this is our first year in MN we decided that we had better check it out. We also decided that since we were downtown that we would go to the Holidazzle parade- an outdoor parade with fairy tale themed floats. Normally it is below freezing in Minnesota so we have heard that the people who go are crazy, but this year it hasn't been too cold. We decided that we would go to the Christmas display at 3:30, eat dinner, and then watch the Holidazzle at 6:30. Boy were we surprised when the line for the Christmas display started on the 5th floor! Needless to say, we enjoyed the Christmas display and the parade and then had dinner. 

Elf Dorms- the Elf on the top bunk is tickling the foot of the elf on the bottom bunk. That elf would be in big trouble if Cody was on the bottom bunk- his feet are very ticklish! 

Making snowmen

Laun Tree

Reindeer Stable

A panda bear at the North Pole?!

Entrance to Santa's workshop

Making Cookies

Christmas Wish Lists

The Jolly Old Elf's office- I hope I'm on the nice list!

A pile of Christmas presents with an elf who tried to sneak into a package

All of the crazy people standing outside in the cold waiting for the parade to begin- call us crazy cause we were there an hour early to get a good spot :)

Holidazzle

Pinocchio

Nutcracker

Jack and Jill

The Wizard of Oz

Gingerbread House from Hansel and Gretel

Baseball Snowman

The reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh

Santa!

Kids Say the Darndest Things Part 3

Here is a recap of the funny things that happened at school this week:

-One of the 1st grade students told us that fat people store food in their belly- that there is actually a whole cheeseburger and fries in their stomach and that is what makes their tummy bigger

-Sometimes I carry around a Target sack that has toys in it that students and I use to play with during breaks. One of the 1st grade students asked me why I go to Target everyday during school- he thought I was going to Target during recess and bringing groceries back

-One of our special ed students who has been at the school for several years saw another student walk in who has also been at the school for several years. She said "That is a really tall man". I couldn't stop laughing, it was like she had never seen him before!

-Earlier this year all of the SPED teachers had a meeting during the last hour and the students went into another teacher's classroom. The student mentioned previously said "No Ms. M, no Mr. David, no Mr. Joel, Friday Fun Day!" Apparently things are fun when we are not around :) The name stuck and we had Friday Fun Day this week.

- I went with the elementary students to the science museum. There were five floors of science experiments and cool things to do and look at. Out of all of the educational stations, the students spent the most time at a cardboard cut out of a girl that sneezed water on the students

Work can be stressful and not a fun place to be at times, so it is nice to think about the fun things that happened at school this week. Hopefully I will have more fun stories next week!

What I do in my spare time

WARNING! If you are Sister Melanie Lamb, stop reading now!

I decided that because Melly is serving her mission in a cold place (Omaha, NE) that I would knit her a cowl scarf for Christmas. They seem to be the popular thing to wear in St. Paul and I think they are cute. My mom taught me how to knit when I was younger and I made a couple of pot holders, but that is about all of my knitting experience. I have crocheted before and have made several hats and flowers, but I found out that knitting is not the same. I scoured the internet for a knitting pattern and found one. I liked the picture that was attached to the pattern but I had absolutely no idea what 1k 1p 1k yo 1k sl 2p pull slip over 2p meant. My next stop was youtube where I found videos that taught me each one of these stitches. It was quite the process and I probably started over 10 times, but now I consider myself an expert on this pattern. Here is the finished product!

Here is a close up of the scarf.

As you can see, if I made one mistake it was obvious :( This unfortunately happened on one of the panels, so I had to start over on that one, but I am very happy with the finished product. I hope Melly likes it!

On another note, Cody gets his green thumb off tomorrow! Then he gets to do the dishes for 6 weeks ;)

Deck the Halls

As promised, the Thanksgiving decorations were taken down the day after Thanksgiving in order to make way for the Christmas decorations. I was excited to get a real tree this year because we have never had one. It smells wonderful and we have invested in several bags of cinnamon scented pine cones so our home definitely smells like Christmas :)

The Front Door

The stockings were hung on the bookshelf with care...

Some of the yummy-smelling pine cones

Kitchen

We gratefully don't have any snow right now, these are the only snowmen in sight :)

My favorite decoration of all! I love that we are able to use some of the decorations from our wedding lunch and reception- it reminds me of that wonderful day that Cody and I spent together four years ago :)

Birthday Boy

Yesterday was Cody's 26th birthday! We spend the morning relaxing and then had french toast for breakfast- Cody's favorite. We then went and bought a Christmas tree and decorated it. For dinner we invited some friends over and had a party. We cooked up salmon, halibut, and clam chowder and had a yummy feast. This year Cody asked for a chocolate cake with strawberry cream cheese filling and ganache on top- I had seen an article about how to make the ganache in a Martha Stewart magazine. The experiment was successful and very rich. 

Blowing out the candles

Inside of the cake with the strawberry cream cheese filling

Cody's favorite present- a new set of pots and pans :)

Texas Thanksgiving

On our way back from our trip to Alaska this summer we were fortunate enough to receive flight vouchers that we put to good use! We decided to take a trip to Houston to visit Cody's sister Mindy, her husband Jon, and their kids Christopher, Ethan, Ryan, and Timothy. The kids had school and Jon had work on Monday and Tuesday so we were able to Christmas shop and play with Ryan and Timothy. On Tuesday we met Ethan and Christopher at their school and had lunch with them. On Wednesday we had a picnic and saw some alligators. I was videotaping our adventure with the alligators and I was standing close to the path while Cody walked down toward the alligators. I was a little tense because a week ago we watched a show on discovery channel where an alligator bit a girl's face and because I am not a fan of reptiles. As Cody got closer to the alligators Timothy came up behind me and latched onto my leg- this scared me and I in turn scared Timothy. Besides that moment, there were thankfully no other scares :) Thursday we watched the annual Turkey Bowl and had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner complete with fried turkey.

Alligator hunters- Christopher, Cody, Ethan, Jon, and Ryan

Alligators!

A caterpillar that Christopher found

Ryan roaring like a tiger- he was so cute! 

The car Ryan, Mindy, and I made

Cody and Ethan hard at work building a treasure chest

We had a blast and are grateful that we were able to visit the Whipples for Thanksgiving!