Saturday, November 24, 2018


2018 Holiday Blog Letter

Thank goodness for Facebook and a phone full of photos to remind us our adventures over the past year.  It’s been a super busy one and in the midst of day to day life it’s easy to lose sight of the highlights.  So many of you have likely seen these throughout the year on Facebook, but it’s become a great way to end the year with reflection and gratitude as we compile the highlight reel.

Q1 (January –March)

January in Minnesota is cold, but we’ve learned to cope.  This year we spent a night at the newly opened Great Wolf Lodge in town.  In between the waterslides we ordered take out and Drew got to see the Minnesota Vikings with their miracle play. 
 
 

As the month continued Drew celebrated a milestone birthday with his lifelong friends.  Chris and Octavius must really love him and have adventurous spirits- they traveled to Minneapolis and then I sent them 3 hours north to a friend’s cabin.  They snowmobiled, sauna’ d, ran across an icy lake and just had some quality guy time. (I think some beer was involved).
 

February is a big birthday month in our family and this year was an epic 5th birthday celebration for Blake and Leslie with a family trip to Disney World.  Nothing beats hearing your child say “my heart is full of joy”. Krista also celebrated a milestone birthday, which includes a yet to be determined vacation of her choice!






 

March brought an opportunity to bring a Disney princess to life in the preschool play of Cinderella.  Blake & Leslie both were cast as mice.  Super cute dancing mice. 
 

Q2 (April – June)

Within a day of us getting back from a Kentucky road trip for Spring Break our dog Libby got very sick.  She had emergency surgery and was in ICU for several days.  We spent days and nights taking turns cuddled up with her at the hospital, but she made it home and is doing well. 
 

You’d think by April we would start to have glimmers of Spring, but this year we got over a foot of snow on April 14th.  Minnesotans called it the soul crushing spring storm on 2018.  Amazingly our kids made it to school the next day and moms in the neighborhood sent thank you coffee and doughnuts to the snow plow drivers as a thank you.  I don’t think anyone over 18 years old wanted to have another snow day.

 

But Spring did come and we got back to biking.  This year with a tandem tag along.  We can’t be missed around town on this contraption!
 

Drew and Leslie attended a princess ball and mom and Blake spent the evening at the Roller Garden.  I think we all had a great night!

 

Leslie worked hard at dance throughout the year and we loved watching her at the Spring recital.  This year Drew took the stage with her as a part of the Dad’s dance. 


Blake and Leslie celebrated their first graduation.  Golden Years hosted a beautiful event.  Afterwards we spent the afternoon at the local amusement park, Valleyfair. 



We kicked off summer with our annual week at Breezy Point.  This year’s trip included the usual biking, boating and visiting playgrounds.  We added a trip to the ER this year and some derma-bond (aka “skin super glue”) for Blake’s forehead from one of those playground visits. 



Q3 (July – September)

We had a great time in Kentucky for the fourth of July and even stopped at our favorite Gummy Bear Factory on the way.  Drew got to repeat the drive just 2 weeks later as a chaperone for the church youth group Appalachian Service Project (ASP) trip to Hancock County, Tennessee. It was an amazing trip and Drew, along with another adult leader and five senior high youth, built a 16’ x 10’ deck (yes, to code) for a family who their current deck had mostly rotted away and had no railing despite a five foot drop off of one end. The family was expecting a new baby just two weeks after the new deck was completed, which left Drew and the entire team full of joy knowing the family would be able to spend their time outdoors safely with their new family member.


 

Blake and Leslie started Kindergarten.  We’ve chosen to send them to a language immersion school in our school district which happens to be French.  As a part of the program the school hires interns from France (typically recent college graduates) to help in the classrooms.  As a public school they look for families to host and we signed up to host this fall.  We’ve had a great time with Cleménce living with us.  She’s from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France near Germany.  She loves to cook and she’s been teaching us to bake homemade bread.



Drew got to check off a bucket-list item of seeing his beloved Aggies play Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  We had a great time catching up with friends who moved from Minnesota four years ago.  We even got to catch up with one of Drew’s Aggie friends and their family, who was a roommate of Drew’s after A&M and a groomsman in our wedding, on our way back through Atlanta. 

 
 
Q4 (October- December)

Fall can be beautiful in Minnesota and we wanted to get out and enjoy it so we headed Up North one weekend.  To our surprise one of my favorite musicians, Jim Brickman was in concert in Grand Rapids about 20 minutes away.  What a treat!  It was a small venue and the kids did remarkably well. 

 
For Fall break we did a quick drive to Louisville and back.  We’ve got it down to a fine art- when we do the drive in a day we leave early in the morning and can make it in about 13 hours with three stops.  Snacks, movies and toys are the key! During our visit we also had fun surprising Great Grandma who didn’t know we were coming, and getting grandma and grandpa’s house ready for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.


Leslie has been enjoying Performance Dance team and Blake is enjoying Cub Scouts.  So far they’ve done an egg drop and rocket day through Cub Scouts.  I’m sure they will be doing a race car derby in the Spring. Please share your tips!

 
We pray that this holiday season finds you full of Joy and wish you blessings for 2019- who knows what might be in next year's highlight reel with these two...


 

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