Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Real quick - we drove home yesterday (from MN). 1600 miles and 29hours straight thru. We bought some drugs, er, new movies for the kids to watch on the last half of the drive around noon and picked up some madlibs. Then took a shower at a truck stop in Tucumcari (only $9 bucks for those traveling across the country, but try showering two adults and three kids in 10 minutes - it's amazing no one got hurt). I now believe Clark Griswald is a genius; he knew what true family bonding time was.

Praise Jehovah for beautiful roads again... and that we weren't next to the semi and six cars we saw on their sides/roofs after the few bad hours of freezing rain. In the words of the great philosopher Sid the Sloth, "I choose life."

What's snow funny?

Today was another awesome day in the snow! Uncle Peter hooked up a sled and a tube to his ranger (four wheel drive ATV type thingy) and pulled the kids all over his property. We have a DVD slide slow of the pictures that is hilarious. The joy on their faces in some pictures was only matched by the shear terror displayed in others. All was well until Christian decided the sled had done enough work and tried using his face instead. The sled failed to tell Christian that it doesn't cry or feel pain when drug across hard packed snow/ice at speeds in excess of six mph.

Anyway, I doubt any of them will forget that for a while. It's probably best that Wyatt was asleep with his daddy while this was all going on. We've found that high danger recreational activities and 100% fearless toddlers don't mix well.

Merry Christmas to all.

Snow much fun!

So far the kids have been having a blast sledding and playing in the snow. We stopped at Walmart and picked up some gloves, mittens, and snow boots. We borrowed snowsuits for the boys and my mom made a new batch of winter hats for everyone. There actually wasn't much snow when we got to Minnesota and it was too cold (about 7 degrees F) to make snowmen (I won't go into that for those that don't understand how snow works). The kids were kids, though. They made fun out of it anyway.
The next day we bought saucers and went to a local hill. We all (Wyatt included) had a lot of fun on the slopes.. er, slope. I'll add pictures later. We were out there for hours until our cheeks were red and Wyatt was mistaken for a snowman. Of course, we returned to the house as victorious sledders and basked in the steam of hot chocolate. There are disadvantages to living in sub-freezing weather, but there are some fun parts, too. Plus, it is just a vacation and we can keep telling ourselves that in two weeks we'll be Tucson again.