Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas in Illinois and are thankful that we weren't traveling this year in the Christmas Blizzard.

Christmas Eve we lounged around most of the day, watched the Polar Express, and did some prep work for supper. We had a snack of smoked salmon and shrimp before going to the candlelight Christmas Eve service at St. Timothy. After a beautiful service we came home and had a candlelight meal of oyster stew, cornish game hens, and rice pilaf on our China (the kids didn't break any). Followed by dessert of Norwegian goodies. Kyra very impatiently waited to open her gifts. Kyleigh could care less about opening gifts, she just wanted to play with everyone else's or sit on the boxes. We all got spoiled this year with gifts.

Christmas Day we opened gifts from Santa and then spent a lazy morning playing with all our new toys. No one got dressed until it was time to go to the Padilla's for our Christmas Day meals. We had a great meal and a great visit and then came home and lounged some more.

Today it's back to the grindstone. I'm going to tackle one of the kids' room and Mark is going to start staining doors. He has finished staining and varnishing all the trim work.

Have a great weekend.

Christmas Eve

After a day of skiing and our traditional Lutefisk supper we headed to the Mountain Village for the torch run. A group of skiers ski down the mountain at night carrying torches. The last skiers is none other than Santa himself, he left the reindeer at the top of the mountain. This year Santa showed his athleticism by snowboarding. After they came down the mountain we went to a restaurant where the kids received their gifts from Santa that had been delivered there earlier. Valynn and Mason were so excited when they heard that Santa was snowboarding down the mountain. They were even more shocked when Santa called their names and handed them their gifts. Kyra didn't care, she fell asleep while waiting for her name to be called. Ty also received a gift from Santa. After Santa passed out the gifts we went back to the condo to open our presents there. Santa also stopped by again that night to deliver the rest of the gifts.