Holiday Lights

We went to Mankato yesterday (Dec. 26) for the Kiwanis Holiday Lights show put on at Sibley Park. There are over 1 million lights displayed at the park (with over 8 miles of extension cords to power those lights), with many of the lights accompanied by music.  It's free -- though they ask for food shelf donations and will take cash if you offer -- so it's a fantastic display.

Lights...Lights...Lights...

Most of us were happy to be there...it took Lex a few minutes to wake up after the drive...

More lights...

Luke and a Christmas tree...

There are lights on all sorts of things...

Kieran and Luke...

There was a contest for the best decorated Christmas tree between the non-profits who volunteer at the park...here's Lex's favorite...the ballerina tree.

More lights...

Why not sit on a tractor while viewing the lights?

More lights...

2014 is the year of the selfie....right?  Well...here's ours...Luke's there (barely)...

The show runs through New Year's Eve....

Merry Christmas!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

Just like the ones I used to know

Where the tree tops glisten

And children listen

To hear sleigh bells in the snow

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

It was not to be this year, and we don't know too many people who were disappointed by that fact.  We woke to Christmas with the yard looking like this:

Not having any snow did not slow any of the activities.  The tree before the early morning drama began...

First up was the stockings left by Santa and one present to tide the kids over for a while, Lex was happy with her horse....

Luke got some more dinosaurs....

Kieran got his Tom Brady jersey (he's the best player in the league, just ask Kieran -- he'll tell you)...

Later, all the presents were opened...Lex still likes Dora and Frozen...

We're getting a lot of presents (ornaments) that have been made at school....

It's not all actions, occasionally there is some downtime between presents to catch your breath....

What do you do after opening presents on Christmas?  Kieran and Luke play one of their two new playstation games...

While Sarah gets on the computer to inquire why a gift was messed up...when you order a pair of boots you expect two boots of the same size and different feet.  What was sent was two boots, both left feet, one a size 8 and one a size 9....

Merry Christmas!

Maddy's 16th

After a long day of school, work, managing dance practice and dinner with Sarah at Rey Azteca in Waconia, they got home to start birthday cake and presents.  It was about time too ---- you can only hear questions like "when do we eat cake?  when is present time?  why?  how?" a few times before you start losing it --- these questions were asked somewhere around a million times yesterday...

Everyone was excited when Maddy and Sarah walked in....we had to start with cake/candles and singing of happy birthday.

You don't really get to blow candles out by yourself in this house....

In fact, it's a little bit of a race to see who can blow the most candles out...

If this trend continues, we'll never have a remaining lit candle to indicate that he or she has a boyfriend or girlfriend....it that's what lit candles still represent.

Then it was time for presents (and shortly thereafter, thankfully, bedtime)....

Driver's license test is scheduled for next week...

Santa Comes to Town

Santa came to the local bank Friday night and the kids went to give him their wish list.

Kieran told Santa he wanted a Tom Brady (QB for the New England Patriots) jersey, an Andrew Luck (QB for the Indianapolis Colts) jersey and football cards.  Santa later told mom and dad that he would be getting Kieran a Tom Brady jersey....

Lukes request was much simpler.....lots of dinosaurs!  It doesn't matter if it would be dinosaur toys, books, puzzles, clothes, etc.  He wants dinosaurs...

Lexy's was by far the most detailed and specific.  She wants a pink horse with a saddle, a rider, carrots, apples and oranges (the horse has to eat you know)...

No one cried, everyone spoke, it was a nice trip to Santa...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!

We stayed home with the kids and had our Thanksgiving Day lunch.  We had beans....

We had stuffing...

We had turkey....

Of course, we also had mashed potatoes, cranberries, etc. to go with our lunch.

We even had warm, apple pie...

The kids were very excited...

Sarah did a fantastic job!

I kept asking what she needed from me and how I could help....all she wanted was the kids out of the kitchen and not arguing or yelling...that was my job.

Sarah did a much better job than I did....

Camping at Jay Cooke State Park

A couple of weeks ago, we all went camping at Jay Cooke State Park....yes, camping....in November.  But we were staying in a camper cabin...heated camper cabin, with electricity.  Not exactly tent camping, but still...

High temperatures were never above freezing and the lows were in the single digits, that heat and electricity came in handy.  Turns out that went it's cold, I don't take as many pictures....oh well, here are a few.

The St. Louis River, early in the morning....

When it gets cold at night, most retreated inside the warm cabin...

I tended to stay outside for awhile, where it was quiet and calm...but still cold.  Sarah would come out too...too loud in the cabin.  Luke would come out too, always wanted to play with the 'sparklers'...

Saturday, Luke and Lex took a walk with me for a couple of hours.  Lex made plenty of snow angels and Luke tried to get away from here.  Sometimes they got close enough for a picture....

I caught up with them again down by the river...

Last year when we had camped here, the bridge wasn't open so you couldn't cross the river.  It's open now, so go explore the south side of the park...

Then bridge moves like the old one...it doesn't 'swing' too much, just enough for you to feel it...

There was a noticeable change in the amount of ice on the river over the three days, two nights we were there.

Downstream of the swinging bridge on Saturday...

Here's the upstream picture the same day...

All five camper cabins were full that weekend and so were three campsites --- one had an RV, one was a tent and the last campsite was filled with a yurt.  That was cool to see!

Acupuncture

Sarah has been doing therapy on her legs for a while down....a lifetime of beating takes its toll on ones achilles, hamstrings, etc.  Your body can try to compensate for weaker or hurting areas, but usually that puts strain on other areas.  Well, her therapy has been really good therapy --- and by that I mean sometimes very painful, she's come home with bruises in the past.

Recently acupuncture was suggested and we both know some people that swear by acupuncture, so she's been going recently to see if that helps her to continue running.

It's also something that I was pretty interested in seeing (in my mind, I picture thousands of little needles placed all over the body....like I've seen on TV or in magazines).  She had an appointment before we picked up the kids from school to take them to Jay Cooke State Park for camping in cabins (that'll be in the next post) and she agree to take me.

I'm pretty sure I didn't help with the quiet, reflective nature of the appointment...I asked a lot of questions (examples:  Does it hurt?  Why put the needles there?  What are you doing when you twirl the needle around?  Is that all the needles you're going to use?).  But I found it very interesting...note, I'm not saying I want needles placed into me.

Of course I took pictures....even video (though not of the needles being placed, I didn't want to interrupt too much).  Though it turns out that the sound does not play when placed in this blog.  Too bad...you hear some birds chirping and waves crashing into shore from the chiropractor's office...and Garth Brooks on the previous post!

Garth Brooks

It was announced earlier this fall that Garth Brooks was coming to Minneapolis for two shows.  The two shows were on dates that we already has reservations for a camper cabin at a state park.  Sarah seemed interested in seeing Garth and I said I thought he would be adding shows when tickets went on sale (he had done that previously back in 1998).

The Friday the tickets went on sale, I went out for lunch and heard on the radio that his first two shows were sold out and that there were another 5-6 shows announced (he ended up doing 11 shows total in Minneapolis).  I texted Sarah what I had heard and her reply was "I'm sitting in the online waiting room for tickets right now!"

Very cool...

I had seen Garth in 1993 and 1998 when he came to Minneapolis...he puts on a show like no one else.  It was Sarah's first time seeing him, neither of us were disappointed.

He has changed (I'm sure I have too) in the twenty-one years since he first came to town -- he doesn't run around the stage nearly as much, now it's a lot more walking, but he still knows how to work the crowd...

He played mostly his old songs (except for 2-3 that are on his new album that just came out) and his wife Trisha Yearwood played four of her songs.

Who doesn't like 'Friends in Low Places?'

And who doesn't like 'The Dance?'  It's one of my top 5 songs of all time...