CHRISTMAS WITH THE FAMILY(IES)

CLEANED UP MY HOUSE, PACKED A BAG, PUT ALL I NEEDED FOR A FOUR DAY VISIT NORHT TO MY PARENTS HOUSE (IN MORA) LAST FIRDAY AFTERNOON. UPON MY ARRIVAL MY BROTHERS AND THEIR FAMILIES SHOWED UP AND WE HAD OUR FAMILY CHRISTMAS THAT NIGHT. WE ATE SOME REALLY GOOD MEXICIAN FOOD AND OPENED UP OUR GIFTS. IT'S ALWAYS SO MUCH FUN TO SEE YOUNGSTERS OPEN UP A GIFT AND BE SO EXCITED JUST TO SET IT DOWN AND OPEN UP THE NEXT ONE...MY NEWPHEWS ARE A RIOT TO WATCH. MY HIGHLIGHT GIFT IS A TOSS UP BETWEEN A DVD OR A MOP; THATS RIGHT- A MOP. I GOT A FANCY ONE FOR MY NEW FLOOR IN MY HOUSE. I GUESS I AM SIMPLE TO PLEASE. ENCLOSED IS A PICTURE OF 'US KIDS' (I STILL CALL MY BROTHERS, THEIR WIVES AND MYSELF KIDS...) HAVING A GOOD TIME WITH SOME OF OUR GIFTS. FUNNY. ON VENHUIZEN-VILLE ROAD WE'D CALL EACH OTHER STOBS' FOR LOOKING LIKE THIS. SO- 'STOBS' WE ARE! SATURDAY I SPENT THE DAY ON THE COUCH AND DID NOTHING BUT WATCH MOVIES...IT WAS AWESOME!!!!! CHRISTMAS EVE I HIT THE CANDLE LIGHT SEVICE AT CHURCH, WHICH WAS NICE AND I SAW A REALLY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE FROM HIGH SCHOOL- LANCE DALBEY. ALWAYS GOOD TO SEE OLD FRIENDS! THAT NIGHT THE FAMILY (WHICH ARE AUNTS, UNCLES, COUSINS...AND SO ON) CAME TO MOMS AND DAD'S HOUSE FOR CHICKEN WILD RICE SOUP, OYSTER SOUP (YUCK) AND CHILI; AMOUNG OTHER LITTLE SNACKS (LIKE MY AUNT BONNIE'S CHRISTMAS COOKIES). THE GANG PLAYED A VARY LARGE GAME OF POKER, AS YOU CAN SEE. IT WAS A GOOD NIGHT OF FINE DINNING AND CONVERSTATION.


CHRISTMAS DAY WE HEADED TO CHRIS AND CAREY'S (OLDER BROTHER) HOUSE. PRETTY MUCH THIS DAY CONSISTS OF EATING, EATING AND EATING MORE. MY COUSIN JASON AND HIS FAMILY CAME, I DONT SEE THEM VERY OFTEN SO THAT WAS VERY FUN. I EVEN GOT THE CHANCE TO GET TO KNOW THEIR KIDS ENOUGH FOR THEM TO TRUST ME TO READ THEM A COUPLE BOOKS, WHICH FOR ME IS ALWAYS A BLESSING TO HAVE KIDS SIT ON MY LAP AND SNUGGLING IN. THAT EVENING WE PLAYED MULTIPLE GAMES OF MOFIA...! OVER ALL THE DAY WAS FULL OF FUN...MOSTLY DUE TO BEING SURRONDED BY FAMILY!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST; THIS MORNING I GOT TO SPEND A COUPLE OF HOURS WITH MY GOD-CHILDREN - EMMA AND WILL ANDERSON. OF COURSE, CRAIG HANSEN (THE GOD-FATHER) CAME TOO. WE JUST SAT AROUND AND SOAKED IN THE KIDS AND HOW MUCH THEY HAVE GROWN. RYAN AND DARLA ARE ALWAYS A JOY TO BE AROUND. I WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO BE AROUND THEM. BUT- LIKE ALWAYS THE CELEBRATING NEEDS TO STOP AND LIFE NEEDS TO START UP AGAIN. SO I NEED TO DIVE INTO MY CALENDER AND TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT THIS WEEK HOLDS AND WHAT I NEED TO GET DOWN.

Doc, Sara and JoJo

Last night I got together with my awesome friend Sara to celebrate Christmas. It was a good time. We hung out at her house for a spell- and than opened gifts. Sometimes I wonder if giving and getting gifts ever gets old. I prefer the giving part, but the gettting is cool too. I graced Sara with some fancy undies....of which i will not embrass her by enclosing a picture, but she seemed to enjoy them. I got some nike socks (dry fit....which is just what i wanted), some fancy cocoa and some fun mugs to drink it out of. After we played with my camera trying to get the timer to work we headed out to white bear lake to pick up Doc; most people call him Nate! From there we headed to a resturant to eat some grub, and had some very adult like converstation! Than we went back to Doc's house, got adjustments (he is a circopractor- and a good one), drank some of my cocoa and snuggled in to watch a movie. Of course Sara and I had to be a bit silly and decided to put on some of Doc's helmets; thus the pictures.

anyways- i love good friends that you can just be silly with. Sara and Doc fit that bill perfectly. Thanks for the night out kids.

christmas ball practice!

so for those of you that are alum of NWC ball you probably are aware of Christmas Practice! as you can see, we had christmas practice the other day. i'll admit...these girls are pretty creative! the seniors went for the christmas light theme and even dyed their hair (except for jen...the one in the red who was a red light and already has red hair....funny). the juniors went with the 3 kings theme and brought gifts for coaches- always a bonus, but still didn't get them a prize. sophmores went all out and dressed up as trees; painted there legs brown, stuck pine needles to their bodies and even painted their eye lids with a green marker (they won the best dressed group). the freshies wanted to be snow since there was none and had a cute little song to go along with it. although it was a good effort, they didnt win anything. the seniors won, which according to everyone else is always the case at Christmas practice! Linda and I came up with a couple of themes ourselves; the 12 days of Rebounding....

(Christmas) and we had the girls do 12 different

drills about rebounding! regardless- it was a good

time. the girls did a great job and we all had many laughs! Merry Christmas.

Thanks Jeremy!

Thank you Jeremy! He invited me to the Vikings game this afternoon, but unfortunatly the Viks didn't pull off a Win. It was a good time, and the atmosphere was fun. It's amazing how many people really enjoy cheering on the Vikings. I left bad for Brad Johnson...he got booed multiple times this afternoon and I'm not sure why- wasn't his fault no one can catch the ball. But than again, this is the first Viks game I have watched from beginning to end- so who am I to say! Lexie (Jeremy's daughter) kept me busy the 2nd half of the game. She and I found new games to play- like mimic the cheerleaders. Jeremy was not to happy about that! She is adorable. Jeremy and I have been friends since the 9th grade in high school and it has been so much fun getting to know him as an adult. He just recently got engaged to Lori (hope i spelled that right, and I hope it is ok that I told the world you are engaged Jer!). She is a great gal and I look forward to getting to know her better. Anyways- the game was fun!!! Thanks Jeremy for inviting me along. I appreicate it a ton!!!! And I had a great time. Hope to see you guys again soon.

And...Merry Christmas.

christmas spirit!

so i havent been much in the christmas spirit. i am not sure why; maybe cuz it's 45 degrees out and the grass almost looks green to me- which is not Christmas at all. maybe it's cuz i decided not to put up my tree due to re-modeling issues in my house, or maybe it's how people act and how busy life gets...i am not really sure. regardless...i just haven't been in the Christmas spirit. So, today i decided to see if getting ALL my christmas shopping done would help, and i am not sure if it did. it was fun to shop; but not so much fun to stand in line and spend money! chummer (craig hansen to some of you out there) and i went shopping for our God-Children and that was fun; i enjoy kicking with chummer alot- he's a cool dude! i got eveything done except for one person...which surprised me. usually i take a long time to find the 'perfect' gift for my list of family and friends. this year it wasn't as hard as pastyears- so that was a nice change. the first picture is what my couch looked liked before i started in on wrapping everything. i

think thats what i enjoy the most...wrapping up all the gifts nice. the picture below is what my pile of gifts looks like now! doesn't look as nice without a tree to put them under, but still....can ya pick yours out? so i sat on my floor with a cup of joe (coffee) and wrapped gifts for about two hours; which Home Alone played in the back ground. love that movie, cracks me up everytime i see it! i might be a bit more in the Christmas spirit since i am looking so forward to seeing my family and friends open their gifts!!! i love giving...i just wish i had more money (and time) to give out! on a complete different note i have been stuggling with a cold the past couple of days and along with it i have lost my voice. today a young man checking me out told me "why are you out and about, you sound horrible." nice huh. so be careful--- the bug is being passed... take your vitmins, get extra sleep, drink lots of water and wash your hands lots. anyways. i am looking forward to spending some time at home with mom and dad, brothers and sister-in laws, neice and nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles...you get the picture! i am ready to get away from the cities and spend some time out in the middle of no where! i hope you are enjoying your Christms journey and find the ture meaning in Jesus. night!

CHRISTMAS AT THE FISCHERS

every year bart and tammy fischer have a chirstmas party for those that went to Northwestern college together and did life together during that time (1993-97). it is always fun to see people that i dont see very often and to catch up on life a bit. the party has grown a lot in the past five or so years due to marriages and babies being born. the kids are starting to out number the adults. it is always a good time; hanging out together. we do a little gift exhange every year. this year the guys exhanged magizines and the ladies exhanged a cookie dish/plater; with cookies! i landed a very nice red christmas plater with sugar cookies (from tammy). during our converstation us ladies found out that laura had to bake 12 dozen cookies for a cookie exhange her husband todd signed her up for and ended up donating most all our cookies form our gift exhange to her. 12 dozen of cookies is a lot of baking!!! i cant imgine! i guess i dont have much to say about the afternoon so instead i will enclose some of the picture heather took...and make some of my friends famous! heres to good friends....






joe, bart, jason and andy
- checking out their
magizines orders






.




greg and sara schwitters















me and the Thurow kids.
Bennett, Megan and Camren
and Tammy and Drew in
the background










roommates forever.
tammy sue, joann, heather








jason being jason

















megan thurow eating
a cookie

HEAT!

so never again in my life will i take heat for granted. the day after thanksgiving i found out that the heater i had in my townhouse was possibly leaking carbon dixoide...thus, the heat guy that came out to look at it gave me an estimate on getting a new one and told me specifically to NOT TURN MY HEAT ON. so.....since that day i have been heatless, that is until today....i have heat! Mr. King (my old roommate from colleges dad) came out today and installed a very workable, heat producing, a bit on the noisey side, and very expensive heater. oh man, my house is 68 degrees and i couldn't feel warmer. yesterday was soooooo cold; i think it almost felt like being outside. i spent the whole morning cuddle underneath my covers with the bed warmer on high(thanks Linda). today, no need for blankets or bed warmers. although this heater will set me way back when it comes to my pocket book - being warm is worth it. i am so thankful that people like Mr. King knows what to do when it comes to heat....thanks Lowie. The only other step i have left in my remodeling adventure is to get the carpet in, and my closet doors back on! cant wait til it is all over and i can have everyone over.

chicago ball trip

the ball team headed to deerfeild Ill Thursday night for a ball tournament at Trinity International College. We left at 4 in the afternoon and arrive at our hotel at 11:43 that night; just in time. The snow was coming down as we ventured into our hotel...we missed the big bad snow storm that hit the Chicago area. we woke up that morning to 11 inches of snow - snowed in cars, snowed in teams, snowed in everything. we headed for our game to find out that the team we were suspose to play was stuck on the interstate. so we pushed back the game time...still a no show. we ended up playing the host time (trinity international) cuz both the other teams didnt make it through the snow. we lost. on saturday we woke up woth beautiful sunny weather that made the snow look so cool. and it was warm, ok...mid 40's. thats the kind of snow weather i like. we went to the school ready to play a game again....the same team we played yesterday- still no show for the other two teams. lost again. bummer. the trip was fun; i highly enjoy just hanging out with the girls and i love seeing them function in social settings. they crack me up! i thought i'd share some pics of the weekend with you all. sorry it took me so long to post my weekend update.

above is the girls hanging out in my room. below is a pic of how much snow chicago got.