Well – it happened again, didn’t it? We went off and let almost two whole months pass by without updating the blog – and it’s not like things didn’t happen in the meantime.
So – we didn’t win the trip to Iceland, but thanks to everyone who voted for us. We won’t be doing that kind 0f a contest anymore – it’s too easy to cheat by buying “facebook likes” online, and that’s probably what the winner did. Enough belly-aching, we still have the cutest kids around!
In any case – you’d seen a preview of the Halloween costumes in a previous post, but here’s the actual official photos of ladybug girl and “Ninja-Zombie” Daniel. It was a warm night for once, and so we had a good time wandering around the neighborhood.
In late October, we took a trip down to Phoenix to meet up with the Pastas – it’d been a whole year since our last vacation with them, and that’s just WAY too long. Now, I say that we went to Phoenix, but in reality we probably didn’t venture more than 3 miles from the resort the whole time we were there. We’d deliberately chosen the place for the pool/water park that was attached to it, and that’s where the kids stayed for 3 days straight. It was great.
We did go on one hike up to the top of a local mountain, which was a nice break, but other than that – swimming, more swimming, water slide, lazy river, swim, repeat…
Then – it was November. And while there was nothing particularly “big” that we did in November, it was the month for visitors. Aunt Erin and Chloe came to visit for Thanksgiving, and they brought pre-Cousin Macy and pre-Uncle Shane with them. So there was lots of playing and running around and everyone had a good time. Also, Craig came to visit, and both kids enjoyed that immensely (of course, the route to Rachel’s heart goes via reading books to her, but it wasn’t just that..).
The cousins will be arriving from Norway in just a couple of days, and they’ll probably look at the sad dusting of snow that we have and wonder why they are here… So for the record – it DID snow in November. And there were snowball fights, and the kids did go sledding. Actually – it was great, unlike previous years when the hill was too much for one or the other, this year they slid down, hauled their sleds up and repeated the process. Rachel is a little daredevil on the slopes.
Oh, that whole “pre-cousin” thing that probably had you confused two paragraphs ago? Yes – Aunt Erin got married and Daniel and Rachel were part of the ceremony. Rachel was the flower girl and Daniel the ring-bearer, and they managed to pull that off without a fight, so everyone’s happy about that. On the trip down to Houston, Rachel got to be the pilot… (aren’t they handsome and adorable?) Imagine if we could get them to dress up all the time…
And – well, that takes us to just over a week ago. Since getting back from Houston, we’ve been wrapping up the school year. (Rachel had a program – we might edit and post the video), and Daniel had a little class party. The Christmas tree is up, the house is decorated, and we’re ready for the Norwegian invasion which starts tomorrow.
Oh, and we did go skiing on Saturday, and both Daniel and Rachel did really, really well. We weren’t so sure how it would go, because last year’s skiing experience was – marginal. But this year we’re ready – and Daniel did so well on the school hill that he graduated to the “real lift”. Rachel is still learning to stop, but that’ll come.
(Could Daniel look any less concerned about his sister getting eaten by a T-Rex?)
Christmas cards are out. If you’re actually reading this and you *didn’t* receive a Christmas card, then we need to update our list, dear anonymous internet user…
Regardless – Merry Christmas to all of you.
Love, ADRE.
