Back from hiatus

After a month of being a single Mom while Chris worked in Illinois, the kids and I decided to join him there for the month of December and take advantage of that opportunity to visit our good friend's, the Stewarts. Just after Thanksgiving, we packed up the kids, the dog, and the car and headed North. As soon as we hit the Illinois border on Sunday, Nov. 30th, the girls asked, "Are we at the North Pole?" because we found that it was snowing! So naturally the kids spent the next couple of days sledding, making snowangels, eating snow and getting really cold. Amber in the penguin sled at the Stewart's house.

Jared and Dayn spent hours outside every day they could. They wouldn't come in until after dark, when we finally made them.

On Friday, we warmed up at the hotel hot tub.

We spent our days at the Stewart's house doing our schoolwork, but on the weekends we had fun with Dad. Saturday, Dec. 13th we surprised Jared with ice skating (he had been wanting to go the whole time we had been there). It took everyone a little while to get used to the ice, but it was fun.

Sunday, the 14th we had dinner over at our friend's, the Stonehockers.

It snowed a lot while we were there. Most mornings it took about 20 minutes just to get the suburban de-iced. One morning we couldn't get any of the doors open because they were frozen shut, we had to crawl in from the back. Diesel loved running around in the snow.

On Friday, the 19th, Chris and I watched the Stewart's four kids while they went out for their Anniversary. We had a lot of fun (and messiness) making chocolate covered pretzels.

Sunday, the 21st, church was cancelled because the windchill was -35 degrees. We still got dressed up and took advantage of the fireplace in our hotel room for a Christmas photo shoot.

That evening, the kids put on a production of The Nativity. They did all the casting and costumes themselves. After three weeks of spending every day together, they are all really good friends.

On Monday, the 22nd and with the temperature at -6 degrees, we loaded up the Suburban with all our stuff including all the Christmas presents we bought while we were there and headed back home. Whether it was passing by steel mills in Gary, Indiana - horse pastures and stables in Lexington, Kentucky - or coal refineries in Charleston, West Virginia, we finally made it back home and were able to add three more states to our list of States we've visited.

Now that our hiatus is over, it's time to get back into the swing of things here at home.