Are you keeping warm?

We are glad that the last couple of days have been a bit warmer --
relatively speaking of course. It's still very cold outside, but at least in the afternoons the temperature is getting up above zero so the boys can go outside for short amounts of time. They really like to push the snow on the deck around with their toy trucks. Jonathan was getting frustrated this afternoon because Callie kept plopping down in front of him. He didn't seem to understand that she wanted him to pet her. I went out and sledded with the boys for a few minutes this afternoon, but it's too cold for this girl -- I much prefer to stay inside and curl up with a good book! Keep warm everyone ...

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everybody! We hope your first couple of days of 2009 have been good. We started off the new year by hanging out with our friends the Keillors. Mom and dad even let us stay up until midnight (although Jonathan didn't make it ... he fell asleep about 11:15). Mom and Aunt Shannon were glad for once that we were playing our video games -- that meant we were quiet and not running around for at least a little while. :-)
Have a great weekend!
~David

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays everyone -- we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Did Santa bring you what you wanted? The boys were very happy with what Santa brought this year. They both received new Build-A-Bear bears -- David's is dressed in a Green Bay Packers uniform and Jonathan's is wearing UofM attire -- just like they asked for. Jonathan was also very pleased that Santa heard his pleas for a new backpack for school, his was getting rather worn. The boys were also excited to receive Nintendo DS game systems from mom & dad! It seems like our Christmas vacation is flying by. We got the tree and decorations down and put away, just a few more gifts need to find their homes and we can finish cleaning up the house, and hopefully start the new year off on an organized foot. We spent yesterday being very thankful that we had a generator. We lost our power in the early morning hours (we think it was between 2-3 am) and didn't get it back until about 8:30 last night. We were thrilled to get it back when we did -- when we called Consumer's the recording said we wouldn't have it back until the middle of Tuesday. Having the generator definitly made the power outage much more tolerable. Heat, running water and TV are nice things to have. We have lots of limbs down in the yard -- seems like everytime we get wind our yard looks like this, it never ceases to amaze me that we even have any trees left. Have a safe and Happy New Year!

Love, Us

Oh, the weather outside is frightful ...

Well, it's a little less frightful today than it has been, the temperature is a bit warmer, although they are saying it's going to get colder tonight and rain -- that could make for some interesting driving, in the morning. We've already had 2 snow days this year, so we are hoping we don't have anymore before Christmas break. This past week the boys both participated in the elementary school music program. Here are the links to the sections of the video that show their classes singing. I don't know how well they will look or if they will take a long time to load, I've never tried uploading video before. We hope all is well with everyone out there ... keep warm!
~ Kati
David's Class
Jonathan's Class

Hello!

Jonathan and I just thought we'd take a minute to say hello! Things here have been busy, but then again, when aren't things? :-) Last week was Homecoming week at Montabella -- we had fun taking part in some of the spirit days at school. Both of us really liked "crazy day" where we dressed in mismatched clothes -- Jonathan even wore his shirt backwards. Mom and Dad didn't necessarily like walking with us that day, but we thought it was cool. We walked in the Homecoming parade -- that was fun as always. The game was great -- we played our rivals to the east -- Vestaburg, and beat them 52-0!! It's looking as though there's a chance our football team could make it to the playoffs this year. They are currently 4-1. The band looked great -- they did their half-time show during pre-game since they wouldn't be able to do it at half-time. One of the band members was crowned Homecoming Queen (Yeah Trevin!) Monday I got my expansion retainer thingy ... the dentist says there's a chance I won't have to have braces if I wear this thing to help make my mouth wider. I don't mind it too much except when I want to eat. Jonathan is playing flag football. It was kind of a last minute thing. Mom actually thought the flag football "season" was already done, but they sent home a note last Friday saying it started this Monday. Jonathan said he wanted to play, so he is. He had practice on Monday and again tonight. He will play 2 games on the next 2 Monday evenings. Mom will take pictures and maybe even video tape one of the games, but they really aren't much to watch.

Well, that's about all the news there is to share right now. We are looking forward to this coming weekend when we will be making our annual trip to Klackle's Orchard in Greenville with our friends the Keillors. We'll be sure to tell you all about it next week.

Love, David (and Jonathan)

New Camper

We went looking at 5th wheel campers last week to gather some information, and ended up finding something we really liked, so we traded in our Jayco travel trailer on a new Malibu (by Skyline) 5th wheel. Click on the "5th wheel" link in the "Our Photo Albums" section to the right if you'd like to see pictures.

We hope you all had a nice weekend.
~Chris, Kati, David and Jonathan

First Day of School

Hi everyone! Yes, we know, we've been very bad about posting for a very long time ... we are going to try to get back in the habit!! We just wanted to pass along this picture of us on the first day of school. We started school this past Thursday in our "new" school -- our school system underwent a major reconfiguration over the summer, closing 2 buildings and moving everyone around. The elementary students now attend school in what was the high school and the 7-12 graders are now housed in what was the middle school -- this reconfiguration was partly to blame for mommy not posting over the past few months, she's been very busy moving the libraries all around.

I'm very excited about being in the 3rd grade. My teacher's name is Mrs. Fenton and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun. Jonathan has Mrs. Smith for Kindergarten, and I know he's going to have a lot of fun also (I had Mrs. Smith, so I know her class is fun!!)

~David