Family party

On Saturday we had our family party with my siblings and kids. It was a smaller group this year as 4 of the grandkids now live out of state, and Laura and Aaron had his family party today. We also were in the middle of another winter storm, with very cold temps - 4 degree wind chill!  But the rest of us made it and had a good time.

We had an ugly sweater contest which my sister Cheri won.  Here she is with her husband Mark.  You have to admit, that sweater is pretty bad!

Here's my sister Terri with her daughters Katelyn and Chelsea. Their guys didn't come wearing an ugly sweater, so it's only those 3 in the picture.

Heather, Andrew, Cassie and Connor were all decked out.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to get one of Bob and I, and I missed a few others too...

Here's the whole gang!

Cassie had fun...

So did Connor!

Connor actually sat with my brother for awhile.

We had plenty to eat!

We played games and everyone had fun, and we all made it safely home through the snow.

UPDATE:  You may remember that Alaina was scheduled to have an ablation on her heart to take care of the issue with the fast heart rate.  It was done on Monday afternoon, she is home and is doing well.  She's a little sore and has to take it easy for the week but otherwise ok. The doctor is confident they found the problem spot.  Thanks for your prayers!

Light show

We had a fun Christmas activity last week.  A Drive through Christmas Light and Music show was set up in a nearby town. We thought it would be fun to take our girls to see it.

We picked them all up and started the evening by taking them out for supper.  

They all like Culvers, so that's where we had supper.

They enjoyed supper, especially the frozen custard!

We got done eating earlier than we thought, so we made a short trip to the Dollar Store.  Inflation has struck even the dollar stores. This one had lots of things for $7!  But we did find a few good things.

Then it was time to head to the Light Show!

The light show was set up on a Fairground and covered a large area. We had to set our radio at a certain spot and get Christmas music that was synchronized to the lights.

There were lots of light tunnels to go through.

Along the way, there were elves in the displays that kids were supposed to find.  The elves and other characters were dancing to the music. They even had lighted snowmen throwing snowballs to each other.

The lights were changing colors and blinking to the music too.

There was a nativity scene, which was bigger than just this picture.  It had the shepherds, angels and animals which are not in this picture.

There was a whole section to honor the military, police, medical and first responders.

This one said In God We Trust.

When we got to the end the staff asked the girls how many elves they found. They found 10 - all of them.  It took about 25 minutes to drive through, we all thought it was great!

After we brought the kids home, we drove through our own mini light show. This is the boulevard in our town.  It's lit up all the way through town which is a few miles.  We think our town has the best lights around!   :)

Welcome to Narnia

Have you read the Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis? I read them when I was young and have read them as an adult.  I've also enjoyed the movies.  Because I so enjoy the stories, I was excited when I heard that the Ladies Christmas Luncheon at our church was going to have a Narnia theme. Here's some pictures to show you the world of Narnia at our church!

Just like in the story, we entered through the wardrobe.

Then we passed by fur coats in the wardrobe....

And then past the lamp post, into Narnia!

We had the wicked witch's sleigh....

the beaver family...

and Aslan!

We had a delicious lunch, played some fun games and had an interesting talk, explaining how the story lines up with our life as Christians.  In Narnia, the wicked witch is ruling and it's always winter but never Christmas, which is the celebration of Christ's birth. When Aslan, who represents Christ, returns he is killed, resurrected and wins the battle, freeing Narnia of winter and Christmas is once again celebrated.

If you've never read the story, or watched the movie, I recommend it!