The Frozen North Part 2

Continuing on with our Frosty Trip north, on Christmas Eve, Auntie Lorie came up with a fun game in which she had different gift bags with tags describing the contents, such as "tiny", "Sweet", "Salty," "Sour" "Mystery" etc etc - there were 8 of them in all.  Each child paired up with an adult and then each pair would roll a pair of dice once, and it would go around the room.  When you rolled doubles twice (so it took at least two go-rounds at a minimum), you could pick a bag.  Once someone had a bag, the next person to roll two sets of doubles could also pick a bag or steal it.  It was super fun, and the Mystery bag included a pair of men's socks - so nobody wanted that one!  However, the joke was on us as at the end it was revealed that the Mystery bag had a gift card in it!!  Clever!  The kids had fun with the contents of the bags (and eating the sugary delights!) the rest of the week.

The bags await....

As always, we try and get some pictures together a group - it is fun to watch the kids growing up and changing over the years - as well as expanding in number! :)

Emily, Zach, Kaylie, Connor, Kaleb, Nick, Gianna, Addison

Their grown up sons!

The crazy picture

The final weekend that we were there, the men headed over to the Prince Albert Raiders hockey game, which they enjoyed very much.  It was super cold, so the boys couldn't understand why they had to take all of their snow gear in the car until Aunt Lorie reminded them that it was a 30 minute drive to the hockey rink and even though they'd be inside, they had to be prepared that if anything happened to the car while they were driving, they had to be able to survive in the cold until help could arrive!  The joys of living in frigid weather - Amy had kind of forgotten some of those basic survival rules but it all came rushing back!

Connor went prepared to root for his home team - Go Raiders!

The others went for a more low-key approach! :)

The rest of our time was just filled with laughing, playing, sleeping, getting over colds (and ear-aches!) - as well as enjoying Connie's amazing baked goods!  Yummy!  A few other miscellaneous pictures to round it out:

A human dog pile!

Apparently dog-piles were a fan favorite over Christmas - can Zachary even breathe!?

Gianna and Addison with the cats - big hit!

Why do I have a feeling that a ukulele will be on her birthday wish list!?

Love you Gram-Z!

Picture is worth a thousand words.....Oldest son sitting on Mom's lap.  Youngest child suddenly MUST sit on Mom's lap - jealous beyond belief.  Oldest son thinking "I am not giving this seat up for anything....what is with this wailing and gnashing of teeth beside me!? He has managed to push her buttons very effectively! :)

Puzzles, face paint and hugs from Emily and Aunt Lorie - what could be better!

love you guys!

On the way home, very tired and no make-up, we took a picture at Minneapolis airport in front of a HUGE Christmas tree!

And in the same airport, found a walking treadmill station that Amy used during the looong layover.  It was a good way to get some steps in!

Other random events in our lives - when we got back from Canada, we had an appointment with the dermatologist and Zachary ended up getting the "mole" taken off face that was beside his nose since his was young.  He was very brave, and it was relatively quick and painless.  He had to keep the bandaid on his face but now he is bump-free!

Before we left for Canada, Addison had her Christmas ballet recital.  It was so cute - and she is really doing well.  She can just about do the splits now - it is crazy because Amy never could get close to the splits!  She must have inherited her flexibility from the Z-side of the family!  We have a cute video of her doing a ballet show, but sadly we can't figure out how to compress it for this blog - so we will keep working on it and post at a later time!