have yourself a merry little christmas

while i enjoy the last couple hours of my christmas break, i thought i would update this before the day to day routine starts back up again. i said this past week and a half was going to be a whirlwind trip and it definitely lived up to its expectations. on the 18th we woke up in the wee morning hours to beat the storm and traffic...it's hard to believe that 2 years ago, the time we woke up could have easily been my bed time! we made it to minnesota in time to go ice fishing. it was my rookie outing and i guess you could say that i had a little bit of beginners luck because the crappies that we will probably have for supper this week were caught by yours truly. :) i think matt was a little frustrated when he asked me how far down i was and my response was....oh i don't know, i just put it down until i can't see it anymore and then give it 1..2..and 1/2 more pulls of slack, and that's where i'm at. of course....


friday the 19th was brent and becca's wedding. it was a beautiful day and we were so grateful to be a part of it!



after surviving the -40 degree windchills the next couple days with a few christmas parties, we headed off to iowa, with a short detour to south dakota. chelsea and i planned on meeting up on saturday because her extended family christmas was going to meet in edgerton, but because of the weather, it was postponed. when matt saw how disappointed i was, he convinced me that we had to head west to sioux falls before heading south to my parents house because of the roads. the roads were really fine.....he called actually chels to make sure she was home so we could see them that morning, if only for an hour.

up to this point, our traveling days fell right in between storms and we had no problems. well, that wasn't so much the case for the next five days. we spent a whole 19 hours at my parents house before leaving early for michigan to try to get ahead of the storm. by the time we got to chicago, I-80 was just as bad as a country side road that had not been plowed, so we all piled into our condo for the night and had our christmas here. we even quickly made our own christmas tree out of garland from the wedding...worked out pretty well!

and then on our way from michigan back to chicago on friday, it took us 5 hours for a normal 2 hour trip. needless to say, we were ready to get out of the car but were very thankful that our caravan made it safely.

all in all, our crazy christmas break was great. we got to see lots of family and friends...and even though we would have liked to see a few more people or spend a little more time with them, we were reminded again of how blessed we are. we pray that all of you had a very merry christmas and enjoy the blessings to the start of a new year. may we always be assured that Jesus is our stronghold in the midst of any change and struggle.