Party, party, party

It must be the holiday season because it seems to be one party after another! This week our party's are with our Head Resident friends. The Caf is closed this week, so we decided to do some rotating pot lucks. Last night we gathered at the Dales' apartment. 10 adults and 9 kids under age 8. Total chaos! Tonight, people are coming here. 14 adults and 11 kids under age 8. The kids like having their run of the dorm lounges. And the adults just like having an excuse to hang out :)


The newest addition to the HR family...baby Ila

Window work day

Today Kate and I spent a lot of the day working at the cabin. Kate mostly worked on putting poly on the stuff we had stained. I installed some of the trim we have been working on.
Hammer high

Hammer low

Before

After
And the bathroom door....stained, 3 coats of poly, installed and trimmed out.

Christmas Day

We joined a big chunk of the family for dinner on Friday and spent the afternoon and evening playing with the kiddos.


I may have monopolized the time with Harvey :)
After dinner and some dominoes, G and g and Laur and Jill went home and the rest of us went downstairs for Christmas, part II.
There were lots of great gifts, including grass seed, a battery starter for Brian, and a giant map of Minnesota (which we plan to frame and hang in the cabin...inspired by our friends Jason and Amy, who have a similar map of Kansas). It was also fun to watch Natalie open gifts. She got a pair of skis from Grandma Cher, which made Brian pretty excited. She "skied" back and forth on the carpet for awhile and did pretty good.

Today, we woke up relatively early (8ish) and took off for some after-Christmas sales in Rochester. We hit Shopko South, Menards, Fleet Farm, Lowe's, Target, Shopko North, Home Depot, and WalMart and picked up a bunch of discounted Christmas decorations for next year. It sounds crazy, but it was actually quite fun!

Shopping was followed by a nap. Now we're getting ready for another good meal...ham, baked potatoes, and much more. Oh, and I forgot to mention the cookies. Alan and Cher bake tons of cookies this time of year. This year Alan told me he cut back a bit...only 16 different kinds...plus candy and fruit cake.

It's a tough life, but someone's got to live it!

All Bark...

The Great Christmas Blizzard of 2009 never really materialized, but we did get about three inches on Christmas eve. Brian and I still spent a quiet Christmas eve in St. Peter. My pork loin with pears and shallots was a success (though it took me two hours to prepare!). For dessert we had blondies that I made earlier in the day.
Brian waited patiently for dinner...
We opened gifts on Christmas eve because we wanted to be able to get moving quicker on Christmas day if the weather cleared. It was quite a haul! Brian got us the board game Settlers of Catan, which is one of my favorites!
On Friday morning, the weather was pretty nice, so we took the snowshoes out for a test run. It was my first time in snowshoes. Very fun, but different than I expected.

And, yes, I managed to fall.We cleaned up and packed up the car and made the drive over to Rochester. It took us a little over two hours and, for the most part, the roads were pretty good. There was a stretch of about 20 miles around Waseca that was bad, but we survived and made it in time for a lasagna lunch with the entire family.

White Christmas

Here's the view from our living room of last night's snow...


It has started to fall again and the weather report says we can expect 5-9 inches tonight and another 4-7 inches tomorrow.

Progress

Despite the nasty winter weather, we've managed to make more progress on the house. On Sunday we started work on the trim. Brian got to use his new table saw (the one I got on Black Friday) to work on the trim for the unfinished windows.

I think he likes it!
Here's our frozen lake...


And our new shed....

Meanwhile, I learned how to use the electric sander and how to stain. The smell is a little strong, so Brian has me wearing the mask for safety (of course!)

Last night we went back out and worked some more on finishing the trim. I've got sanding and one more coat of poly to go and then they'll be ready to go.

Brian got to work without incident today even though we got about 4 inches of snow last night. He said the main roads were actually pretty clear. They're having a potluck with the guys from the yard today at Menards so I made the Knutson cinnamon jello salad yesterday for him to take. I should have made a small bowl for myself! I'm going to dink around the house today because I have no desire to check out the roads. I have laundry and cleaning to do and am going to work on one of my spring classes. I also have a special recipe to try out for dinner. It's roast pork loin with pears and shallots. Hopefully it turns out alright!

We're still planning (hoping!) to get to Rochester this weekend, but unless the weather miraculously clears up, we probably won't make it until Saturday. Expecting to be snowed in tomorrow, I rented snowshoes for us from the college so we can take advantage of the weather. So, that's our plan...a quiet and snowy Christmas eve and Christmas day in St. Peter.

Happy Christmas eve, everyone!!

Finishing up

Kate here. It's the last week of the semester and I have one more class period left...tomorrow morning at 9. Then, three finals and a stack of papers later, I'll be free! It's been a rough semester for me...challenging in a variety of ways. Tough students, tons of grading, challenging topics, sickness, etc. Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to the end! Today I finished up two of my classes and spent most of the afternoon grading papers. Twenty down, too many to count to go! This afternoon we also took some cookies over to our neighbors at the lake. We got to meet the matriarch of the family and had a nice chat with her. It turns out their family has owned the property for almost 100 years. They haven't been particularly welcoming to us, but hopefully we broke the ice a little today with our cookie gift. Okay, enough writing for now...off to watch a new CSI episode.

Sicko

We've laid low the past few days because Brian is battling some sort of flu-like thing. He was home on the couch on Monday and Tuesday but went back to work Wednesday and Thursday. Both days, though, he's come home pretty wiped out. Here he is tonight comparing temps on our new thermometer with our old one.


Yep, you're hot!

In happier news, the laying around the house happens in front of our beautiful Christmas tree. I love sitting here with just the Christmas lights on!