Christmas in North Carolina

We had an early morning flight out of Detroit on December 23 to North Carolina and have been enjoying lots of time with Eric's family.  I feel like all we've been doing is eating...there have been so many good meals, it's going to be hard to get back to my healthier eating habits.

These are only some of the goodies we've been eating.

Our Christmas meal was a 20 lb prime rib roast...it was delicious!

Our 8 year old neice, Anna, decided she wanted to capture a family picture on Christmas day.  She strategically put us in our places and took a few pictures...the best is posted here.  Not too bad for an 8 year old using a cell phone camera.

Christmas evening it began snowing and when we woke up on December 26, we had received about 5" of snow.  It had been decades since central North Carolina had a white Christmas.  It was a wet, heavy snow and was absolutely beautiful.  Of course it won't last long as the forecast is for temperatures to be in the 60s by Friday!

We had fun playing in the snow with our nieces, Anna and Abbie.  Anna preferred to eat the snow. :-)

The snow was prefect for making a snowman.

Christmas in Michigan

Eric and I have had a great Christmas!  We started our Christmas celebration the evening of December 22 by going to church and then opening our gifts to each other as well as the gifts from my family. 

Eric loves finding creative ways to disguise presents.  One of our first Christmases together, he wrapped up a very small gift in a large box with one of his sweaters and a football.  I was not familiar with his disguises at that time and was quite confused (and a bit disappointed) until he pointed out the real gift lying within.  This year, he decided to use one of our leftover large moving boxes to wrap a very small gift.  He filled the bottom of the box with wood (to add weight) and then put tons of moving paper to fill the box.  In the middle of all of the paper was a small box with the gift - a remote camera timer. 

Eric is a big kid at heart and enjoys toys.  He has always enjoyed playing with remote controlled vehicles so this year I was on the search for a remote controlled snowplow.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any such thing and had to settle with an R/C snowmobile.  He was pretty excited to get it and after testing it out, discovered that Michigan has a little too much snow for it to handle.  The snowmobile sunk right into the snow and wouldn't move...so, this gift may be returned for something with a bit more power.

'Tis the Season...

...to be baking!  My office does a cookie exchange, so I spent all day Saturday baking.  I baked 5 dozen Monster cookies for the office cookie exchange and then decided to make more to give to our neighbors and friends.  After 8 hours in the kitchen, I had made 5 dozen Monster cookies, 4 dozen oreo truffles, 6 dozen peanut butter chocolate balls, 3 dozen chocolate chip M&M cookies, and 2 dozen "doo doo wads".  Good thing I enjoy baking!

Winter Wonderland

The first snowstorm of the season hit last weekend.  We got about 7" inches of wet, heavy snow.  It was beautiful watching it slowly fall and it made all of the trees pretty, but was no fun driving on!

 

Eric has been waiting to use his new snow blower and last weekends storm gave him his first chance to use it.  He was so excited and had a great time...he commented that he wished our driveway was bigger so that he could do more.  Most of our neighbors have a snow removal service...Eric's thinking he might need to offer his snow removal services to them - he'd be more than happy to do it for them, for free! :-)  I had to capture his first snowblowing experience, so here are a few pictures.

Wild Kingdom

We are really enjoying our Michigan surroundings...especially our back yard.  The Clinton River runs through our back yard, so we get to see a lot of wildlife throughout the day - ducks, geese, deer, wood chucks, muskrats.  We've also been told we will likely see fox and coyotes.  We're loving our back yard; Eric's looking forward to fishing this spring and we plan to canoe or kayak down the river this summer.

Eric enjoys taking pictures of the animals, so here are a few pictures of the various animals we're seeing now.



 

 

It's Christmas Time!

This is my favorite time of year!  Christmas music, lights, and programs galore!  We had a great kick-off to the Christmas holiday last weekend.  Last Friday night, Eric and I headed downtown for dinner and to check out the lights.  The downtown area where we live has a fantastic light show every year...they cover all of the buildings with millions of lights.  It's very impressive to see...the pictures don't do it justice.

This was also the weekend of the Kris Kringle market, an outside market with vendors selling handmade gifts such as wreaths, candy, etc.  One vendor had a big fire pit where you could roast marshmellows for smores...it was great!

They also have carriage rides...we didn't go for one, but seeing it added to the fun night.

 

On Sunday, Rochester had its annual Christmas parade...not only do they still call it a Christmas parade (and not a holiday parade), it is also supposed to be the largest parade in Michigan.  It was a freezing cold day, so we didn't stay for the entire parade, but it was fun to see.

We ended the weekend by going to a Christmas program with some friends at a Baptist church about 45 minutes away from us.  This church is gigantic...I wish I would have taken a picture.  It looks more like a hotel or shopping mall then a church.  The entire population of Milford, IA could probably fit in the church's auditorium.  The Christmas program was fabulous...the talent was amazing.  It almost felt like a Vegas show with all of the special effects.  Check out this brief video clip of the program on the church's website: http://www.northridgechurch.com/services_events/special_events/2010_glory_of_christmas.aspx.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Thanksgiving

On Sunday, we finally made it to Okoboji where we had a great week with my family.  It's always so great to see them...we wish we could see them more often.  We did a lot of relaxing, eating, and laughing...it's going to be hard to get back to reality! :-)  Below are some pictures from the week.

Addison

Johnson Family

Addison & Colton in their John Deere Gator

Colton and Eric

Addison, Colton & Papa Bruce

We decided to go ahead and give Addison and Colton their Christmas gifts from us...I'm so glad we did so we could see and hear Addison's excitement as she opened her Belle coin purse, stickers, and doll. :-)

Addison and Great Papa

Go Cyclones

Last Saturday, Eric and I went to Ames, IA to meet up with my family as well as my old partners in crime from my Iowa State days...Holly & Julie...all to surprise my Dad as a belated birthday present.  He was defininately surprised and we had a great day tailgating despite the cold temperatures.  Too bad the Cyclones couldn't pull off a win against Missouri.

My nephew, Colton.

Will and Danielle



The Beer Chicks: Julie - Holly - Brooke



Johnson Family

Road Trip

Our life has been pretty quiet the past month or so, which is why I've not posted anything.  The last week was pretty busy for us, so I finally have something new to blog about. :-)

Eric and I started out on a road trip last week, driving from SE Michigan to NW Iowa.  The normally 13 hour drive took us 3 days due to several planned (and fun) detours.  The drive was not bad (especially since I got to be a passenger the entire time...thanks Eric!).  We spent our first night in Ottawa, IL...just west of Chicago.  Not much of a town, but a nice hotel and a Cracker Barrel restaurant just off the interstate was perfect.

The first planned detour was to stop in Des Moines, IA to visit a great friend and her family...Amy, Clint, Taya, and Haylen Jensen.  It was my first time meeting Amy's twin girls, who just turned 1 on November 17...they are simply adorable!  Amy & Clint definately have their hands full. :-)  It was great seeing you Aim!!

Cider Mill

Eric's parents visited from North Carolina over the weekend and we had a great time hanging out.  This picture was taken in our back yard in front of the river.

We had beautiful fall weather all weekend and took advantage of it by visiting one of the many local cider mills/pumpkin farms.  The cider mill we visited had an apple orchard, raspberry bushes, tomatoes, peppers, and pumpkins to pick.  We stuck with picking just pumpkins, but I did sneak a fresh raspberry warm from the sun...yum!

 The John Deere hay tractor.

Our niece, Anna, sent us "Flat Stanley", so he made the trip with us.  Here he is in front of a huge pumpkin.

 My pumpkins...