December Snapshots

Lots of snapshots from a very busy month!

19 house showings

Grey Fossil Site and Museum

 Library

Five Guys

Bloom Coffee Shop

picking new house colors

clearing out of the house during showings

online class at McDonalds (during showing)

Advent 

daddy in Minnesota

visit with St. Nicolas

loose tooth

lots of cleaning (lots of showings!)

Burger Bar

chiropractor

The Nutcracker

Blackbird Bakery

snow!

wintery mix holiday treats

neighbors farwell

Bojangles

movers

Warriors Path State Park

Krispy Kreme

Manna Bagel

open mic night at Bloom 

(Burke sang "Rocky Top!")

movie theater

broken glasses

new glasses

Pals

State Street

drive to Minnesota

SNOW!!!

unpacking in the new house

Mike walking to work

first class at a new dance studio

12 with a stomach bug :(

Advent Jesse Tree

-35* temperatures

MERRY CHRISTMAS

winter weather gear 

snow boots and snow pants

Christmas Cookies

cookies for our new neighbors

lots of shoveling

Mike's Birthday

cold weather science experiments

(boiling water thrown into -30* air freezes immediately!)
accepted an offer on our TN house (!)

Christmas

What a joy it is to celebrate Christmas!

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."  

Matthew 1:23

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." 

Luke 2:14

This year, we moved into our new home week before Christmas, and then shared a violent stomach bug, running through our family in five days - our usual preparations and traditions and decorations were a bit truncated, but the celebration was so good.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Snow!

We have snow!!!

We have experienced below freezing temperatures (and below zero temperatures!) and snow nearly everyday since our move to Minnesota.  (We currently have nearly 10 inches).  The novelty has not worn off.  The kids are thrilled!!!

We are so fortunate to be living next door to a park.  The kids have made tracks to the park everyday, and I have loved watching them play from the kitchen window.  Hendrick has been busy shoveling our driveway everyday, and the boys have been at work building monster snow forts and throwing many snowballs.  

We've made snow ice cream and lots of pots of hot cocoa.  And, thanks to an early Christmas gift from Grandpa, the kids are all equipped with snow boots!
(Also, thanks to a gift left by our home's previous owners, the kids have had fun trying their skill snowboarding on the small hill at the park.)

And, we've only had one tongue stuck to a metal pole - poor Maclaren was just trying to lick some snow.  Hard lesson learned  :(

(That's our new house in the background!)

Moving North

The second week in December, the moving truck arrived to pack us up for our big move north.  I am thankful we had several weeks to prepare for this huge change for our family - we had time to say goodbyes, visit our favorite East Tennessee spots, participate in the Nutcracker and Boy Scouts Court of Honor, and have our neighbors over for a final farewell.

We were all looking forward to a new adventure and eager to be together as a whole family (we had really missed Mike those last seven weeks!), but it was hard watching everything get packed up, marking the end of our time in Tennessee.  There is a lot we are going to miss!  We didn't have nearly enough time in East Tennessee.  We will miss so many people - we are thankful for them!
(And we'll miss the mountains and the mild weather!)

In one week, the movers packed up our home, made the two-day (1,200 mile) drive north, unloaded and unpacked our boxes.  It was quite a whirlwind week!  The kids were real troupers. 

We are looking forward in hope to our time in Northern Minnesota.  We still have a lot of work to settle our home, but we're glad to start our time here in celebration of Christmas.