Skip to main content

It's Not Feeling at Lot Like Christmas (Outside)



The kids and I had some errands to run. We always have candles at dinnertime during the dark months. Our big beeswax candle that we had for about 10 years finally got used up so it was time to get another. We stopped at the new Foundry Home Goods location. The kids wanted a shaped candle, we ended up going with the tree. 

They also loved looking at all the little wooden animals. 

I never thought of knitting jute to make a scrubbing pad. I'm totally doing this. 

I had to laugh because they were selling our cottage Christmas trees for around $100 each. 

Those things are authentic Northwoods trees.

Temperatures are still not right to flood our rink, but that also means I could work on a different project: adding an outdoor waterproof outlet to our house. We have power to our garage, but nothing on the house and nothing on our breaker for the duplex.

Scott should do a side hustle as an electrician. I'm impressed he can do this. 

I'm not sure I'd pay me to do this job. I did it, but the amount time it took would be embarrassing to an electrician.

You'd imagine that drilling a hole through the exterior and interior walls wouldn't be too much of an effort. But I spent the better part of Saturday doing just that. Then trying to figure out how to pull the new 20 amp line through the hole.


But eventually I succeeded. We'd always needed an outdoor outlet, but lighting up the backyard rink gave me the perfect excuse to actually do it.

Our rink came with a bunch of outdoor lights that we could also use in the summer. 

What Meadow's cooking no one knows. 


Looks like mac and cheese for her and Theo. 

Nordic Ware Spaghetti Florentine. Not going to lie...kind of weird. I served some of my meatballs on the side.

What can't you make in a Bundt pan?

While I was ahead this year on getting Christmas gifts, I still hadn't done any wrapping. Good thing Meadow loves doing this with me. 

Oy, our basement needs some decluttering. 

We have about half of the basement, but unfortunately the smaller half.

We always have fun decorating the presents. 

Apparently filling bean bags is messy business.

Someone needs to teach this kid to play chess.

I don't think it's going to be Brooke or me.


We watched the Grumpy Cat Christmas special, which means that Meadow had to make some fan art.



I must be feeling productive (or work is dying down for the year). Finally patching Theo's bedroom walls before we can paint them.

We let the kids pick the paint color they wanted in their rooms. I remember Theo picked a dark blue and suggested we only go part way up and add a picture rail as well. 

The week before Christmas and all the kids want is there favorite fast meal: Dominos.

Another walk around the neighborhood to see Christmas lights. 

No snow, but plenty of neighbors keeping Kingfield and Lyndale cheery.

Theo wasn't feeling well so we wrapped him up in the wagon. 



You knew we were going to the best decorated house in the area.


Then we opened presents since we'd be heading to Little Chute for Christmas the next day and then be gone for nearly two weeks.

Since we got them the ice rink they just had their gifts from each other. Theo got Meadow a Kiki's Delivery Service shirt and Meadow got Theo a mini Plus Plus building set. 

They also opened their gifts from Aunt Katrina and Uncle Dennis. Theo got a National Park book and 50 Adventures in the US. Meadow got another Warriors series. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Campervan Vacation: San Francsicso, Northern California and the Great Redwoods Forests

Day 1 Minneapolis - San Fransisco  And we're off again. This time on an actual planned vacation. Somehow we managed to all get up and eat breakfast despite a relatively early flight to San Jose.   Travel Theo is so cute.  He didn't remember the last time we took a flight back in 2020 , so we let him sit at the window. He was interested for about 5 seconds. He was more into the movie choices on the back of his seat.  Brooke, Meadow and Theo sat on one side and I got to sit with strangers. Unfair. Meadow coordinating as usual.  We flew into San Jose despite wanting to start our journey in San Francisco. After debating Caltrain, BART or renting a car, we just took an uber. Not cheap for one person, but basically the same price as our other options with the four of us. An hour or so later we arrived at the Hotel Triton in what I guess is simply called Downtown. Fortunately for us our hotel was right at the gateway to Chinatown. Perfect as we were hungry for lunch. I...

Backcountry Camping with Kids in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Day 1  Back in May I stumbled upon Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I had no idea there was a National Park in North Dakota and that it was the northern end of the Badlands. Usually our summer vacations coincide with Scott's work trips. Since he didn't have any this summer I thought we should take advantage of actually taking a vacation. What, my workcations are always classics? I suppose a second real vacation this year wouldn't hurt. We definitely have more time than normal. As long as we took Covid-19  precautions and avoided people. We finally settled on a time to go. Blake joined us so we borrowed our dad's van so we could ride together. Scott had just driven from Michigan the day before. Blake had met my parents in Wisconsin to get the van and then drove from Duluth to pick us up. I offered to drive since I literally only drive twice a month.  I was still pretty tired from a long drive home. Since we were near Fergus Falls we had to stop by the abandoned state ho...

Japan Family Trip - Part II: Exploring the Shrines and Wilds of Nikko

We had originally planned on taking the bullet train down from Tokyo to Kyoto for a day or two. While being epically fast, it was a bit spendy for the four of us.  After talking to Brooke's coworker we settled on a two day trip to Nikko and its World Heritage Sites to break up our week in Tokyo. This turned out to be an amazing decision. The town is teaming with beauty from ancient shrines to epic waterfalls and some of the best meals we had on our trip. Kyoto didn't seem all that appealing to me when I started researching which location to go to. I too am glad we chose to head north to Nikko.  When we booked our Tobu Nikko Spacia X tickets I upgraded to the premium seats thinking that we'd be sitting facing one another. Instead we ended up with 4 individual seats, two in the first two rows and two in the last two rows. It turned out just fine with the kids sitting in front of us in two groups. Meadow and I were seated at the front of the car. Once in awhile we'd pas...