2006-12-24 Michelle's update

It's Christmas Eve! It's hard to believe. We've had a great day. I love this time of year. We even had a blizzard to go with it. Enclosed are some pictures. Hans got stuck at work on Wednesday and EVERYTHING was shut down...airports, the freeways, etc. Hans had to buy chains for the trusty civic and made it to the major intersection next to our development. Then he had to find a way home. Then he walked back in all his snow gear and shoveled his car enough to pull it to the side of the road and then walked home. This whole process took about 4 hours. I was grateful he made it home safely and with no harm to the civic:) The intersection turned into a parking lot for cars. Many people had to stay in hotels and at others homes. We were lucky to be safe and warm in our home. Our furnace stopped working twice that night and Hans had to get up to shovel off the vent outside and restart it. It made for an exciting time. This blizzard by far tops anything I've ever seen. The snow drifts were crazy. Our neighborhood is still just a maze of tunnels. If we take the civic to drive around (since it's got chains) all we see looking out the windows is snow. Ashley and Hans got some good sledding in. By far the best part of the blizzard was that Hans got Thursday and Friday off as well, which he didn't have originally. It was so nice to just spend time in our home as a family. We've had great fun.

There are also some pictures of the girls making gingerbread houses. It was very exciting. I was ambitious and made the gingerbread and frosting and such and was nervous, but it all turned out really well. They love their houses.

What else? There's also a picture of Katelyn and I riding in her blanket rocket. She makes rockets for me everyday and we sit in them and zoom to the moon. It's fun. I'm learning to be a better creative player. I love to see how creative the girls are.

Today I had to play the piano in church again. Twice, actually. I feel like at any moment I will be exposed as the musical fraud that I am. For some reason everyone thinks I am musical. It's quite funny. I'm struggling at the piano, but enjoy the forced practice. It's nice to have a reason.

We are doing our own re-enactment of the first Christmas this evening. We read the Christmas story with the girls earlier and let them each open a present. Katelyn had a hard time stopping at just one. It's fun.

Hope all is well there,

Love, Michelle