Basketball and Winter Winds

 We are halfway through January already. The kids have been working hard in basketball practice and they had their first game this past Friday evening. The kids played really well. All 3 Bethel teams won, and Emma and Elliott had a lot of fun and played well. 

Yesterday, it was windy and really cold. It felt like -22 degrees. So, we pretty much stayed home for the first part of the day. In the afternoon, Elliott wanted to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house, so we took him out there. Afterwards, we met up with Jeff and Samantha at Barn and Barrel in Canistota. We ate some really good food, had some drinks, and just visited. It was fun. We ended up staying until around 10:00pm, and then we felt like we better get home because Emma was home by herself. Emma was fine, but we were happy to be home by 10:30pm. 

Today was a catch up day. We had church, then a voter's meeting, and then Emma wanted to do some thrift shopping. John came along as well, and we hit up 3 different stores Emma and John both had some luck, and it turned into a fun afternoon. It was also super windy today, snowy, and cold, so after the third store, I was ready for home, playoff football, and a warm blanket. Also, not ready to go back to work tomorrow. 

This next week is a pretty calm week. We have some sports practices, homework and piano to stay on top of, catechism memory work, and chores. But other than that, we have a quiet week, and we are loving our calm January days. 

Basketball time 

Both kids on the floor 

Huddle up 

Ringing in 2026

 Well, I'm finally caught up on my blogging, and we are up to the new year. It's wild that it is 2026 already. I really don't know how 2025 flew by so fast. I always like to make some goals for the new year, so here we go. 

2026 Goals:

1. Bible Recap: I just started doing the Bible Recap program through the bible app. Basically, I read about 15 minutes worth of a daily bible reading and then there is a 5-6 minutes video afterwards explaining what we had read. I really like it so far, and hope to get through the entire year. 

2. Gym attendance. So far, I have been really on top of going to the gym, and I plan to continue. It's not reasonable to go every single day. But, I hope to make it most days and continue on my fitness journey. I would love to be around 10-15 lbs lighter, so that's ultimately my goal. But also, just to feel good, have a stress reliever, and have some me time. 

3. Reading. I plan to read 30 books this year. This is 10 less than last year, but with the bible reading, blogging, and other activities, I felt like I needed to decrease my books for some sanity. I like to read, but I don't want to be stressed about it. 30 seems like a good number. Also, I got a kindle for Christmas, so I'm looking forward to using that. 

4. Sleep. My goal is to shoot for 8 hours of sleep every night. Sometimes, I stay up too late just reading or watching a show, and I feel so much better when I get enough sleep. 

5. Volunteering. We have been bad about getting the the Humane Society for volunteering, so I would like to find some new place to volunteer with the kids that is easier to get to. I'd like the kids to know more about volunteering and understand why it's important. 

6. Date nights. It's really important that once a month John and I have a date night or something that we do by ourselves. Sometimes, we can totally wrapped up in our kids' events, and our relationship gets pushed to the back burner. I want to always carve some time out for us. 

7. Day trips. This year I want to do more spontaneous day trips. Day trips to Pipestone National Monument, Pallisades, Lake Vermillion, Clear Lake, or anywhere that's within 1-2 hours. Sometimes we forget that we can just go to a state park or a lake for a couple hours and have a really fun day. 

8. Meal prepping. I want to keep getting better at meal prepping and planning. And also to keep experimenting with new recipes and foods. Also, to focus more on whole, healthy fruits and vegetables. 

I always like to have new, positive things to focus on in the new year. I may not achieve all these things, but I like to have something to focus on and work toward. Happy 2026!

December 2025

 The Christmas season seemed to fly by this year even faster than usual. We didn't have anything too crazy going on. We just had Elliott's wrestling practice, and then a couple weeks of basketball ball practice to get the kids ready for basketball. Otherwise, I was super busy with end-of-the-year surgeries. I put in long days, and was super busy every day. 

Christmas was my holiday to work this year. So, I had to work the day before and the day after Christmas. This made going to MN on the day pretty impossible. So, we celebrated on Christmas Day with the Nelsons. We did the super nachos with the tinfoil on the table again. It was really good. Then, we opened presents. The kids got spoiled like usual, and they liked all their gifts. Emma was really into mushrooms, headphones, vinyl records, and baggy jeans this year. She really knew what she wanted, she made a list, and she loved everything she got. Elliott was a little trickier. He is super into Roblox, kind of into Legos, and occasionally into drawing. But other than that, he is kind of hard to buy for because he is at a hard age. He is no longer a little boy, but he's not quite into teenager things yet either. But he had a good Christmas, and he liked most everything he got. 

On Friday, we headed to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas on Saturday. We got to mom's house in time for supper, and then after supper John and I met Ryan, Michelle, and Samantha at Whit Wort in Gibbon. It was really nice to catch up with everyone and see some of my friends. On Saturday, we had a nice meal for dinner. We had to cancel our plans to go to Barb's house for Christmas because the weather was not cooperating, and we actually decided that we would have to drive back home later that day, so we decided to just stay at mom's house for Christmas. After too much food, we opened gifts, played some games, visited and ate some more and by 4:00pm, we had to hit the road to go back home. The roads ended up being good for our drive home, but the fog was terrible. We couldn't see very far ahead of us, and it was a pretty stressful drive home. But, we made it home by 8:00pm, and we were happy to be home. 

The next day, we had 50-60mph winds, snow, whiteout conditions, and the interstate was closed from Luverne to the cities. So, it was a really good idea that we came home a day early. Once again, it felt really weird and sad to not have dad there. He was such a Christmas guy. He listened to Christmas music starting in November and would listen into January usually. He loved the programs, the lights, the tree, basically everything. We missed him again. We were also bummed to shorten our Christmas celebration, but I guess that's the way weather is, and it was out of our control. 

The rest of December flew by in a hurry. On New Year's Eve, we just had a quiet evening at home. The kids were out at Jim and Barb's house. They went to a movie, ran some errands, and had a couple fun days at the farm. At home, we made some stir fry (we didn't want to deal with busy restaurants) and watched a show, and then we were in bed before midnight. We are such party animals. It's hard to believe it's 2026 already!

Emma fashion show 

Advent by Candlelight 

Emma played piano and did a reading 

Fashionable Emma 

Christmas at the Cathedral (I volunteered) 

Emma's last Children's Program 

Elliott looking sharp (and nervous) 

Christmas at home 

Emma's mushroom themed gifts 

Emma's usual appearance 

Nelson Christmas 2025 

More Christmas time 

Rumikub and Henna Tattoos 

The rest of November 2025

 November flew by in a flash, just like every other month. On November 11th, we had one of the best Northern Lights show any of us had ever seen. We were able to stand on our deck, look North, and we could even see some of the Northern Lights with our naked eyes. The kids were out there, and they loved seeing the Northern Lights and they had so many questions about them. We took a lot of pictures, watched the sky, and just really enjoyed the experience. 

I also brought both kids to the Humane Society after school one day. They both had a great time playing with cats, petting cats, and volunteering with whatever the staff needed to have done. It was Elliott's first time going to the shelter, and he really, really enjoyed it. We have a hard time finding the time to go, but once we do, it's always a good time. 

Elliott also did something crazy this month, and he joined Jefferson Junior Cavs wrestling. We went to a try-it night, and he loved it, so we joined, and now he practices a couple nights a week at Jefferson. Luckily, Salvatore also is on the wrestling team, so him and Elliott usually are paired up together in wrestling practice, and they have a good time. Elliott feels like he isn't ready for any wrestling meets this year, so we are just going to focus on practices, and that seems to be going well. 

Elliott also had his birthday this month. He turned 11, which is totally wild to me. We couldn't really find a good time to have a friend birthday party, so we decided to just skip it this year, and we had a family birthday meal at Hut Hot, and that was fun. Elliott chose Hu Hot, and Jim, Barb, Jeff and Samantha met us there, and we had a really nice meal. Then, Elliott got a homemade quilt from Grandma for his birthday, so he was in heaven. John and I got Elliott some sunglasses, and his own nice pocket knife, which he was very excited about. 

We also had a couple Thanksgiving celebrations in November. We did our usual celebration, where we went to Dennis and Jenny's house on Thanksgiving Day. We enjoyed a nice celebration there. We played bingo (with prizes!) and some other games, watched football, ate some delicious food, and just had a nice time. We ended up going back home again after Thanksgiving, and then we headed to Minnesota after lunch on Friday. We used Friday morning as a catch up day, re-packed, and then headed to Minnesota. 

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday in Minnesota at mom's house. It was definitely a bitter sweet celebration. We could all feel dad's presence was missing. He lived for the holidays, and he loved doing all the cooking for Thanksgiving. So, we all made more things than usual, and we all felt sad that dad wasn't there to join us, at least not in a way that we could talk to him and see him. It was especially hard on mom, but she held it together pretty well, and we all had a pretty good celebration. On Sunday, we went to church, and then packed up to go home. 

Lighting up Falls Park 

Elliott's Birthday

Watching the Fireworks at Falls Park 

Like usual, the tree us up in November

Volunteering with the kitties 

Northern Lights 

Birthday boy

Got stir crazy, had to play in the snow 

Emma built one of Elliott's lego cars

Bingo fun 

15th Anniversary Black Hills Trip

 Since our anniversary always falls during the Turner County Fair week, we decided to wait a little while to celebrate. Then, we ran into soccer, softball, and volleyball practices and games, and we were just too busy until November. Finally, we picked a weekend in November, booked an Airbnb and headed to the Spearfish area of the hills. 

We left early on Friday morning, and made our way to Rapid City. We got there in time for lunch. We had a beautiful, sunny, 60 degree day to walk around downtown, eat lunch, and shop a little. We even ran into Katie downtown, who was in town for a concert. Then, we left to make our way to Spearfish and check into our home for the weekend. 

We rented a really cool house on top of a very steep hill, with a really nice view of Terry Peak. It was much larger than what we needed for the two of us. It had three levels, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a beautiful 3-level deck, and a large kitchen and two large family rooms. There really weren't any smaller houses to rent, and the price was good, so we went for it. 

After unpacking, and settling in, we left to go to Deadwood for supper. We found a nice bar and grill and had a nice supper and a couple drinks. While we were eating, it started to snow pretty hard. We wanted to explore downtown Deadwood, but it was dark, snowing, and we had to make it back on some curvy, gravel, steep roads, so we headed back. We had a terrible 20 minute drive back, and we were happy to make it safely back. We watched some TV and then called it a night. 

Saturday morning was a surprise for us. Spearfish was forecasted to get 2-3 inches of snow, we woke up to 8 inches of snow outside. There was snow everywhere, and it was still snowing. So, we were happy we had packed some groceries along and we made some breakfast, drank some coffee, read, watched some TV, and were actually forced to relax for awhile. Finally in the afternoon, the snow let up, and we decided to chance it and go explore. We made it out of our cabin without too much trouble, and we headed to Spearfish Canyon. We couldn't get out to walk around because it was cold and snowy, but we drove through Spearfish Canyon at a whopping 30 mph. It took a while, but we saw some pretty sights, some mountain goats, deer, and the snow even made some parts of the trip prettier. 

After Spearfish Canyon, the weather was still not cooperating. So, we picked up some more groceries for supper and decided to be back home before dark. We took it nice and slow getting back to the cabin, but the road leading to our cabin was way too steep, and we couldn't make it up with all the fresh snow. So, we parked at the garage level (which was about halfway down the hill) and then hoofed it up to the cabin. We were really panting with all the groceries, warm clothes, snow, and thin air. What a memory. 

Finally, we were home. We cooked a wonderful supper, had a bottle of wine, and enjoyed our time alone together. We spent the rest of the evening snuggled up in the cabin and just enjoying our time. We were a little bummed that the weather was so uncooperative and we didn't get to do a lot of the things we wanted to. But, we had a nice trip and have plans to go back again sometime. 

On Sunday, we basically woke up, packed up, and headed for home. We had pretty nice roads for the way home, and once we hit Chamberlain, the roads were clear and there was no snow anywhere. We were convinced we are cursed and just bring back weather with us when we travel. The next weekend was 70 degrees in the hills, so we were pretty irritated by that. 

It's hard to believe we have been married for 15 years. A lot has happened in those years. I'm so lucky to be married to a great guy who loves to go on travel adventures with me, and is a great family man. We have a wonderful marriage, filled with blessings and challenges. I can't wait to see what the next 15 years bring!

On our way to the Hills (the best weather we had)

View from our deck (notice there is no snow)

The next morning (Snow!)

We still had a great trip, even with all the snow and cold 

Mountain goats 

Spearfish Canyon 

Our cabin (and how far we had to walk from the truck) 

John took a sunrise photo, barefoot