Nelson Family Blog: December Happenings

This past week has been a crazy weather week. It started on Monday with freezing rain and snow. Then, on Tuesday we had more rain and wind, and then Wednesday was even more snow and blowing. And then it continued through Thursday and Friday. The kids had a late start on Wednesday, and then they had school called off on Friday. And out West they got like 2 feet of snow, so it was pretty wild.

I also was feeling sick for a lot of the week, but we are so short on staff right now, I bucked up and went to work all week long, so it was a pretty long, crazy week. Also, on Friday, John brought the kids with him to the office for the snow day, so that was another things out of our usual routine. It sounds like the kids did well and enjoyed their day with dad.

So, backing up a little bit, last weekend on Friday night, we got free tickets to go to a Stampede Game. It was actually pretty fun. It was the teddy bear donation night, so after the Stampede scored their first goal, everyone who brought a stuffed animal donation threw it out on the ice. It was pretty fun to watch hundreds of stuffed animals come flying on the ice. The Stampede ended up losing, but we had a good time and stayed until the end of the game.

On Saturday, John delivered the kids to Jim and Barb's house on his way out to go ice fishing. The kids were going to attend the Marion Hometown Christmas festival with Jim and Barb, and then they just wanted sleepover at their house. They also got to make some Christmas pots and they went to a movie in their Christmas Pajamas. They had a great weekend.

While the kids were doing Christmas things, we finished up some shopping and did some wrapping. Then, we attended a Urology Associate's 50th Anniversary Christmas Party. It was at the Icon, and they had a live band and some snacks. It was pretty fun. After a couple hours we were over it, and we headed home for the night.

On Sunday, we met the kids at Church for the late service, and then they had practice while John went ice fishing again (and didn't catch a thing). We spent the rest of Sunday just relaxing and preparing for another week.

This past week was busy, weather crazy, dealt with some sickness, and of course the homework stuff. So, it flew by pretty quickly. On Wednesday evening, we got to go to a Matthew West Concert at the Washington Pavillion. It was really fun. It was Christmasy, and jazzy, and entertaining and everyone had a great time. Elliott kept telling me he couldn't believe he was seeing Matthew West in real life. Matthew West played all his radio hits, and then all his Christmas hits, and the kids were loving every second of it. The concert went until about 9:30pm, so it was a late night for us, but it was so much fun. We will definitely go to another concert by him in the future.

This past Friday evening, we made a Walmart run to get secret santa gifts for the kids for school, and then we ate supper at the North Star Pub and Grill, which was actually pretty good. After that, we decided we better see the lights at the falls. So, we drove through Falls Park and enjoyed all the beautiful lights.

Yesterday, we finally did our Christmas baking. Emma and I made the cutout sugar cookies, and then Elliott helped us decorate them. It went pretty well, and we all had a good time baking and then sampling our creations. After the cookies, we cleaned up and then dipped pretzels and oreos in almond bark. We also had fun doing that. We listened to a lot of Christmas music yesterday!

After all the baking, Emma and I went to the Augustana Girl's Basketball game at the Pentagon. It was ugly sweater night, so we wore our ugly sweaters and enjoyed some good basketball. After the game, we enjoyed some free hot cocoa and sugar cookies, and then we watched the first half of the boy's game. We were having a good time. When we got home, we all watched Elf, and then went to bed. What a great weekend.

Today, the kids have their Christmas program at 4:00pm. I can't wait to watch them, and then we are going out to eat with the Nelson clan afterwards.

Merry Christmas!