Our Retirement Account: December 2006

Red and Green and Christmas All Over

The week of Christmas was filled with more holiday adventures. We made an overnight stop in Viroqua to see Mom Lilas and were so excited about the lutefisk, lefse and meatballs that we forgot to document with pictures. Suffice it to say that we were well fed and well taken care of -- another wonderful holiday memory.

Christmas day was spent at Dave and Lori's house where the tone was set with the sweet smell of cinnamon-spiced cider. The table was beautiful and she had Christmas touches everywhere, including the first string of Christmas lights that her parents, Ernie and Dorothy, ever owned. They were 62 years old - older than grandpa!

Thank you, Dave and Lori!

A good time was had by all in Eden Prairie.

Then back to Lanesboro where this guy had been spotted on the trail.

On his way to good times in 2007!

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

It wasn't white, but our Christmas in Madison was very, very merry . .

Michael joined in the lefse making

with special instructions from great-grandma Dorothy.

Kelly and Noelle learned Grandma's secrets for making her Swedish Tea Ring.

. . . and bright!

Ho Ho Ho

Catching Up

Found it! I found the little gizmo that plugs into the laptop so I can upload pictures from my camera. It was one of several things packed in a very safe place during the move so they wouldn't get lost. For some reason this very safe place was the back corner of a dresser drawer. Who knows what made me think that would be a good idea. It was certainly a safe place. No one would have thought to look for it there - including me!

Finding it a week after Thanksgiving means everyone else is moving on to thinking about Christmas and I'm going back to then. There are lots of fun snippets that pop up.

For some reason one of the strongest recollections is from walking to the theater to see "A Christmas Carol." Morgan, James and Noelle were excited because we started off at a time when they normally might be thinking about going to bed and we were out after dark and it was a little bit cold and everyone was walking together through long shadows under glowing street lights. Morgan and James were usually out front. They couldn't keep from running - the best to hope for was that they stopped at corners and didn't get too far ahead.

As we went by the park Grandpa and James were talking about prairie dogs (don't know exactly why.) Somewhere into the conversation James brought up flesh-eating prairie dogs. Noelle, hearing parts of what was being said, clarified for me that they meant hairy dogs and went on to tell me more about the hairy dog at our house. Since we had a total of four dogs that weekend it was a little hard to figure out which dog she meant. She was patient until I understood that it was the stuffed dog she had been playing with. Flesh-eating prairie dogs and hairy dogs - priceless.

I don't have pictures from the walk or from "A Christmas Carol." There were bets going as to whether Noelle would make it through the show since the ghosts can be pretty scary. These particular ghosts were also loud (clanking chains) and that's what got to Noelle. But after she and Kelly had a talk about make believe she settled in and watched the whole thing. Afterwards James said it wasn't what he expected and Morgan said she couldn't always understand what was being said through the accents, but they liked it. I think the best part was the adventure together.

Kelly's blog has pictures from other adventures of the weekend. I have just a few more.

Great helpers. . .