Little House in Missouri

Naaman and Kelsie outside the Wilder

house in Missouri. Note the rock chimney.

Laura and Almanzo's grave. They lived to be 92 and

90 years old!

Matt, Lindsey, Kelsie, and me at the zoo.

Did Matt and Lindsey mean to match?

How cute.

Matt and me outside the Plush Pig just before

we parted ways. He bought me a digital photo keychain

for my birthday. Sweet!

Liz looking adorable outside the Wilder house.

She is a brave woman to vacation with us.

So some of you have been waiting for me to post about our family's recent trip to the Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. Many of you read the last blog and its description of our flooding basement. We had planned a beach vacation the week of July 4 that was to take place one week after our return from Colorado. My Mom and stepdad have a condo in Florida, and my brother and his family were going down to meet us there, too. It was going to be super fun. I grew up near the beach and actually lived in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida for a couple of years while I was very young. It was a traditional family vacation to go to the beach with my mom's extended family for the week of July 4 for most of my life. We haven't been able to visit my mom at the beach for 3 years thanks to Kelsie's June birth in 2007, LT in Colorado in 2008, and our move here last summer. I was very excited to introduce Kelsie to the beach and to see my family. I can't describe the depths of my disappointment when our house flood required that we cancel our vacation. We had to make sure the flooding wouldn't continue while we were gone, and we needed to meet with contractors, lawyers, and bankers.

Once everything was settled at home, we decided to take a couple of mini vacations instead of our big one to Florida. Imagine our delight when the kids and I read the intro to the final Laura Ingalls Wilder book "The First Four Years" and found out that there was a Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Missouri. We could see the house where she and Almanzo lived and raised their daughter, and it was only 6 hours away! We could see the desk where she sat to write the Little House books! We have been reading the Little House books aloud for the past 6 months to a year and have enjoyed them thoroughly. Naaman was even so involved in them that I kept catching him reading ahead of us in the mornings only to listen to the same chapter again in the evening! As an added bonus, we arranged to meet my brother, Matt, and his girlfriend, Lindsey, while we were in Missouri. I haven't spent much time with him since he started working in Arkansas a few years back. One of the things I love about the midwest is having so many cool places to go so close by. Plus I'm much closer to my family here even though we're much further from Rudy's family and our church family in Austin. Liz decided to go with us, too, which made the trip even more fun. I did feel a little sorry for her at times, though, like when Kelsie puked all over herself less than 2 hours into the trip.

On the way to Mansfield, I read aloud the diary written by Laura Ingalls Wilder as she, Almanzo, and their daughter Rose made the trip from De Smet, South Dakota (where most of the Little House books are set) to Mansfield in 1894. It was sooo cool to find out the details of how they acquired Rocky Ridge farm in Mansfield and decided where to build their house, etc. The museum in Mansfield was amazing! It contained so many precious things that are very meaningful to people who have read the Little House books--Pa's fiddle, the lace given to Laura by her friend Ida Brown on her wedding day, namecards traded by Laura and Carrie in their school days (including Nellie Owens' (Nellie Oleson in the books), and Laura's , which she so carefully selected in Little Town on the Prairie), and the bread plate given to Laura by Almanzo in The First Four Years. There were also tons of pictures and letters written between Laura and her sisters. We were enthralled. The house was really cool, too, and all the people who worked inside the house seemed like they were friends with Laura and Almanzo:) They were full of great details. I can't believe Almanzo built that house almost exclusively from materials he found on their land. The 28 foot chimney required 40 wagon loads of rocks--all picked up and hauled by Almanzo, who could barely use one of his legs since having a stroke when he was in his late 20's. We also saw a beautiful rock cottage on their property bought for them by their daughter in their old age. (They only lived there a few years because they preferred their old house.) Finally, on the way out of town, we visited Laura, Almanzo, and Rose's graves. They were in an unassuming cemetery in the middle of the tiny town of Mansfield.

We spent the night in Rolla, Missouri--halfway between Mansfield and St. Louis. We had yummy pizza and some delicious pie, went swimming in the hotel pool and had an altogether great time. The next morning we got up and drove 1.5 hours to the St. Louis zoo, where we met up with Matt and Lindsey. The St. Louis zoo is HUGE! It is also (brace yourselves) FREE! We paid no admission, but they had plenty of extras that cost $$--the train, sea lion show, carousel, children's zoo, etc. However, since we bought the $50 annual pass for the Bloomington zoo, we got all the extras at the St. Louis zoo half price. We loved the zoo but did not even get through half of it in 5 hours--no kidding. We actually went back the next weekend to finish up since St. Louis is only 2.5 hours away. We met up with Ed and Beth Courtney from the University of Missouri--old friends from Leadership Training 1994 in Myrtle Beach--on that trip. Very fun.

We had a great time at the St. Louis zoo with Liz, Matt, and Lindsey. The kids especially loved the sea lion show and the opportunity to pet and feed stingrays at the Caribbean Cove. It was nice to meet Lindsey and to reconnect with Matt. After the zoo, we tried to find 2 restaurants I had researched online. Both places were closed, so we ended up eating BBQ at the Plush Pig (weird name but good BBQ.) I ate the volcano BBQ sandwich, which was so spicy that it actually blistered my lips. Ouch! Good news is that once they were blistered I could really enjoy my sandwich. I didn't feel so great the next day, though. I love spicy food, but most of you know it doesn't digest well with me:)

I should also post an update about the house. The contractor who will be installing our new drainage system is still backed up for a little while, but we hope he will start excavating next week. We're trying to line someone up to repair the drywall inside after the excavation is complete and someone else to replace the carpet. The legal matter is getting nasty. It looks like the person who sold us our home is trying to bully us into dropping the suit, so I've been a bit stressed about the potential for mounting legal fees. We still feel like suing him is the just thing to do. Maybe he won't misrepresent a house he is selling in the future. I will try to keep you updated...

Colorado post--long past due

Cousins in Colorado: Anna, Brady, Naaman, Eric,

Jake, Kyra, Daniel, and Kelsie

Kids in a valley on the west side of Rocky Mountain

National with elk in the background. The elk were

even closer for our picnic.

Kids in a stream off Coyote Valley

Nature Trail.

Random cute pic of Kelsie demonstrating her

fabulous hair. Hope the curls don't

disappear when she gets older.

Sad picture of water and mold damage. Liz's

entire room looked like this when we got back

from Colorado.

In my last blog we were getting ready for a much anticipated vacation in Colorado. At the time I was feeling overwhelmed by a few issues at home--kids going to bed late, leaky faucet, Kyra's teeth not falling out, messy house, etc. I had no idea of the disaster that would befall us while we were gone on vacation, but that will come later...

The Colorado trip was wonderful!!! We left on a Friday after I got off work a little early. We drove to Des Moines, Iowa without incident to stay the night ( a 5 hour drive from Normal.) The next day we got up and drove the remaining 13+ hours to Estes Park. Our kids are amazing travelers, so we had a very nice trip. We always stop a couple of times for a long meal so everyone can get out and run around, and I always pack lots of snacks. It was a bit nostalgic driving through Nebraska and Iowa for the first time since I was a kid. My dad was stationed in Omaha, Nebraska for a while, so I spent a few weeks there each summer.

Rudy was going to Estes Park to meet with the staff team out at Leadership Training (Rob and Mike) and the other staff team who traveled from Normal (Karen and the Gerbers.) It wasn't a bad place to have a 2 day staff meeting:) We had 2 days prior to the staff time to vacation as a family and hang out with the students who are doing the Leadership Training program. The time was very refreshing. John Drage set us up with a nice lodge room in prime location on the Y grounds. We even had a lodge room within viewing distance of the lobby so we could hang out with people after the kids went to bed and still know they were safe.

The first day after we arrived my cousins Kym and John and my Aunt Wanda came from Denver to visit us for the day with Kym's kids and John's kids. John and Aunt Wanda just happened to be visiting Kym in Denver while we were 1.5 hours away in Estes Park! We had a great time hanging out, although at times it got a little nuts with 8 children under the age of 9. We went to the craft shop, played at 2 different parks, had ice cream, and even attempted to eat a sit down meal (since it was Father's Day.) The meal was the most harrowing part with the adults being so outnumbered by the children, but we all survived:) My family is just so cool.

The second day we took advantage of Rudy being off work by driving into Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a wonderful day. We loved the drive up to the tundra--12000 feet--with the spectacular views we remembered from being there for the whole summer 2 years ago. We had a perfect picnic right next to a field of wildflowers where the elk were grazing--a nice breeze wafting our hair. We hiked along Coyote Valley Nature Trail and then played in the stream running along the trail. We saw 3 moose on our way back over Trail Ridge Road. Then we stopped for a quick run in the snow at 12,000 feet. Life was great except for the call we received from Liz that day saying that our basement was flooding. That call was the beginning of our summer worries and woes.

The third day in Colorado was plagued with the knowledge that things were not going well at home, but the kids and I still had a fun day. Rudy also had a good meeting day with the staff team. We hung out with Katie Gerber and played a lot with the Klunke kids. I also spent some time in the late morning preparing for Kelsie's birthday party to be held at the Klunke cabin after dinner. Half the day I didn't even know where Naaman was because he was so busy doing sporty activities through the Y's programming. Kyra and Kelsie also did some programs, but we mostly had fun playing with the younger Klunke kids and making Father's Day gifts in the craft shop. Toward the end of the day we got the not so wonderful news that our insurance would not cover the water damage to our house. There were a few tears, but what could I do about it? We heard from Liz that it had rained again, and that the water was still coming in. Ugh! We still enjoyed some mini golf in the afternoon. Naaman did an archery class. And Kelsie's party was very fun. She loved her Dora cake and decorations. She also LOVED her gifts, especially her big book of princess puzzles, blue whale pillow pet, and My Little Pony Sticker Book.

I spent the last morning in Colorado hanging out with our friend from Texas, Ana, and then Michelle Klunke and her kiddos again. Michelle, the kids, and I went on a short hike and did some stream wading in the National Park in the afternoon followed by a Y program called Bird Banding, where we got to see a scientist actually capturing, banding, and releasing birds. It was a pretty cool program, especially because Naaman and Kyra had the opportunity to hold and release birds. They were quite excited. We then had a very nice staff dinner, put the kids to bed, and hung out with the students one last time. We got up at 5AM the next morning to start the long drive home. I had to go to work the next day, but we all did ok and had a very nice trip home. Our whole trip was very inexpensive. Cornerstone paid for our gas going to Colorado and back, and we ended up eating for free in the staff dining hall at the Y for most of our meals. They wouldn't let us pay! We also had a surprise when we tried to pay for our lodge room; the room had been complimentary. I guess the YMCA of the Rockies just loves GCM. Apparently they gave all Cornerstone staff free rooms for the week. Amazing!

We discovered what a mess we had at home the day after we returned. Friends had come over to help clean up the water mess while we were gone, but Rudy cut back the soaked dry wall in Liz's bedroom in the basement and discovered extensive black mold. We had to hire mold remediators. We found cracks in the walls and foundation of the house when the drywall was removed, and there was a lot of water. We can just be grateful that Liz was there to save our furniture and most of the basement carpet, baseboards, etc. by stemming the flow of water. We can also be grateful that June was the second wettest month on record in Normal because, if this incident had happened one month later, we would have been too late to be compensated for damages from the previous owner of the house. As it is, we will have to pay to excavate around the entire house and install a new drainage system. We will likely have to have someone repair the foundation and walls of the house. We will have to have the yard graded and probably put in more landscaping. There is a lot of work to be done inside and out. We finally qualified for a home equity line of credit after a very stressful appraisal (because the water damage is obvious and extensive), so at least we have a way to pay for everything without using credit cards. We hope we will be reimbursed for most, if not all, of the repairs by the previous owner, who knew water problems existed but did not disclose the problems on the seller's disclosure. Now we have lawyer fees to pay on top of everything else, but we think we are doing the right thing since the guy who sold us the house is a contractor who continues to buy and resell houses throughout this area. The whole process of figuring out what to do about our house was very stressful for a few weeks, and our hearts are saddened that we have lost the equity in our home. But, as my Uncle Mark says, "If money can fix it, it ain't worth worrying about." (At least that's how my mom quotes him.) We found a good contractor to do the excavating and foundation work and hope to have our basement functional before the fall semester at ISU, which is coming up sooo fast! I can't believe summer is almost over.

Not Always Perfect

Just thought I'd blog a bit when life isn't so great.  Seems like I'm always writing about how much I like it up here in Normal.  I guess I just blog when I feel relaxed and happy.   I actually do have hard days and feel overwhelmed quite often.

Last week I noticed that Kyra has a permanent tooth growing in behind a baby tooth.  She never lost any baby teeth all through kindergarten.  Naaman lost about 6 in his first semester!  Anyway, I was feeling financially concerned because a day or two after noticing her tooth issue (and finding out on the internet that we would likely have to have several of her teeth pulled), I noticed we had tons of water under our sink.  Turns out our faucet was leaking, so we had to get a replacement.  Well the very expensive new faucet doesn't work right, either.  At least it has a lifetime warranty.  But now Rudy has to find time to uninstall and reinstall a faucet.   Ugh!

I haven't been enjoying my job lately.  It's been really busy at the hospital, so I've been working longer hours.  And the environment is not ideal.  There's a lot of gossiping and unkind speech.  I was very spoiled in my old work situation, so I've been quite taken aback by people's behavior.   Yesterday I was sitting at a computer and actually heard someone quote me to my boss in a derogatory way that was completely out of context!  Unbelievable.  I just felt so sick and betrayed.  I feel like I can't say anything at work because everything is being filtered through negativity.  Plus I often feel incompetent or bored since I'm not being used in my area of strength.  I mostly feel like I'm helping people, but I'm having a hard time with so many aspects of my job.  It feels yucky.   

And today I just got really stressed out by the messy state of the house.  I was grumping at the kids about it.  Then I realized it makes sense that things are messier--there are 3x as many kids home all day as there were a few weeks ago.  At least they are getting along pretty well and having fun coming up with new games and stuff.  We're really having a great time, but the great time has been going on too long.  They haven't been going to be until too late, and I don't like messed up schedules.  I haven't been able to get everything done around the house that I need to, and I feel I will never be able to catch up.  Hopefully I will catch up by next weekend when we leave for Colorado.  Ah!  beautiful Colorado.  I can hardly wait to see you again.

Summer Fun

Kyra pre-haircut. You can see Emily, our friend

and part-time cosmotologist, in the background.

Kyra post-haircut. Don't we all wish for such

shiny locks?

Kindergarten picnic. Left to right-Kelsie, Jenna,

Charli, and Kyra. Jenna and Charli were Kyra's

best friends this year.

Kyra looking like a teenager at the picnic.

The family at the zoo. Naaman looks grumpy because

he's not used to the heat anymore. You can see the old

carousel in the background...only $1.25 to ride and pretty fun.

Yea! The kids are out of school, and we are fully partaking in the summer fun here in Normal. I have to say that it's nice living in a place where people appreciate the summer. I love Austin...don't get me wrong. But every one of you Austin readers knows that you don't love going out a lot in the summer. Let me tell you that the long winter (we just finished the book by the same name by Laura Ingalls Wilder 2 weeks ago:) is more than made up for by the amazing summer here. It is still hot. (It hit 90 degrees over the weekend.) But we actually go out in the summer here. Our family went to a graduation party at a neighbor's house across the street on Sunday, and people sat outside and ate without sweating. Rudy was wearing jeans, no less! We were not bitten by a single mosquito even though we were in a vegetated, shady backyard and were out there for over 3 hours! By the way, there are no large cockroaches in this part of Illinois either. I have not seen a single roach in a year. There are also very few snakes and no poisonous snakes. I will get back to the amazingness of summer here in a minute. I shall diverge into a couple of fun stories about my sweet little girl, Kyra.

Kyra finished kindergarten this year and did very well. She learned to read simple books and is pretty good at simple math. She excels in the arts and performed in her first music program with the rest of the kindergartners a few weeks ago. As you can see by the pictures, she looks more and more like a teenager every day. We had a lot of fun at her kindergarten picnic last week. Unfortunately we have no pictures from Naaman's second grade picnic thanks to it being rainy and cold on his day:( Kyra also had her very first professional haircut last week and was able to donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. Yes, she had her hair cut by a 4 year old once in our very own home. Then there was the period of time where she pulled all the hair out from the top of her head. She actually looked like a monk for about a year. When she was wet during that period, she looked more like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Suffice it to say...it was bad. It was a big accomplishment to actually grow enough hair to be able to donate 8 beautiful inches to wigs for cancer patients. Yea Kyra! Don't forget to notice her cool new earrings in the picture, too. We were in the mall last week, and Kelsie announced she wanted her ears pierced, too. We're making her wait a few more years. She's not nearly as big as he thinks.

Back to summer fun in Normal. I posted a few pictures from the Bloomington Zoo, which is about 10 minutes from our house and not too big. They have some pretty cool animals, though, and the animals are much more active up here because they aren't baking in the sun all day long. I think it's just really fun that the Twin Cities (as they call Bloomington-Normal) would even have a zoo. What's really cool about the zoo is that it's in the midst of an awesome park complete with shady picnic tables and a HUGE playground with adjacent splash park. Super fun! They really spend a lot of money on their parks around here. Now that was all well and good, but my big awakening to the kid friendliness of this town was this past weekend, when they re-opened our favorite Normal pool. I am not kidding when I say the place has been turned into a water park. The pool was already great. It had a shallow end with a beach-type entry and a water slide for the little kiddies, a middle area that is a little bit deeper with lanes and such, and a deep end with 2 water slides and diving boards. There was also an adjacent volleyball court. They actually added another section this year that reminds me of the water slides at Sea World. No kidding. There are 3 water slides--one goes straight down, one is an inner tube slide that you can go down single rider or double rider, and the other is a body slide with tons of twists and turns. It's ridiculous. They actually have hired life guards to work at the top of each of these slides to tell people when to go down. I couldn't get over it. It was really crowded on Saturday because it was opening day, Memorial Day weekend, and the other local pool has not opened yet, but we still had plenty of room to swim and only had to wait 10 minutes for the inner tube slide. Anyway, they actually had a cover band playing live music from the 80's--lots of power ballads. I was in heaven. Today the kids and I went to the pool again, and we had a major breakthrough with Naaman finally starting to swim underwater. His best friend from school, Christian, was there, so I think he got inspired. Hooray!

Tomorrow we will be going to a local theater for the weekly free kids' movie. (We're taking Christian along to that.) Then we'll go sign the kids up for the reading program at the Bloomington library before going to the pool again. Good times. And I just found out today that the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, which is just a few minutes from our house, offers free kid friendly performances on certain Wednesdays and Saturdays. Isn't that cool? Rudy and I are excited about seeing the adult plays because they are showing two we've never seen before. Last summer we weren't as excited because we had seen A Midsummer Night's Dream several times, but this year they are doing The Tempest and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Anyone want to come visit and go to a play with us? You're invited! We have a guest room and everything. Hope to see you soon. I'll be having fun here in Normal til then (well in between work and vacations anyway.)

Alabama trip and more

Colin--1 week old.

The older cousins outside of Uncle Brett and Aunt April's house--

Naaman, Kyra, Lauren, and Kelsie

Kelsie looking quite beautiful in Nana's yard.

Kyra posing at the fun playground outside Uncle Larry's church.

Cousin Audrey is getting ready to go down the slide in the background.

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted anything! Life has been a bit hectic, especially as we've been nearing the end of school for the ISU students and for our kiddos. Rudy's been out of town for over a week now in Texas, and I think we're making it ok. I've been so exhausted from doing everything around here that I've been falling asleep with the kids at 9PM, getting up around 3AM to roam the house and clean-up, get on the computer, etc for a couple of hours before going back to bed. Of course I have to get up soon after going back to bed because I have to get the kids ready for school and then go to work. I've been working late because I've been going in late because I have to get Naaman and Kyra off to school, Kelsie to the babysitters, etc. It's been quite a schedule. Tomorrow I will be mowing the lawn (again.) I last mowed it on Mother's Day so I could find the best place to plant my new flowers given to me by Kyra and Grace Church. To think...I had never mowed a lawn in my life until a couple of weeks ago. Suffice it to say, I took the kids out for Krispy Kreme donuts tonight--not too bad since I've resisted eating out the whole time Rudy's been gone. We can't wait to have him home late next week!

Speaking of having kids home...I can't wait to have Naaman and Kyra around all summer! I especially can't wait to not have the rigors of the school schedule and to be able to enjoy the pools and parks here in Normal. We've even planned a few vacations out of state this summer as well as some day trips to Chicago. We are headed to Estes Park, Colorado for a Cornerstone staff time for a few days at the end of June. Of course, I will be vacationing with the kids the ENTIRE time, but Rudy will have to work 2 out of 4 days of the trip--sad for him. I am actually off work for 5 days in a row around the 4th of July, so we are going to drive down to Panama City Beach, Florida to visit my Mom and stepdad. I love a road trip. Rudy might not be so keen on it after his Texas trip and after the drive to Colorado and back just 2 weeks beforehand, but he seems willing to humor me. I can't believe my Mom owns a beach condo, and my (almost) 3 year-old has never seen the beach--a travesty. Of course tonight the kids were telling stories about what happened at school today, and Kelsie made up a story about going to the beach to visit Nana. I think she gets annoyed by her boring life and decides to just make something up:)

I hear Chicago is beautiful in the summer, too. Plus we have reciprocal Children's Museum passes, which will allow us to go to the Planetarium, the Science and Technology Museum, and the Field Museum for FREE (one of my favorite words.) The Chicago zoo is ALWAYS free. Trust me...the cost of parking in that city makes up for all the free stuff, but it will be worth it. I can't believe we have such a great city only 2 hours away!

Well, I wanted to blog about my Alabama trip, but here I am getting carried away with everything else. We made a semi-spontaneous trip to Alabama over the kids' Spring Break in March. It was semi-spontaneous because I found out I could get a day off work to go only a few days beforehand. Rudy was able to go at the last minute, too, because he brought his work with him. I was just really sad about missing out on going to visit my family at Christmas because of the Disney trip (quite the hardship, huh?) We had a great visit with my aunts Cherry, Donna, and Pat and got to spend lots of time with my Granny and PaPa. We also got to eat lots of good southern food, which is always a plus. On the way home, we stopped off in Birmingham (only 1 hour out of the way) to see my brand new nephew, Colin. He's quite adorable, as you can see from the picture. He let me hold him while he slept for an hour, and it was very sweet. All the pictures posted are from the Alabama trip since Rudy has the camera with him in Texas right now. We haven't downloaded the more recent photos.

A few things going on recently that will need more blogging later (or at least a few pictures): Kelsie was a flower girl in Erik and Gina Meeks' wedding on April 17 (she did great--what a relief!), Naaman turned 8 on April 19, Kyra turned 6 on April 27, Kyra got her ears pierced on her birthday (so grown up now!), we attended the ISU circus on April 24 and saw our friend Charis do a great job, Kelsie potty-trained in about a 4 day period starting the night of the circus, the kids had a joint Pokemon birthday party on May 2, the ISU students finished up finals and left town last weekend. I have also had a couple of opportunities to teach at Cornerstone events lately--the Women's Overnighter in March and the Women's 1st and 3rd Breakfast a few weeks ago. It's been a blessing to have an opportunity to share some life experience and scripture with the young ladies in our church. Can you believe I'm the oldest woman in the church? Bible Study Fellowship is ending this week. I'm happy to take one more thing out of my schedule, but I'm sad, too, because I've learned so much this year through the book of John. The Isaiah study starts in September.

Well, that's my life so far! Hope we will meet again soon. Thanks for reading!

Nerds are Cool

Naaman (on the right) with his friend Nathaniel.

Nathaniel won first place at the state tournament

the next weekend.

I know I haven't blogged in a while, and I'm headed to bed in a few minutes since it's super late. I just didn't want to forget to blog about Naaman's final chess tournament of the year. Let me give a little background...Naaman just started playing chess last spring or so. He likes playing games, and we heard chess is popular at his school, so we signed him up for the chess club. Lo and behold, the Colene Hoose Chess Team is VERY good. They finished in the top 10 at the national competition last year. We finally persuaded Naaman to play in a tournament this Spring only after one of the volunteer coaches told him he should try it. (He had already missed the first 2 tournaments.) Needless to say, we did not expect him to win any matches when a lot of the other kids have 2 more years of experience, parents who actually have time to practice daily, and one-on-one coaching from professionals. We were proud and amazed that he won 1 and had 1 draw out of 5 games. He had a really fun time, so we signed him up for more tournaments. Naaman was having a good time, but it was taking most of the day on Saturdays for him to go, and the girls couldn't hold out all day at the tournament. It meant some weekend separation for our family, which was hard for Rudy especially. So Rudy and Naaman generally stayed for the matches and then left before the award ceremony, knowing Naaman would not win a trophy even if his team always won the tournament.

I told Rudy that I thought Naaman should hang around for the awards ceremony at the last tournament (I think it was his fourth of the season.) It just seemed like good sportsmanship to support the team. Anyway, we were completely shocked when they announced the award for "First Place for an Unrated Player." We didn't know such an award existed. I guess they are trying to give some encouragement to the kids who are new to the game. His 2 wins and 1 draw that day gave him enough points to win the award! We were all completely shocked and so proud of him. Hoose won the tournament and then went on to win the state championship the next weekend. Yea Naaman! I just had to have a proud parent bragging moment. There were probably about 80-100 kids competing in his grade level, so it was a pretty big deal. Plus, he got a big trophy, as you can see from the pic:) He was completely ecstatic.

I'll try to post about our recent Alabama trip tomorrow. Let me just say that my new nephew is ADORABLE! I will also give the update on our most recent basement flood. Ugh! Must go to bed now.

Winter Updates

Slightly overtanned kids in front of our first live Christmas tree. We color-corrected for pictures that went to grandparents:)

Naaman and Kyra after an hour of sledding. Sledding is definitely a highlight of living up north.

Kelsie with her sled. She actually goes down this one on someone's lap. It tends to spin around like the one on Christmas Vacation as you go down the hill.

Kelsie after sledding down the hill. she gets pulled back up to the top. Whew!

Kids having fun in the backyard yesterday. You should see the pictures of snow angels. We got 7-8 inches last week.

Naaman at "the Bean" in Chicago.

The whole family with Donald Duck at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

Kyra after getting Stitch's autograph. Those autograph books from Uncle Mark and Aunt Cherry were a hit!

Snow white at the Princess lunch looking a little scared that she was being stalked by Kyra, Kelsie, and Cousin Lauren.

The amazing Osborne Family Christmas light display at Hollywood Studios.

You probably think we haven't updated the blog because our fingers are too frozen to move. Not so...we are actually ENJOYING the cold weather. There were several scary and sad things about moving to Illinois, and the cold weather was very near the top. I guess we built it up to be worse than it was. I was on my way to the mall last weekend, and I passed a bank which had a sign with the current temp. It was -3 degrees. We've acclimated so well that we now think 37 degrees is warm. Sadly it will get up to 37 next week, and all the snow will probably melt. Bummer. It's been hanging around quite beautifully since Christmas.

So, we haven't written in forever. Life has been CRAZY! Since the last update, we had 2 months with out-of-town guests. Nathan, Katie, and Josie came to stay for a week so he could work on our house around the same time as Liz, Blanca, and Renee came to town to help out with Freedom Bags (a really cool event hosted by our new church that raised $$ for International Justice Mission and 10,000 Homes.) Then Rudy's mom came to town for a long Thanksgiving holiday. She stayed almost a month. David, Martha, and their cute kiddos came to stay for almost a week over Thanksgiving Break. Can you say"super fun"? We made our first trip to Chicago that week, which was a crazy story in and of itself because we spent a lot of time lost, and Rudy had a little run-in with a very pretty parked Audi. We also ate delicious Chicago pizza, got to see the semi-impressive tree lighting, went ice skating outdoors downtown in the rain, and checked out the cool, block length window display at Marshall Fields. Thanksgiving dinner was no slouchy event, either. Martha makes a mean turkey:) Speaking of mean turkeys, have you guys seen the animated movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? Hilarious! We saw it at the dollar theater last night with the kids.

Ok...back to the point. Of course, after Thanksgiving, we were hurtling headlong toward Christmas and the end of semester stuff with the students. Nathan came back to install a downstairs bathroom for us--nice! Rudy had his 36th birthday. We had lots of fun playing with his gift--Rockband 2 for the Wii. I honestly can't remember much else about that time period. It's pretty much a blur. I think we had a Cornerstone Leader's Retreat in there somewhere that was really fun. There was one lowlight...Rudy drove his mom to the airport in chicago the day before we left for our Disneyworld Christmas vacation. There was much packing, wrapping, preparing of gifts for shipping, and Christmas card writing still to be done. He was rushing because I had made him a bit late by volunteering at the kids' school that afternoon. Anyway, the keys to our car ended up in his mom's suitcase, and he didn't notice until she had already taken off. The Honda dealership came to the rescue with a new key, but the new key didn't work for turning on any accessories, including the heater. Poor Rudy!

The Disney vacation was a wonderfully fun Christmas gift from my mom and stepdad Bob. We were there for 5 full days and were able to stay at the beautiful Animal Kingdom Lodge where we had zebras, giraffes, etc roaming around outside our windows. Super cool! They also purchased the meal plan, which allowed us to have lunch with the Disney princesses and a breakfast buffet with Mickey Mouse and gang. My stepbrother and my brother, his wife, and our niece also got to go, which made it all even more fun.

We returned from Disney on December 23. I worked December 24-28, and then we left for the GCM Ignite conference on the 28th after I got off work. By the way, Christmas was really wonderful in our new home. We had lots of snow Christmas night, and the kids were excited about everything, including the birthday cake for Jesus. But it was a little lonely being in Illinois for Christmas with all of our new friends out of town. We are so used to being in San Antonio or Reform, AL for christmas that it felt kind of lonely and strange. It was sort of nice just being together as a family, though. Bummer I had to work to make up for the Disney trip. I have very little paid time off at my new job.

The Ignite conference was awesome! It was so great seeing the GCM staff from all over the country that we hadn't seen in years. It was also great to connect with some of our Texas friends while we were there. I had not been to a GCM national conference (besides the LT summer programs) since 1995. It was just too expensive for us all to go so far from Texas. It's always in the midwest somewhere. It was so cool to have the conference only 6 hours away in Westerville, Ohio. We stuck the kids in the back row of the car, so driving there was almost like a date for Rudy and me since we had been so busy the last few months. (I know...pathetic.) We had to drive back early in the morning on the 31st because I had to work at noon, but it was fun while it lasted.

New Year's Eve was spent with the Klunke family and a few friends celebrating Mike's birthday. He's pastor of the church here, and is actually 23 days younger than Rudy. I was off work on New Year's Day, and we had so much fun going sledding as a family--my first sledding experience since 1995 when we sledded down a little hill in Indianapolis at the GCM National Convention on empty salt bags. Yes, there are actually 2 decent hills in Bloomington-Normal.

We've been recovering the last week or so from all our travels and getting back into the school schedule. Only 3 days after the kids went back to school, we had a big snow here, and they got to take a snow day. They were quite thrilled and went sledding again with Daddy while I was at work. Rudy said the snow was so powdery you had to pave a way for the sled to go through first. He said he got to the bottom of the hill one time when he was double sledding with Kelsie and couldn't even see her face, she had so much powdery snow on it. She wasn't too thrilled, but the snow is beautiful. The kids and I played outside yesterday with snow and icicles forever despite the 5 degree temperature.

Now you're all caught up. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to be more frequent in my updates so you won't have to read so much next time. God bless you for your perseverence.