Megan March happenings

When Megan finds something she likes she goes 100% in. Over the last few years she has gone through phases of Powerpuff Girls, Pink Panther, Dora and Diego, Billy and Mandy, Ben 10, and now the latest is STAR WARS Lego.

What's great about this is that it's the first non TV show. The others were her watching the show and then playing afterwards. This is her playing the video game, which is the first game she's ever played, and then builds with Lego afterwards. This is a picture of the kitchen floor last weekend. It's great that alot of my 20 year old Lego sets I kept are really getting used again now.

She can name all of the characters in Star Wars Lego now, and she's never seen the movies yet. My favorite is MP3PO (C3PO) and IndyDingy Jones (Indiana Jones - below) which is he new favorite. The kids are saving up their allowances so they can buy it when it comes out.

Nieuwveld's visit

Candice's long time best friend and family visited us during the extremely cold month of February. It was great to see them and new little "Hannah" having fun in the cold. Matthis had some funky European flu most of the time he was here, that decided to stay behind and pass through Rachel. Candice and Lisa were able to go cross country skiing one day, which Candice found out she loves now. Lisa also feel in love with the Wii and tried to find one before heading back to the Netherlands.

January 2008 highlights

The first month of 2008 is almost in the books so I thought I would publish some of the highlights of January not already posted.

First, we had to take a picture of Megan in her Sunday winter clothes, since she so rarely lets us put them on her.

Michael had a few loose teeth that he thought were going to come out before Christmas, leading to great confusion if Santa and the toothfairy came on the same night. Well, they lasted well into January, coming out about 4 days apart at the end of January. He pulled both of them out him self also!

Rachel was now old enough to go to the "Daddy daughter" stake dances, so we both got to go and have a great time on her first "date". She got to practice shaving Daddy, and I got to "do her hair" for her. Finally we got to learn to swing dance, do the bunny hop and have fun!

Finally, Candice has been working with her friends at the gym "working her butt off" learning a bunch of new exercises and strength activities. This is her doing one of her head stands.

What does -12F look like?

We're in a bit of a cold spell in Lakeville, MN. The news says it's a high of -5F today and currenlty -18F. I took a picture of our thermometer outside which shows -12F, and a picture of our front door with frost on the metal (inside!!). When Candice cooks it the condensation makes a nice sheet of ice on the inside also.

New Years Day

Michael was excited because this was the first time he was able to stay up until midnight and watch the new years eve countdown. Daddy started the new year of right running a 5k at 11am. The temperature was a nice -3F with windchill of -19F! I ended up running my best time, but I went out too fast. Look for 166th place at the link below.
http://www.andersonraces.com/Results/pdrs08.htm

Christmas 2007

Christmas this year was about perfect up in MN. It had already snowed over a foot leading up to it, and then snowed big fluffy flakes all Christmas day. Luckily the kids all made the nice list, barely ;) . Attaching some of the pictures with the kids favorite thing. Michael got a Nerf Long Shot gun as tall as he is, Rachel got a shirt with her favorite cartoon character on it, and Megan got the Scooby Doo board game she wanted, among other things. Michael made a bread warmer in school and gave it to Mommy and Daddy for Christmas.

5 k Reindeer Run

Kris and I ran the Reindeer Run 5 k which looped around a lake in Minneapolis. It was 3 degrees and at least -15 with the wind chill. There looked to be over 2500 people there, some dressed in costumes. It was also the first heavy snow of the year that was just starting. When we started we ran along the windy side of the lake with snow blowing sideways right into our face. Kris thought his cheeks were going to need to be amputated. We finished right about 30 minutes, which was 4 minutes faster than my last one!