I Wonder as I Wander…

Our traveling ended in early November, so we started traveling for visiting family and having holiday parties with them. The first was Thanksgiving, and we went to Kara and Paul’s at Wilderness North, the camp where they live. Grandma went with us. First we stopped at Mesabi East HS and helped proof the newspaper that Kara’s journalism class was working on. We went on to Wilderness and enjoyed a great meal that Paul had ready. The rest of the weekend was dedicated to cooking, baking, eating and playing games. We had decided that we would do our Christmas baking while we were there—so we make 4 batches of chex mix, 4 batches of lefsa (with two grills going and one roller—it worked slick), Swedish Rye bread, chocolate chip cookies, molasses kringles, short bread, decorated sugar cookies, and fudge. We had enough that we were able to divide it, so all three of us had plenty of baking.


In addition, we went for a walk to see where the new cabins will be built and Kara and Paul scoped out Christmas trees. They found one and put it up on Friday. The theme of their tree is ‘Snow White goes camping’, because most of the ornaments are either Snow White or Camping/Hiking. It was fun to spend Thanksgiving with them.

A couple weekends later, we went to the cities for Ross & Richard’s annual Christmas party. We picked up Kara after school and she went with us. Their party is an open house that starts around 3 pm and went until 2 am. It’s always fun to watch the ‘waves’ of people who come and go—about every hour and a half, there’s a turn over of people. Since Ross had just turned 30 the week before, every time there was a new group—they sang ‘Happy Birthday’. Since so many of Ross’ friends are Pastors, Seminary Students, and former camp staff—lots of times there were many really great singers.
We were able to get shopping a little bit—so got started on the Christmas list. We also were able to get to the Dayton's (Marshall Field's, Macy's) 8th floor Christmas Display. This year the display was based on Mary Poppins. We have seen it just about every year--it's always so much fun. We went Sunday morning and had a bit of a wait--the first time we went was a Saturday morning and waited for hours (the kids were just little at that time). Other times we have walked right up to the entrance.

The next weekend, we went the other direction—to Bottineau, ND for Christmas with my sister and her kids. We had a really great time. Played lots of cards and other games, ate a lot, and did a couple of Christmas Swap games. The first time, we brought ‘good stuff/junk’ from our houses and wrapped them up and did the drawing numbers and stealing game. We ended up with some really goofy gifts, including a bag containing milk of magnesia and granola bars that mom had bought, a glass pie plate that Kevin was returning to his mom, and a fake cactus plant—just to name a few. We had so many that we were able to do three ‘rounds’—it included a lot of laughs. Then on Sunday we did a serious gift exchange of some better gifts—it made for more serious ‘stealing’ of gifts. Scott’s little four-year old Dylan is so funny—he and Scott were singing the song that has ‘I’ve been watching you, ain’t that cool, I’m your little buckaroo’. And he runs and moves constantly—it makes me tired just watching him!
On Monday, I visited with the MSU-Bottineau Campus Dean to talk about them starting a Phi Theta Kappa Chapter. I hope they decide to charter a chapter—then I can go over there again.

Visiting family is always so much fun—and we have such a wonderful family. I like spending time with them.