Christmas Break 2018 and Happy New Year 2019

So, for some reason I didn't take too many pictures of Christmas.  I once read that if you take too many pictures then you don't remember as well...so maybe in this case it is true.  I'm hoping.  I did get a picture of Brad's delicious nut braid that he made for us all though.  Guess that will have to do for the memory.

We had a wonderful Christmas.  Brad and I got almost two full weeks off.  Everyone else also had the two weeks off from school.  Well, almost  a full two weeks off.  Ben did have wrestling practice the second week off.  Can't complain about one whole week off from practice though.  I'm pretty sure Jordan never got that much.  Brad took advantage of every minute he had available with the older boys and went back country skiing and snowmobiling with them.

The rest of the kids were a little sad to be left behind, especially Riley, but their skiing skills and strength are not quite up to par so we stayed behind and worked on a 2000 piece star wars puzzle.

Yes, we did finish it.  Yes, it took the full two weeks.  Next time I'm going back to a 1000 piece puzzle.

It snowed a ton over the break.  Well, it really didn't start snowing until the weekend after Christmas but we got dumped on good.  It snowed the Friday before New Years and then we had a little break.  we got about 6 inches that day.  Then, on the Sunday before New Years it began to snow again and kept snowing all the way through New Years Day.

Here's a picture of my kids shoveling the Sunday when it started after church (Oh and it was our last three hour church, Yay!)

And here are some photos from New Years Day of shoveling and playing in the snow.  You can see the snow level here is much higher.

Brad went snowmobiling that day and he said it was like driving a submarine the snow was so deep.  He would go below the snow and then come back up out of the snow for a breath.  Later that morning, I tried to get up our driveway but found myself stuck because the snow was too deep so I was unable to go anywhere.  That was okay though because we did have a tile job to finish and while Kenzie and I lay very little of the actual tile (Brad did most of that) we did a lot of prep work.  Second bathroom is not tiled (we grouted today) and ready for paint, plumbing and new cabinetry.

Yesterday Ben had a wrestling tri-meet.  He won one and lost one.  Both by points.  Jordan headed back home after.  We were sad to see him go.  

Finally, it snowed today again.  We got another 4-5 inches here.  This snow was very wet (the last snow I guess was called blower snow and was super dry) and so the boys decided to make a snow tunnel.  Here's a picture of Riley going through the tunnel he and Jake made together.

I know I spoke a lot about the snow, but after last year where we had so little, we are so happy to see it.  We hope your Christmas and New Years was as enjoyable as ours!  Here's to 2019.