New Year's Eve and Day

We were so glad to have Sandy and the kids with us, Allen, Aubrey and Jeff got stopped by an ice and snow storm, so we missed having them also. Hopefully another time!! We were able to have some fun on the sled ramp. Anna was all smiles, every picture we have of her while sledding. The above picture is four out of the five Crist kids, Josh is in the heap somewhere, for we can see his boots. Loads of fun for everyone.

Winter thaw

We have had a lot of snow, cold and ice, but this morning we woke up to NO snow at all. Which is odd, after so many days of snow, plus the kids were trying to go skiing on Thursday. So we'll see what the rest of the week brings. I snapped the picture of Bob grilling on the deck then snapped a picture of our thermometer for the outside and yes it was reading 14 degress.

December pictures

Just some pictures from December. Justin, Abbey and Wendy singing and playing at the piano. Justin on the guitar. Visit with the Yen girls. Justin practicing fishing.

Family and Christmas

Celebrating Christmas with the Allen's.

Celebrating Christmas with the Hill's.

Sledding update, again...

Bob and Wendy worked the entire day again, finishing up the ice skating rink. We just hope it doesn't thaw out by Thursday of this week. They had rolled and sprinkled the ice rink most of the day, but then the snow started coming and coming...so the ice rink was covered with about 5 inches or more of fresh snow. The snow was gorgeous last night and this morning. We've got the ice rink cleared again and the kids were making videos of the ride. I think they have as much fun making the videos as the actual slide.

"Jus' Bob"

The sled ramp has been a blast. We keep working and tweaking out little things. The backyard now has a light pole standing, (remember, in our neighbor hood there are no light poles.) it kind of looks like something out of Narnia, standing there in the middle of things and snow all around.

I thought I'd share a couple Justin stories, because if I don't write these things down, we'll never remember all the funny things he says. First of all, lately we have been a family of hippos. For some reason he likes to pretend that our family are hippos, he even said Josh was one. I hope that makes Josh feel one of the family. :) On the video clip with Justin and Abbey, Justin had just told Abbey, "You're a big hippo and I'm a little hippo." :) Last year we were the Erber's most days. So who knows who or what we might be next.

Another time Justin had been singing and practicing his "Away in the Manager", but he had stopped. So I ask him, if he could sing more? His answer, "it's buffering."

The above pictures are of him, I suppose, playing at a coffee house, complete with mic. He loves pretending to play all sorts of different instruments. This often includes the butter paddle and vacuum parts. Thanks Aunt Judy for the butter paddle, it is an all purpose toy or instrument. He often uses it as a guitar, or a cello and even a violin (it's fairly large on him for that, so sometimes we suggest it to be a viola.) If you are ask to play in his band, you might have to play a horn of some sort, but unfortunately it is a vacuum part.

Yesterday, while driving in my CRV, with Wendy, who was talking to Bob on a cell and we had Justin in the back seat. I was on a dark but busy road, traveling 50+ mph, when all of a sudden a deer jumped in front of me. In those first seconds I quickly slow down and breathed a sigh of relief as it strides on into the bushes, but then a second deer was directly in front of me! This time I needed to slam totally on the brakes, skid to a near stop, hoping there are no cars behind me. We missed the deer, but had we not skidded sideways a bit, we would have had a hood ornament. Anyway, after that, the remaining way home Justin kept saying "we almost crashed the deer" or "the CRV almost crashed the deer". When we got home he ran right in grabbed up a "John Deere bulldozer" and stated...."the CRV almost crashed the Deere". We all laughed as I had to say, no not that kind of deer. Justin's answer and in a most grown up way of talking said, "oh you mean like an animal?" So all we could imagine was he thought there were John Deere tractors and machines loping across the road.

Covered in ice...

Sunday night and most of the day on Monday, we had rain, not quite snow and not quite sleet...we were concerned that the sled hill would be melted, but today we have very cold again so it is nice and solid. The ice on the trees is beautiful but it is heavy on the trees.

The other day Bob had ordered a lawn roller (one of those really heavy rollers that squash down the lawn to make it even), when he was on the phone, the person at the store said, "umm...excuse me sir, but do you really need one now, there is snow on the ground...?", but once Bob explained that it was to flatten out our landing ramp and to finish up the skating rink, the person at the store understood. So Wendy spent last night rolling our landing ramp and today they slide almost to the end of our yard!

Daniel and Justin took Tom down the slide the other night, so now we thought we'd let Tom really get the feel of the sled hill. The second video is a single rider actually going down the hill, it gets very woosy especially when you begin to spin at the bottom.

more sled videos

Sledding at the Hill's hill

...and if you don't have a sled, you can always use your oldest brother...

...but he is usually not as stable as a regular sled.
Oops!
So the other siblings, thought they'd try it also....oldest brother as the sled, how many one, two, three

and fourth one the top...

Were there three or four in that stack?

Oops, they lost Josiah off the side!

Sledding....

What can you do with dented 3o' electrical poles?...

Make them into a sled ramp of course...

Bob started in the garage last night, then the girls and Bob were able to move sections of the "bridge" (as Justin calls it) to the back yard and assemble it. Then we needed extra help to get it connected to the back deck, that is where Nathan and Josh came in (thanks Nathan & Josh!). With lots of bolting and connecting, Bob and Wendy worked, very hard, the entire day. Finally came the packing phase, where they actually got to try out the ramp. So now it is up and ready to be used. Justin thinks it is great. His comments are, "I want to do-ed it again!" and "Faster!"

Sharon, WI's Victorian Christmas

Aunt Laura and Wendy. Thanks Aunt Laura for making the trip and enduring the cold so that you could visit with us!

We Love you Aunt Laura.

Some of us were carolers and some of us were Victorian dancers and some of us just went to watch....and tried to keep warm. The temperature was about 10 or 11 degrees outside. Many people were costumed, which set the atmosphere nicely.

Iler's and the Hill's and Josh

Nathan D., Jonathan, Jessica and Joanna

Sharon WI, Victorian Christmas Celebration

Trimming the tree

We spent the day with all six of us, just hanging around the house, cleaning up some things, cooking and decorating. It was a good day even though the weather was icy, snowy and windy. We pulled out the Christmas decorations and got them all ready to go, popped popcorn (though we never got any strung), Abbey and Daniel made apple dumplings together and then we went to cut our tree down. (We needed to keep Abbey's mind off wanting to run off to Chemung to nurse Josh back to health.) There is a cut your own Christmas tree place just outside our subdivision, so we all pile in the Explorer (we're not sure if Josh or Olivia would fit in there.) and go get the tree. This year we brought the "saw-s'all" for the cutting (I'm sure that is not the picturesque way to do it, but it works well.) We had a lot of fun choosing and cutting and dragging the tree back to the car. Lots of laughing. By the time we got back to the house a snowball fight and whatnot was going to happen. We enjoyed seeing the kids laugh and carry on, even though it was really cold and wet. Later we got the tree in and decorated, (it is not quite as large as last years, but good sized). Then seems we had too much time on our hands or we have driven past the Chrysler plant too many times, but Bob and Daniel got carried away in the decorating ideas...oh well Justin thinks it is great.