New Grinnellian!

As the three of you who look at this blog probably already know, we were thrilled when we found out that Sarah, oldest daughter of our good friends from Madison days, Pete and Paula, chose to come to Grinnell College this fall!  Of course, we think Grinnell is an awesome school, and she is going to have a great time there.  But this means Pete and Paula and Norah will have to come visit!  Woot!  They live much too far away in Maine.  AND we will hopefully be able to steal Sarah away from campus every once in while, even though she will be monumentally busy with classes, friends, and activities! 

It's only the beginning of the semester, so we stole her away last night and took her to the annual heirloom tomato tasting at Grinnell Heritage Farm just on the edge of town.  It's the source of our CSA veggie share, but they sell organic produce to places like the New Pioneer Co-op and Whole Foods as well.  Anyway, it was too hot, but it was still fun to go out, walk among the kale, listen to a little bluegrass music, and enjoy a potluck dinner with folks from all over central Iowa.  We were hoping to give Sarah a little (and literal) taste of Grinnell!  And we're just really happy to have her here in G-town. 

Christmas

Yay! for Christmas! We had a good one! There was the PERFECT Christmas Eve snow...falling gently all day, warm enough to play outside. The only downside: it wasn't sticky enough to make snowmen. But that didn't stop M & M from creating an elaborate "kitty town" in the backyard with paths and storage areas, etc.
Christmas morning!
M3 with her big present: an iPod Nano with touch screen! Woot woot! I must say, the touch screen is pretty cool! It's much nicer than her Shuffle: she can make playlists and store photos.
Rumpus with his gift: a water fountain! Maybe he'll keep his grubby mitts off the counters now.
One of M4's gifts (although not his "big" gift which was a Playmobil Pyramid. It is wicked awesome.). But the Rock-em Sock-em Robots are pretty fun, too!
It was lovely to be home for Christmas morning. We had a relaxing day and then had our friends who had been in DC for the fall semester over for Christmas dinner. The day after Christmas we headed to KC to hang with everyone, which was ever so fun....and I forgot my camera. Gah! Will have to get some pics from my moms to post. Suffice it to say, it was great to play with cousins and aunts and uncles, to play games, to consume massive quantities of booze and sweets, and to enjoy the warm weather in KC which allowed M & M to use their new scooters and us all the get outside and play!!

I got new poles for my XC skis and am now impatiently waiting for the snow to ski on!!

Thanksgiving

November was a rough month, so it was lovely to end it on a happy note: spending time with my whole family in KC. Thanksgiving dinner was awesome. Really, what's not to love about Thanksgiving? No gift pressure, just good food and hangin' with the ones you love (OK, sometimes there is turkey pressure involved). Friday I scratched the yoga itch with a great class at The Yoga Gallery. It's so fun to have people to go to class with! And a little post-yoga coffee klatch? Sigh...I wish we could do that regularly, girls! Jenn and I have do our coffee klatches (yay!), but they aren't generally after a juicy yoga class that neither of us had to teach! We also took the kids to see Fantastic Mr. Fox (a Wes Anderson movie for kids?! Suh-weet!).

We took advantage of the kick-a** 70 degree weather on Saturday to take some family pictures. And they came out pretty well!! Not too many closed eyes! (Whoops, I guess Mark's eyes are closed in this one...but you can't really tell, can you?)
Carmelle double-fisting it. Party on, Carmelle!
All four cousins. Their personalities are so evident already. Four amazing little people.
I'm thankful every day for these four and for the rest of my family. I am so very lucky.

Fun weekend...

On Saturday while Grandma and Grandpa were here, we went to the Raccoon River Valley Bike Trail and met some of the extended Hale clan for a bike ride. It was a cool and lovely day. M3 rode her bike twelve miles! M4 was on the trail-a-bike, which I don't think was very comfortable, especially because the part of the trail we were on was kind of bumpy. But he hung in there!
Clearly, I am not too good with the photography. No flash needed here. But it's the only pic I got of the action! Much of the trail had nice shade.

Here is a good portion of the clan at PJ's in Panora. The trail was much nicer and smoother south of Panora. After lunch, Grandpa took the kids to a carnival and playground in Grimes. Thanks, Grandpa!!
The kids and I stopped at a playground in a cute little town called Yale. We met a cool woman who has been teaching abroad for years but came back to her hometown, bought an old, decrepit hotel, and is fixing it up as a B & B. Future overnight ride?
More playground time in between riding time...Mark took a major spill and is sporting some nice road rash on his arm and hip. Wouldn't be a bike ride unless someone fell! I'm still sporting a scar from my RAGBRAI fall...

Spring break!

Some images from M2, M3, and M4's trip to KC while M1 is gallivanting about Europe. M3 holding her newest cousin, whose eyeballs we have never seen! I forgot newborns sleep so much! (Except at 3 am, of course.)

M3 sampling a smoothie and modeling her new hat. How 70s of her.

At the Wizard of Oz exhibit...take a good look at this munchkin's T-shirt!!

M3's favorite float at the St. Paddy's Day parade. It featured drag queens, hula hoopers, and drag queen hula hoopers. Oh, and a busty Dorothy Gale. Is she a drag queen, too? Just what is this organization, anyway?

New baby!

Carmelle and Matt had a baby girl early this morning! Yay!

Happy New Year!

Sorry to have been lax for a while...celebrating the holidays you know! Hope everyone had a great holiday! We went ice skating in KC. Here are the kids with Aunt Noelle. M4 did really well his first time out on a single blade! It was over 50 degrees out...it's nice not to skate in a parka.

And here is our sweetest, cutest baby cousin V! She was the source of much entertainment, whether she was sleeping, burping, filling her pants, kicking her legs like a marathoner, or (the best part) smiling and laughing at us. She was definitely the feature attraction this holiday!

Steph won!

She won the Miami Unscene photo contest, so she gets to go to LA and compete with the other finalists (all men...ahem). Good luck in LA, Steph!

Vote for Steph...

My cousin Stephanie Stalnaker is a finalist in a photo contest in Miami. Please vote for her to win: http://www.944.com/rsvp/unscene/index.phpx!

If she wins, she will move up to the national level of competition! I would post one of her pictures, but right now her site is overloading my ancient (in computer years) CPU. You can go look at her amazing pics yourself: http://stephaniestalnaker.com/.

Go Steph!

P.S. Your photos are making me painfully envious of your home climate.

Say cheese!

Here's the Thanksgiving crew! We were so fortunate to have Nana and Boppa, Tim and Mindy and the new cousins, and one of our international sons join us for dinner and the ensuing food coma.The excitement proved to be too much for M4 on more than one occasion: Games were played... (I fell off the chair right after snapping this pic): The weekend ended with quite a bit of snow; fortunately, that hasn't prevented anyone from getting home safely so far:

Yes, we can!!

OK, I know it's cheesy...I can't help it! I may be idealistic, but I feel like it's a new day for our country. Maybe we'll be able to hold our head higher in this crazy world. Maybe we'll actually be able to come together to get problems solved (although when I heard a blurb from Rush Limbaugh today, I heard exactly the kind of idiotic and immature assholery that prevents that from happening. I feel sorry for his unhappy self. Rush, put your country above your ego and your ratings, OK?)

Here are some lovely pics of election day in Miami that my cousin Stephanie took. Bonus pic of one extra special little voter at the end: