Merry Christmas, Y'all!

Hope y'all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Ben, Joanna, and Russell

Scouts

Ben's calling is scoutmaster for the ward, so every Wednesday night they work on merit badges. For the past several weeks they have been working on the communications merit badge. Several weeks ago, they had to write a 5-minute speech on whatever they wanted and then deliver it to everyone that was there. Two boys gave speeches about Yu-gi-oh (go figure). Last night, they had to draw a picture of that describes them.

Ben usually participates in whatever they do. He wrote and gave a 5 minute speech. And, last night he drew a picture about him and his life.

Make sure you click on it so you can read the captions :)

Oh my!

Minnesota Love

Driving between errands a few weeks ago, I was thinking about how awesome it is to live in Minnesota. Here are a few reasons why it's a pretty cool place to live.

1. Your car is a refrigerator for 4+ months of the year. Even though we went grocery shopping first then went to Wal-Mart for all the other stuff, it didn't matter. All the frozen food was still nice and frozen when I unloaded it from the car to the freezer. I'm pretty sure we spent about an hour wandering around looking at all the little things that I didn't need to look at (fingernail polish? umbrella strollers? reindeer antler headbands?) We probably could have spent longer, but my shopping buddy isn't a big fan of shopping. No matter how long I spend after my grocery trip running to other places, I can count on my food staying nice and cold the whole time. Awesome!

2. No sales tax on clothing :) Not that I buy a whole lot anymore, BUT when I did do clothes shopping it only made it that much better knowing the price on the tag is what I would pay. It even applies to online clothes shopping. I found this out one Christmas as I was buying Ben some clothes and debating about whether to ship them to Wausau so he wouldn't know about them until we were at my parents for Christmas or just run the risk of them being delivered to us and him getting the package first. When I put in mom and dad's address the price went up a couple bucks, and being the cheapskate frugal lady I am, I wagered that Ben wouldn't care about a package and had it sent to us.

3. We just barely had our first snowfall in our neck of Minne'snow'ta. That's right. No measurable snow until Dec. 9. For all those people who complain about it, there was nothing to complain about (yes, Ben, I mean you). It has been really pretty. The aforementioned complainer even said that it was pretty, and had a nice drive into work on Monday. It could be like Alaska where winter is from September to May, but Minnesota hasn't disappointed by giving us some nice short winters lately. Yay! Russell loved the snow, by the way. Or at least he was excited to get out of the house. I'm not sure which one it was.

4. Ben would have me add the State Fair. It is pretty fun, and the three times we've been we've sufficiently gorged ourselves on food, looked at lots of animals and the wide varieties of produce, stood in ridiculously long lines for free stuff, rode on some pretty fun rides. We are both excited to go back next summer, and I'm sure Russell will have a blast.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

 On his way into town, Santa got stuck on the old city hall building. Luckily, the fire department was there with one of their ladder trucks to rescue him.

 Russell was not very impressed by Santa, but he did love the fact that there were really bright blinking lights on the fire truck. After being rescued Santa made his way to Barnes and Noble to meet all the children. When we got there a long line had already formed. But, Santa had not arrived and we caught a glimpse of him as he was walking into the store. We figured that was probably good enough since Russell would probably cry if he sat on Santa's lap.