Merry Christmas!

Today we continue the ancient Christmas day tradition of posting a Christmas card on our blogsite.

We say "Merry Christmas" from Shell Rock Iowa at the Kaus Haus, where we celebrate our third (and final) Christmas along with Jenny's family. We celebrated with my family on the 23rd and at home last week. Each has been a very very white Christmas.

This year has been busy for us with Idris now adding more events to our agenda. He finished kindergarten in June and is now mid-way through his first grade year at Nova Classical Academy. Jenny and I have been thrilled with the classical education model and have found a few ways to get more involved this year with the school; Jenny accompanies Idris to "Lego League" each Thursday evening, and also hosted a Vietnamese egg roll- making event at our house. Idris enjoys most of school, but prefers reading to almost anything. He also spends hours each week with video games.

Arken plays with Idris and his elder cousins more and more. His rambunctious attitude is sometimes ingratiating and occasionally alienating to his playmates. Arken especially enjoys jumping (up and down or place to place) and naming/playing with letters. As a 2-year-old, Arken alternates between very active jocularity- jumping from the couch and running around with a dart gun- to cuddling with his blanket and sucking his thumb like Linus does on Charlie Brown specials.

We continue to make our home on Saint Paul's east side. Our Swede Hollow neighbors have been especially helpful this season with snowblowers and trucks that pull broken-down cars out of snowbanks during blizzards. Incidentally, we have a new (used) car, also... Jenny has continued selling books at Barnes & Noble, heading women's Bible studies at church, and working on numerous creative projects throughout the year which decorate the house, invigorate our children's birthday parties or are just fun. I continue to redecorate Best Buy stores and travel a little. I look forward to our annual New Year's party next week and meeting the new year within the good company of my friends.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

More Blzzard Work

Our Blizzard

Arken Today

Arken's Birthday

Twins Field

As a Twins season ticket holder for the inaugural season at Target Field, I had a chance to see the new park during an open house. I got to sit in my seat, walk the perimeter and visit the exclusive clubs I won't want to pay for during the season.

Snow and Baseball

As it continues to snow here, we have turned to a few indoor activities to entertain ourselves. A few weeks ago, we celebrated Festivus (the Seinfeld-created festival which is easily improvised sometime in January) by eating a special meal and watching "A Princess Bride", which is one of the few movies just about everyone on earth enjoys; we were eager to show it to Idris.
We've made our way through the Lego Star Wars game, which is an excellent, EASY multi-player family game.
And Jenny and I used complimentary tickets to attend TwinsFest at the Metrodome last weekend. In pictures below, you can see the field surface converted to a memorabilia extravaganza (too busy w/ fans to be comfortable), Rollie Fingers and his famous mustache, and the place where the most expensive seats in the house have been torn out now that the Twins no longer play there.
As we were walking around, we saw a couple players, and actually passed Bill Smith. I was going to stop him and give him some opinions about how I think he should run the team, but he signed a new 2nd Baseman the next week even without my advice.

New Year

It is a brave new year and decade as I write this. Our annual New Years' party brought about 20 visitors to our home, and six of us ate breakfast at historic Mickeys' Diner downtown around 8 am. We've been doing a New Years party- or I have, at least- for 13 years now, and it has become quite a tradition for us. There are a few friends who I only see once all year when they come to our party, so I would certainly be missing something without it. In fact, it's hard to imagine welcoming the new year without it.
As always, my birthday follows closely behind, and I now have only one more year in my 20's!
Happy New Year everyone! Here are pictures of the end of the season: