Archive for the ‘Holiday’ Category
Monday, January 5th, 2009
We’ve just returned from a wonderful week in Florida with Gretchen’s siblings. Rachel and Kevin generously donated a week at their timeshare in Ft. Lauderdale to celebrate Patty’s 29th birthday. The accomodations were wonderful and a good time was had by all. While we were there, we checked out the Young at Art, The Everglades, the beach near the Ft. Lauderdale fishing pier, Butterfly World and the Museum of Discovery and Science. We also spent some time just hanging out by the pool, playing mini-golf and other activities right at the hotel.
The trip back was an adventure when our connecting flight in Atlanta departed for home without us on it! Delta put us up for the night and we made it home safely Monday morning. See a collection of 60 photos from our adventure.
Tags: Family, florida, new year, vacation
Posted in Family, Holiday, Travel | No Comments »
Saturday, December 27th, 2008
For those who may not have heard, Erik is spending some time with us while Pammy recovers from a surgery she underwent on the 22nd. She’s recovering nicely and Erik’s doing okay being here with Oskar and Xavier. The Alyn Family spent Christmas in Minnesota this year. We were also fortunate to have a white Christmas again.
Gretchen made the annual gingerbread houses, this year adding stained glass windows. The current thinking for next year is to create one larger house and let everyone collaborate on it. The kids had a great time decorating these houses, and eating candy too. Oskar’s friend Aounghus came up and decorated one as well. Xavier decided after a while that he was done working on his, so Egg took over and did some decorating where he felt the house was untouched. You can see a collection of the photos here that include the finished houses.
Christmas morning, the bigger boys were up at 4am to start in on their stockings. After eating most of a chocolate treat they were sent back to bed. Of course they had a hard time sleeping after that. Xavier finally kicked everything off at around 6:30am and our day began. Everyone had a great time opening presents and Xavier finished around dinner time while the other two were done much earlier. More pictures from Christmas day are online here. This year, Xavier received his own Pikachu plush toy like Oskar’s which Xavier immediately turned around and gave to Oskar. Gretchen and I were awestruck at his unselfish action towards his brother. The remainder of the day was filled with Bakugan, Legos, Radio controlled things and art supplies.
The day after Christmas seemed like a good time to get out of the house and so we headed to the Science Museum of Minnesota. The traveling exhibit of CSI is scheduled to leave on January 4 and so Gretchen smartly got us there. We watched the Mysteries of the Great Lakes IMAX and had lunch too. Egg was pretty excited to see the Seismophone and the CSI exhibit as evidenced by the photos he took. Photos from our day are here. We all solved case #3 successfully and enjoyed exploring the dinosaur, weather, light and myriad of other great exhibits the museum has.
Hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas too!
Tags: christmas, egg, Erik, gretchen, oskar, xavier
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Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
After a 7 day fermentation in the basement, which was a few degrees too cold for the yeast, I moved it into the kitchen and it’s coming along nicely — definitely a good move. The MrBeer kit was a present from Kathy; Kevin, Steve, Chris and I all worked on this first batch together on Christmas. It’s been fermenting for 9 days now and I think in another 2-3 days it should be ready for bottling. I tested it just now and it has a nice yeast smell and is losing the sweetness it had when I decided to move it upstairs. It’s a little sharp on the tongue but it’s still not done, I’ll taste it before I bottle it and let you know how it is. It has a very nice amber color and should make a good pale ale judging from the color and smell at this point.
Tags: beer, chris, egg, homebrew, kathy, kevin, Steve
Posted in Drink, Holiday | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
They boy’s were up bright and early this morning waiting to open presents. Gretchen gave them a bath and we’ve done stockings already, waiting for everyone to wake up and arrive. More pictures sure to follow later. They’re eating chocolate now getting a good head of stream for the unwrapping.Merry Christmas!
Tags: christmas, oskar, presents, tree, xavier
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
As a follow-up to the original Gretchen Bakes post, we’ve been assembling and decorating Gingerbread houses this morning. Assembly began bright and early (along with some sampling of the candy) and wrapped up a little bit ago. Oskar worked very hard to decorate the “yard” of his house, while Xavier and I worked on a mix of the “yard” and the “house”. Gretchen did the major construction efforts of the three houses making them take shape. We still have one blank slate to go. (more…)
Tags: candy, egg, ginger bread, gretchen, house, oskar, xavier
Posted in Family, Food, Holiday, Kids | No Comments »
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Today Gretchen spent the better part of the afternoon making Gingerbread house pieces so that tomorrow the grand assembly can begin. She has made 3 amazing looking blank sets of house pieces ready to become the master pieces of young hands. She also made a really great batch of toffee too!
Tags: cooking, gingerbread, gretchen, toffee, yum
Posted in Family, Food, Holiday | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
We’re in West Dundee, IL with Patty for the holiday this year. The kids started the day with a little time playing Nintendo while Patty and Gretchen make lunch. The Turkey is over at our old house cooking away so we’ve got space for Ham and all the sides here. Chris and JP are supposed to join us later today for the big meal.
Tags: nintendo, oskar, patty, thanksgiving, xavier
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Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
So the boys were Mario and Luigi (as previously mentioned) and they had a great time trick or treating around the block. Lucky for us, it was a reasonable amount of candy. Enjoy the costumes from Sunday’s neighborhood parade and the post halloween sugar high. Cheers!
(more…)
Tags: costumes, halloween, Holiday, oskar, photos, xavier
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Saturday, October 27th, 2007
Oskar and Xavier have selected their Halloween costumes. Mario and Luigi from Super Mario brothers. Since Luigi is a little taller (and a little thinner) Oskar will be Luigi and Xavier will be Mario. Oskar has also decided that I’ll be question mark blocks so that he and Xavier can hit me! Gretchen has been actively sewing up blue overalls and the rest of the costume for the boys. We’ll be sure to snap some photos of everyone in costume.
Tags: halloween, nintendo, oskar, xavier
Posted in Family, Holiday | No Comments »
