We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful Winter Break (assuming that applies to you!) Everyone has left the Alyn Family residence and we’re back to school today – just in time for the temperature to get really cold! Over break we visited, ate, laughed, Xavier made some funny faces and we all made some art. We had a really great time!

For those who aren’t aware, the images on Flickr are marked as “Copyright” so people don’t use them in magazines etc, but you can still get the high resolution photos. Click on the photo page on Flickr and then in the top right it says “View all sizes.” For the photo above, it will open the photo in a window with a listing of different available sizes, including “original.” You can open that version and save as you normally would. That’s the highest resolution available. The first photo of the boys above is one we took a few weeks ago using a fancy schmancy 50mm f/1.4 lens I rented.

This last weekend marked the end of the 2009-2010 pack year with the annual graduation. This year, cub master Carl mixed it up a little and organized a great pack overnighter in a state park near Spring Valley, MN not far from the root river. A good time was had by all.

More photos on Flickr

The video may not be available until Saturday early morning, so if it says it doesn’t work, just check back later.

Today was certainly a full day for everyone in the Alyn household. Erik turned 10 today and Xavier attended Erik’s party as well as Alex’s (from his pre-school). Everything came off as planned and a good time was had by all. To see the rest of the photos, be sure to check out the Flickr set or just see them all after the jump.

Okay, perhaps breaking out is an exaggeration, but he’s on there! Sit back and enjoy the first episode of The Peter Show the boy’s snow day project.

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!

We took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters after a successful elementary school game that featured the staff vs. 5th graders. Both games were a lot of fun although Oskar was frustrated the Globetrotters spent so much time talking instead of playing the game. Xavier seemed to enjoy it… or at least he enjoyed the candy .

Gretchen had a birthday which Oskar and Xavier made a cake and pinata for. The effort spanned a few days but was enjoyed by all. The cake had a slightly deformed shape after sticking to the baking pan, but we shoved it back together and hid the seams with frosting and it tasted just fine!

Oskar also joined Cub Scouts and attended his first Den meeting this past Tuesday. He’ll be joining the Wolf Pack officially in mid May but will participate with the Tigers now. I’m not sure how much fun he’s having yet, but I’m having a blast. So much so that I started a little campfire with the boys in the back yard this evening. Next time we’ll have marshmallows.

Gretchen has also instituted Friday night Pizza night featuring some most excellent home made Pizza that she’s been making. Gretchen and Oskar have also been working hard at Montessori work. Oskar is working hard as a first time pupil for Gretchen as she masters the materials.

Both of the boys are recovering from cases of pink eye and everyone is being hit hard by the seasonal allergies.

Last but not least, I opened my homebrew that I made WAY WAY WAY back in January for the first time. Despite being heavily over carbonated it tastes pretty good. It takes a couple of minutes for the head to go back to liquid though Next time – I’ll move it to the lagering shelves much sooner.