Christmas Eve

Adam spend most of the morning snow blowing and shoveling. He decided to 'work from home' today. After some help by Gerrit, he went to Julie's so Adam could work and I could do last minute things before the festivities began. We ended up meeting friends for breakfast at Bridgett's, getting new cell phones, and Adam went skiing. (So much for getting any 'work done' today!) I put together the few things we needed to bring to our party and got in a quick little nap.

We were almost late for church and sat in the front row! Surprisingly, Gerrit did very well. It was a nice service and we sang a lot of the good 'ol Christmas hymns. After church we headed to Dahlen's for a gathering of friends. I realized I didn't take many pictures to capture the evening, but basically it was a few of the Team Beat families eating - what we do best (besides the guys biking!)

Top left: Logan home from college, Nathan holding Anders, and Dave - in front of the great spread of food we grazed on all evening. A few gifts were exchanged between the kids. Gerrit got 2 Lightening McQueen's (from the movie Cars) and was in heaven! He also got his first baby from Langley's (his godparents). He knew how to hold it (middle, bottom), feed it (top right) and Pam helped him change his clothes (bottom left). It was very sweet to see how much he knew about holding and feeding a baby. He preferred to feed it the juice instead of the milk! The bottom right is Gerrit drinking from a wine glass (full of sparkling juice!). I thought it was very risky to give him a real glass, but he used 2 hands and did well.

The Dahlen boys got Rock Band so the evening ended with listening to bad singing, poor guitar playing, and off-beat drumming. It was a late night but a lot of fun.

If we couldn't be with our 'real' family, this was the next best thing!

SNOW update: Most of the day the temps were around freezing so we didn't get near the snow they predicted. Not going to be fun to deal with the ice when it does get cold enough!

PS - Adam and I tried Leftse for the 1st time tonight. (A Minn./Scandinavian thing for you Michiganders who don't know what it is). We had it the "german way" (with sugar) and the "norwegian way" (with butter). It wasn't bad; nothing we'd go and snack on, but if it were served, we'd eat it!