Merry White Christmas (Part 1)

Sometimes I overwhelm myself by taking too many pictures

(imagine that)

and then no matter how hard I try, I just can't blog it

(but I really want to)

This is the case with our Christmas with the Coe's in Minnesota --

It was so much fun that I reeeeally want it in my family journal (blog)

but it's sooo hard

(whine whine whine)

Almost as hard as it was for us to GET to Minneapolis.

On the first leg of our journey (Los Angeles to Denver), 

a little girl a few rows in front of us fell asleep, and then aspirated her gum.  

By the time her mom realized what had happened, it had been a while.

They had a very hard time reviving her, and her lung had collapsed, 

so the plane turned around and flew back to Las Vegas to get her to a hospital.  

It was so sad, and kinda frightening, but luckily there were several very calm nurses on board

who did a great job with her.

(and a not-so-calm steward with fancy frosted hairdo - who said some really weird things)

Me? - I just stayed in my seat and prayed hard that she would

just. start. breathing.

(I sure hope she's ok now)

They held our connecting flight in Denver for us,

and we were exceedingly grateful for reason explained below.

OK, Back to the Fun Stuff!

Two cute little vikings welcomed us :-)

Then they ran out the first door they could find 

to dance in the snow

while Dave rented a car
(Kenzie flew straight from Idaho after her finals were done a day later)

It was 15 degrees BELOW zero 

Mike

 (wonderful nephew and director/planner of all things fun)

had reserved a whole hockey rink for some fun the night we arrived

(if we had missed our connection,

or if our bags full of skates & hockey gear had missed their connection,

we would have missed an awesome night of skating)

From 9 'til after midnight, we skated!

& manned the announcers booth

and the naughtier ones ended up in the penalty box

and yes, i skated a little too (thanks, laurie,  for the skates!) 

but I didn't take any pics of myself

but I did get this one of Abbie in the stinkiest locker room I have ever visited

Snow removal was high on the list of fun activities for Porter

(and there was no shortage of snow to remove)

(I'm not gonna mention about the part where he ran over some snow-buried gravel 

and sent it flying dangerously close the gramma's front window . . . )

Dave could even remember how to shovel the driveway :-)

Porter does a thorough job on grandma's car...

Abbie & Kenzie

It was snowing lots at Uncle Doug & Aunt Laurie's house, 

but Mike and the kids were undaunted 

and gave each other rides on the sled

(but not until Mike had frozen his fingers off getting everything set up) 

Then, when you thought it couldn't get any better,

Mike got out some more stuff to play with at Uncle Doug's house!

oh - there's so much more

to be continued ;-)