In Washington

Christmas Eve, and we're in Seattle.  Bothell, actually.  We're staying with Nelson's parents and visiting with family and friends.  We'll be here until December 31st.  It was blizzarding yesterday in the Twin Cities, so we're missing some excitement back in Minnesota.  We're enjoying the warmer climate in Seattle - though, with all the rain, we still spend most of our time indoors.  Merry Christmas.

Vikings Warriors of the Swedish Institute

Actual footage from yesterday's trip to the Swedish Institute. Warning: For Mature Audiences Only.

Swedish Institute

We went to the Swedish Institute yesterday.  They have a very nice display of all things Scandinavian inside.  

Inside, we encountered some Viking warriors:

Self-Portraits

We're just clowning around.

Christmas Wish Lists

If you're family and you're wondering about Christmas gifts for the
kids, you can view the wist lists here:

Aimee
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html?

ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=3RAYCU0P3LTH

Holden
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3VCUGFFBBAESR/

ref=cm_wl_rlist_go

Grace
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3UIZ5N1FOFI8R/

ref=cm_wl_rlist_go

For all others, you can make out your generous Christmas checks of
$10,000 to Nelson. Please don't send cash for this amount - and do
not put Aimee's name on the checks. We prefer undesignated gifts,
but if you must designate the gifts (i.e. to be used for Travel,
etc.) it is our policy to do our best to honor the intent of the giver.

Merry Christmas.

How the View has Changed

The view from our apartment in October has changed from green to white.

Wine and Cheese Party

Last night we hosted a little wine & cheese party with our Seminarian friends.  Much wine was tasted and large quantities of cheese were consumed.


A collection of tow heads: Here are all the seminary kids piled in the guest room watching Mickey Mouse on DVD, while the adults talk, eat, and taste wine - Johannes, Andreas, Tovah, Grace & Toby.

Sophie (6 days old) was also in attendance.


Proof that adults were present (since mostly I took photos of the children. Funny how that works.)

Tovah & Sophia; and Astrid and Johannes (our Norwegian friends staying in the U.S. for a year)

The older children followed their collective muses and created this modern art sculpture out of toys.

Grace & Tovah, partying late into the night.

Angel on the Tree

Here's Grace putting the angel on the tree. Or, alternately, Grace pretending to put the angel on the tree since we forgot to take pictures until after the tree was decorated.

Ho Ho Ho

Another Flood Photo

Another photo from the Woodinville, WA flood.  It's simply amazing.

NW Storm

The big NW storm that hit a couple days ago is about to heap some snow upon us here in the Twin Cities. Here's a picture I found on the SeattleTimes website - taken in Woodinville, a 1/2 mile from my parent's house, not far from where I used to catch the bus last summer. I was a little shocked at this picture. I have never seen water in this intersection like this. I hope everyone is okay.

Photo: STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The Giraffe went over the mountain

The Giraffe went over the mountain
The Giraffe went over the mountain
The Giraffe went over the mountain
To see what he could see.

Scenes from the snow

It's still snowing - we've got lots of inches. Grace has been out to play in the snow twice - this picture was taken after an hour of cold (wind-chill of negative seven degrees.) Note the rosy cheeks, forlorn expression, and the look in the eyes saying, "Daddy, hurry up and take the *&** picture because I'm cold."




Here's a video of some fun in the snow:

Snow

I see Seattle is getting some snow today. We're getting our first
significant snowfall today, too. We expect to get around a foot of
snow today. All the children in the family housing spent the first
part of the morning with their faces pressed against their apartment
windows, watching it snow, begging their parents to go outside. By
mid-morning we parents each gave in, and were all outside. With the
wind-chill it feels like it's subzero, so the smaller children didn't
last long.

Five Degrees

I got up this morning and noticed the windows were frosty.  I checked the weather: five degrees!  That’s our first serious blast of frigid air here in Minnesota.  It was only two days ago that it was warmer here than Seattle.  Maybe some snow tomorrow.  Winter is starting to assert himself.

 

Nelson

 

Eric's In Town

Nelson's brother, Eric, is in town over Thanksgiving weekend. Here's a photo of Eric & Holden & Eric's girlfriend Anne, in the background (thinking that she's not in the picture).

Josh's Birthday

We went to our friend Josh's birthday party on Saturday morning. Here's the whole gang. (This photo also doubles as proof that we have some friends.)


And then here's the four of us. If you look closely as the smiley girl, you might notice that she's missing a front tooth. She's immensely proud of her first tooth falling out. She tells everyone - family, friends, cashiers, people who stop next to us on the sidewalk.

Nov 18 2007 Video

Here's a few quick video shots of the family relaxing in the living room.

Last Drawing

Grace has been going to drawing class after school on Wednesdays. This is her last drawing from her last class:

Friends in Proximity

One of Grace's favorite friends has just moved to the 3-bedroom apartment below us today.  As we slide into the cold months, this newfound proximity will hopefully give her lots of time to play.  Before, we had to walk down the stairs and allllllll the way to their apartment, about fifty yards away.  Thankfully, we're now spared that exertion.

Birthday Gift, Part II

Friday night was the 2nd night of my birthday gift from Aimee - a wine tasting class at the neighborhood wineshop.  The theme was Thanksgiving food paired with a variety of wines.  We sampled a Dry Riesling, Chardonnay, Beaujolais, Shiraz, Cherry Lambic (a beer made by spontaneous fermentation, which sounds sort of like spontaneous combustion), and Cream Sherry.  The foods we paired with the wines were a corn  pudding, butternut squash risotto, beer-brined turkey breast, cranberry sauce, cranberry & onion confit, and pumpkin gooey butter cakes.  All the wines tasted great with all the food, which surprised the teacher, who was hoping for at least one bad pairing.  The Cherry Lambic was eye-opening - it was unexpectedly delicious and perfect with cranberries.  And the Cream Sherry paired with the pumpkin cakes was a wonderful dessert combination.

Conceptualizing Art

While we were unpacking the other day, Grace gathered a bunch of the things we took out of boxes and made this arrangement on our couch. We're not quite sure what it was supposed to mean. Some sort of postmodern conceptual art confabulation - probably deconstructing her parent's tendencies to pile stuff on couches. I really admire her juxtaposition of negative space.

An Early Christmas

We're slowly unpacking our belongings, a few boxes at a time. I purposefullly unpack the toys slowly so that Grace & Holden have an extended early Christmas rediscovering old toys. They were both pleased to find the alligator music machine:

Those Amazing Animals - Public Vs. Private

I inadvertently set the viewing settings to "private" instead of "public" on the "Those Amazing Animals" video. So if you haven't been able to view it, and you most likely haven't, try it again now.

http://aimeeandnelson.blogspot.com/2007/11/those-amazing-animals.html

A Clamoring From the Masses

There has been a clamoring from the masses for some photos of where we live. (Alright, the clamoring consists of two request.)

The lawn between the two rows of apartments is where families congregate, children play, and men do manly things: grill meat.


The window at the top of the apartments is ours. A 3rd floor penthouse.


The view from that window is across the parking lot. That building is Sandgren, which is family apartments and also the WeeCare program, where Grace attends daycare.


Walk to the other side of Sandgren, and you find this nifty playground. The building on the right behind it is LSS, where Nelson works. The path on the left (behind the basketball court) leads up to Luther Seminary.



Walk up the path and you'll eventually find a building or two where Aimee attends some classes:


Keep Walking and you'll find the corner where we hang out on Saturday or Sunday mornings, and any other time we can make it. This is the Finnish Bistro and Dunn Brothers coffee shop.

Those Amazing Animals

Grace and Holden like pretending to be the same kind of animal. Well, mostly Grace likes it - Holden is just along for the ride...



Trouble viewing this? Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vj479NEZ2w&e to view it.

I Still Don't Care

After arriving home from a shopping trip, upon discovery that Grace
had spilled her chocolate milk on her new clothes:

Aimee: "Grace, chocolate milk doesn't come out of clothes. You
spilled it on two of your new clothes!"
Grace, after considering for a moment the implications of the spilled
milk: "I still don't care."

Remembering Halloween

In my discussions with parents today, I uncovered a problem with how
we remember Halloween. The parents all have fond memories of the
childhood romance of dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating
through the neighborhood. The problem is, none of the parents
remember what happened after they returned home. They drove their
own parents crazy while drunk on sugar.

Last night, after the trick-or-treating was complete, all the parents
returned to their cozy apartments with their children hopped on
sugar, and wondered, "What was it about this holiday that I was so
excited about again?"

Cracking the Parental System of Encryption

Like all parents, we spell words when we don't want Grace to understand what we're talking about. It has always flied over her head. But since she is studying her letters at kindergarten, she's drawing associations now. Yesterday when I spelled a word out loud, Grace was indignant. "I can't understand what you're saying when you spell it," she complained. So our system of encryption is going to collapse; the writing is on the wall. Grace is now aware that her parents employ subterfuge, and she will soon unlock the secrets of spelling. And of course we can't come up with another system, since Grace is a language sponge and learns language much faster than we do.

Tigger and Tiger

Halloween is just another excuse for cute photos. Here's Tigger and Tiger. Tigger is feeling sick and not very smiley these days, so this is about the best smile he can muster.



Tigger and Tiger went trick-or-treating through the seminary apartments, up and down flights of stairs until Aimee cried "uncle." They met up with some of the other families and they all went together in one large pack of adults and miscellaneous animals.

Happy Halloween

(Pictures taken at Zoo Boo at the Como Park Zoo.)

This One's for Eric

I'm not sure where Aimee and I went wrong in our parenting (there are many possibilities), but regardless, I'm disappointed to say that Grace has joined the Empire:

Learning Her Letters

Grace is learning her letters in Kindergarten. She also loves drawing - here's a sample of her latest work, "Portrait of a P":

The Struggling Leaves of Autumn

As we walked to the coffee shop on this sunny Autumn morning, Grace got very excited and shouted, "Daddy - look! Those leaves are going to fall." And sure enough, it looked exactly like the leaves were struggling to free themselves from the tree like caterpillars from a cocoon.

It's Moving Time

For a temporary few days, we have 3 apartments (the new apartment, the one we're moving out of, and the apartment where most of our stuff is sitting in boxes). I think that must be an unofficial Luther Seminary Housing record.

Pastor Jami is visiting and staying with us for a wedding. Two other friends are visiting Luther Seminary this weekend, too. All together there are 13 members of Gift of Grace in the Twin Cities this weekend, so we're just going to call it Gift of Grace East.

Apartment Update

We just got word that our apartment is going to be ready on Friday, October 26.  Pastor Jami is in town this weekend for a wedding, and he is staying with us, so this is good timing.  It would be awkward with him joining all of us in the family bed.

 

Nelson

 

Weekend Highlights

Here is some footage I took yesterday and today of the kids.

Apple Jack Orchards

Whereas in Washington we went on an annual pilgrimage to the Pumpkin Patch, in Minnesota we pilgrimaged instead to an Apple Orchard.



We sat Holden down on an Alaska-sized pumpkin.


Grace joined him.


And then Aimee had to join in the fun.


Here is Grace on the cow-ride, in a string of cow cars being towed by a tractor.


We had a fun afternoon wandering in apple orchards, eating, walking the corn maze, petting farm animals; and to dispel anyone's illusions of an idyllic family after all these cute photos, since we returned to our apartment we have been rewarded with nonstop whining and complaining.

Tuesday

From the Onion's lead story today: "Tuesday's arrival stunned a nation still recovering from Monday's nightmarish slog, leaving some to wonder if the week was ever going to end."

So --- Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Scenes from the Weekend

Aimee was studying for much of the weekend. We still managed to get some pizza and some mediterranean food as a family. The rest of the weekend, the kids were with Dad at home and visiting the Como park and zoo:

A short story by Grace and Aimee...

"A pig escaped from its cage. The pig's farmer came running and
said, "Where is that pig?" Back in the cage the piglets cried and
cried. They were hungry for mother's milk and their eyes were
dripping down and the horse comes wailing, "Stop!" The farmer's blue-
eyed daughter gently cradled the piglets in her tender embrace. His
other daughter carefully had a ride on a horse out of the cage.
Resentful and regretful, the sow returned to raise her brood."

Late thirties

Today, I have finally stepped out from the latter stages of my mid-
thirties into the early stages of my late-thirties. As to my exact
age, simply multiply 984 by four and divide by two, then subtract the
result from the current year.

Thank you for the warm birthday wishes from each of you.

Apartment Update: November

We will not be moving into our apartment until early November.  Seminary maintenance would like to do some significant work on the apartment, including turning the second kitchen into a closet area.  Since we’ve waited this long, we can wait a little longer.  So we wait and wonder: what is in all those packed boxes that we have been living without for a couple months now?

 

It's Summer in Central MN

That is not technically true, of course.  It’s October.  But in Saint Paul we have seen heat in the 80’s and high humidity for the last few days: shorts and t-shirts weather.  The sort of weather that makes you retreat to air conditioning.  Everyone assures us that it will be cold soon.

 

Nelson

 

Karate Lessons Give Child Self-Confidence To Quit Karate

On second thought, maybe enrolling Grace in Karate Lessons wasn't
such a great idea after all.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/karate_lessons_give_child_self

Grace in Karate/ Self-Defense Class

The poor karate instructor attempting to teach children some basic karate moves and self-defense skills, while at the same time attempting to teach them how to listen and instill a modicum of discipline.

Apartment Update

Our apartment will be available to Luther Seminary Maintenance this
coming week. After maintenance figures out what needs to be done and
then finishes their work (repairs, perhaps new carpeting), we'll be
able to move in. So hopefully mid-October we'll be at our final
destination.

Photos from LaCrosse/LaCrescent

We enjoyed a peaceful visit to LaCrescent. The tomatoes are coming in fast and furious:


Uncle Bill and I took a trip across the Mississippi to the LaCrosse children's museum and spent almost 5 hours there.





See more pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nappell/September2007