Driving in Wyoming

...and the NEXT TIME the roads are bad, don't get the camera out while you are driving, cowboy!

William is an amazing ski dude. It makes his mother proud. It makes his mother SCARED.

Eric makes the whole family so happy!

Margaret the Brave

Before the Party

Four adults worked to make our house look beautiful for the faculty party last week.  Sean and I hung pictures and finished moving in, someone else occupied the children, while a fourth woman cleaned the house. The results were totally worth it. Sean thought we should probably take pictures for when we wanted to look at our clean house again....

Talking to Ineke on the phone before the party!

Sankt Nikolaustag in Wyoming

Lucky for us, he got our address change on time!

Breakfast with Santa

Laramie has an annual breakfast with Santa.  Pancakes and bacon, arts and crafts, and the opportunity to sit on Santa's lap and speak with him about your material desires. Margaret the brave was pushed ahead to first by her brother, William the hesitant.

William was prepared, and braver this year, however! He presented Santa with an offering, his best artwork, and told Santa what he wanted. Come to find out, this child has been praying to Santa morning and night for a HORRIBLE present which I will not mention here because I don't want the in-law Santas getting it for him.  It would seriously put me over the edge. (He wants a type of rodent.)

Even Eric sat on Santa's lap!

The children the worked very hard on a series of Christmas ornaments, most of which now adorn our tree.  The parental favorite award goes to William's series of bright yellow snowmen.  He just didn't understand why they made us giggle.

For Beeba, the Denver Zoo!

Andy and me, our husbands, and our FIVE children at the Denver zoo on the glorious day of her father's retirement from Tropical Discovery.

Things to do in Denver!

It was a beautiful warm day in Denver.  We went down to visit Andy and Gabe and family Thanksgiving weekend.  Andrea had the brilliant idea of bringing bikes so the kids could ride around.  Now that we live in America and have a jumbo-mobile, we were easily able to pack an extra few bicycles in our spacious and luxurious trunk.

Margaret excelled on the tricycle - on the way out.  For the way back, Sean had to rig up a trike-pull using his belt to drag her home.

Andy and Gabe live in this wonderland of things-to-do! At least, that's how it feels when you've been in Laramie, WY for a few months! Next stop was the butterfly pavillion.  Which had more than just butterflies!

We've SEEN butterflies! Let's play with tarantulas!

And gigantic cockroaches!

Thanksgiving in the Wild West

This is what a Thanksgiving turkey in Wyoming looks like.  Notice the bucking bronco brand.

We celebrated this year with a lovely family from Hamburg-via-Iowa.

And two men from Camaroon.

...and Eric had his first mashed sweet potato, mashed turkey, and mashed corn dinner.

The lego-inventions keep getting more complicated.

William wanted me to take a picture of this one so he could reconstruct it later.

Family Ski

We got some used downhill and crosscountry skis for the kids, so this afternoon we decided to practice in the front yard and in the park across the street. There was a lot of falling over, a lot of replacing mittens, and some moments of lying on the back, refusing to go on.  Glad the skis were inexpensive, and glad we didn't have to go far to practice today.

Local Headlines

Here are all four headlines from the front page of today's local newspaper, which is called the "Boomerang", by the way...

1. "Federal Judge Asked to End Yellowstone Bison Kills"
2. "Wyoming Makes Argument for Managing Wolves"
3. "Former Student Convicted for Threatening Others" (with a knife)
4. "Suspect's Vehicle Runs Out of Gas"

Witch!

Happy Halloween!

Spidermaenner

Reindeer Cookies?

Marga read about these delightful reindeer cookies you could make in her magazine.  She begged me to go to the store and "buy 'greedients" until Sean relented. He went to the store.  I organized the activity.  The cookies did not turn out exactly like the picture...







Sean's cookie...













Uncle Matt...














Most disturbingly, Margaret's.












Cookies! Heidi made beautiful ones.  William did a good job.  Mine were sort of okay.  They all tasted GREAT! Happy prolonged pre-Christmas!

What the heck is wrong with my layout!? I'll fix it later....drH.

Hiking!

Sean and I decided that it was time to take the whole gang out on a hike.  We made it about 15 minutes and had to stop for snack. Note how windy it is up there!

View of the Snowies - I keep giving myself away as a foreigner because I can't stop calling them the "Smokies".

Margaret does the dishes.

Better Home Than Garden...

For those of you who have been asking what our place looks like, here are some pictures.  I ran around taking pictures immediately after cleaning, so rest assured it does not really look like this today or any other day! The garden is still a dirt pit...we're saving that project for spring (see blog post titled "Early October").

Kitchen.Living room with sweet children doing homework together. (30 seconds)

Shrine to the Bodensee.Fireplace.  Looks pretty!! Doesn't work!And there's your tour!