Christmas Day

11:51- We are done opening gifts. It has been a wonderful morning. Everyone was so generous and the boys and I are crazy happy with the wonderful things we got.

Some hightlights from our family:

Samuel: DS Lite gaming system from Santa and Legos, legos, legos
Benjamin: Trucks, building toys, books, keyboard
Daddy: Santa brought him (us) a Wii. He also got a DVD burner- here come more awesome videos
Mommy: An ipod nano from daddy- WOW! A navigational system to be shared with daddy.

Santa brought us all fishing poles!

Thank you all for the awesome gifts. We truly love them. We wish you could be here to share with us.

A link to some Christmas pictures below.

Christmas Day 2007

8:00am- Everyone is up. Santa has come. They are savoring their stockings. Samuel is just like uncle Frank, taking FOREVER to look at the collectors cards he got in his stocking. Much more later. We are just getting started.

Christmas Eve Day

7:54pm-
The boys are in bed! Since our last post this is what we have done. We had our traditional fondue dinner, yummy! After cleaning up, we made some sugar cookies and the boys decorated gingerbread cookies for Santa. We lit our last Advent candle and read the Christmas story in Luke. Next was sprinkling our reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter) out on the lawn. Finally to our favorite tradition, the Christmas Eve book exchange. We concluded the evening by tracking Santa on Norad- he was in Novia Scotia. Now to straighten up the house, finish wrapping and get the gifts out. Good night!

Christmas Eve 2007- click on picture above for more pictures from the evening

3:42pm- home from church, getting the boys settled with a Christmas movie. Here is a family picture.

1:23pm (CST)- Spent the morning on the playground. That helped burn off some energy. Now we are off to church. Let the celebration begin!

9am

We will attempt to put up photos and brief descriptions of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day activities to keep you all posted. Kim will be doing most of the typing so don't look for too much clever stuff! Look for continued updates to this post. We will label a new one Christmas day for tomorrow.

Merry Christmas- We miss you all.

Jingle Bells 2007

Some video of the boys getting into the holiday spirit.

Click To Play

Click here for a larger version.

Enter the Matrix

Here is a little video I put together while goofing around with Adobe Premiere Elements and Photoshop.

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Click here for a larger version.

Schlitterbahn waterpark

Galveston now has a Schlitterbahn waterpark, which we have been meaning to try out for some time. We finally got around to it a few weeks ago, and it was worth the trip. Benjamin and Samuel went on all of the rides/slides with us. Benjamin even went down a pretty fast slide all by himself. Woohoo! It rained in the middle of the day for a short time, but stayed in the covered section of the park and waited it out. Next year -- season passes!

Garner State Park

Last month we made the trek across Texas and camped at Garner State Park. It's so popular that you have to make reservations a year in advance, and we found out why. There was so much to do. We hiked, biked, and played in the Frio River, which runs through the park. The river has a nice current, so you can float down it on tubes. We did this twice, and everyone had a great time. We also hiked the trails in the surrounding hills and "discovered" two small caves. Benjamin has been telling us every day since we got back that he wants to go camping again. We're already planning our reservations for next year.
I've posted some pictures of the trip here:

Garner State Park

And a few photos of us playing on the river here:

Frio River

Race Day video

Here is a video montage from this summer's visit to Cortland. There is a soundtrack, so make sure your speakers are on.

Swim Team highlights

This is my first new post in awhile.
Samuel has been participating in the local swim team. I have created a video with some highlights of the season. I'm having some trouble putting the video directly into the blog, but here is the link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4905891523770214824

Note that there is sound as well, so make sure your speakers are on.

Spiderman discovers the climbing wall

During the holiday break, Kim and Samuel discovered a local climbing center. Samuel was hesitant when we introduced the idea to him. When he got there, though, his eyes lit up. "I didn't know it was going to be like this!" Climbers can go up to the painted line without a rope, but must hook in to go any higher. Kim was on belay as Samuel went up the walls again and again. He even zipped around the overhang and all the way up to the ceiling. On the way home he was already planning his next trip.

Jingle Bells

Benjamin loves to sing. During this holiday season, he developed his own version of Jingle Bells. This was recorded a few weeks ago. He has augmented the song with additional lines since that time, but the essence remains the same.