Alexander Ramsey House

On Friday we all went to tour the Alexander Ramsey house in St. Paul. Alexander Ramsey was the first governor of Minnesota and his home was donated directly to the Historical Society after the family passed away. It is still furnished with over 14,000 original artifacts. When you tour the house you are greeted by workers dressed in authentic 1800's clothing and since it is the holiday season the house was decorated as it would have been long ago. We even got to sample cookies baked in the wood burning stove.

After walking around the neighborhood, we loaded up and drove over to Minneapolis for some lunch. We found a great sub shop near the U of M and then drove through the older parts of the city before we headed home.

Jan's Thanksgiving Visit

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great week - our good friend Jan from Michigan came for a visit. Jan lived next door to us in Michigan for the 10 years that we were there and has been a part of the kid's lives since they were born. She is affectionately know as "JanJan" because Nate couldn't say Aunt Jan when he was little...we adopted her into our family and vice versa and decided that she's too young to be Grandma Jan - so she's our JanJan!

As you can see from the many pictures, we spent lots of time hanging out and playing games - especially the Wii. We got a new game this week and we all had a blast learning how to play and competing against each other. Even Natalie got into it - she played Mole Stomper and tried to do some boxing!

Early in the week Jan and I went out to Stillwater to check out the antique shops. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, so no pictures, even though it's a very quaint river town and we had a beautiful sunny day to explore. Definately a place to go back to - I know my parents would love it. We also did a little Christmas shopping and then on Wednesday Jan took the kids out for the afternoon and they saw a movie and ate waaaay too much popcorn. That night Sarah and I sang in a combined church choir for an Ecumenical Thanksgiving service. We had much to be thankful for this year - good health, great friends and many blessings. Steve's good friend Jim joined us for a very large turkey dinner on Thursday and we all sampled southern dressing (Kim's family's style) and Dutch stuffing made by Jan. Sarah helped make dessert this year - she peeled all the apples for apple pie and it turned out really good! We missed our family, but are very grateful for the good friends that shared the holiday with us.

The Fearless/Deerless Hunters are home

Steve, Nate and a few other guys headed up north for deercamp over the last couple of weekends.....this was Nate's first experience deer hunting....check back later for more details from him!

It was so cold! When me and my dad woke up every morning, it took at least 45 minutes just to get dressed! The only thing missing was the deer. When I saw the picture of the 8 point, I started laughing and laughing! That is pretty much it!

The day after they returned from hunting, I had the perfect opportunity in our backyard......

I emailed it to Steve who said I had a cruel sense of humor - Nate's comment was that they were hunting too far from home - the deer are all here! In the last week we've had that buck and 6 or 7 does in our yard.

Sarah saddles up!

Last weekend Sarah spent the afternoon at Bunker Stables. Her girl scout troup earned their horse badge by learning about taking care of the horses and how to ride. She got to practice brushing the horses, putting a saddle on and spent about an hour learning the correct way to ride on a horse named Lola. She has been asking to ride a horse all summer and has even tried to convince us that we have plenty of room to keep a horse in our yard! She had a lot of fun and is looking forward to going back for a trail ride. I took Natalie along when I dropped Sarah off and she got to see a horse "up close and personal" for the first time. As you can see, she loves to tag along with the big girls and so far they don't mind!