Christmablizzardpalooza 2009

We wanted a White Christmas, we got a White Christmas (and then some!). After years of having winter storms pass us by, we finally got one. After rain on December 23rd and Christmas Eve morning, it started sleeting during the afternoon of the 24th. It turned to snow during the early evening hours and the National Weather Service issued a Blizzard Warning. It kept snowing on and off through Sunday as the main part of the storm actually pulled a U-turn and came back at us from the north. I think we shoveled the driveway four times. How much snow did we get? Hard to say due to all of the blowing and drifting, but from what we shoveled, it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 to 16-inches throughout the weekend. This is the most snow that I've seen in the Kansas City area since I moved here in '89.

This was a familiar sight during the storm.

This may have been from Saturday. I kind of lost track of time with all of the shoveling.

And here's what the front of the house looks like now. We've got some pretty good mounds at the end of the driveway from removing what the street crews plowed.

Did we spend all of our time shoveling? Heck no! If there's snow on the ground, we're going to go sledding. There's a great hill at one of the parks in Lenexa that's never too crowded, it's easy to get to, and there's plenty of parking. We added another sled this year and it took Libby and I a while to figure out how to steer the thing.

Here's Libby after one of our runs (with Lori and Sara in the background).

And the other two members of the sledding team....

Bringing Home Some Hardware

We had our final game of this session of indoor soccer this morning. Our girls (The Inferno) were 6-1-1 going into today's game. The team that they were playing, The Blue Angels were 7-0-1. They beat our girls 6-1 in the first game of the season and tied our girls 3-3 a few weeks ago. Today was the championship game, or as Coach Steve put it, Super Bowl Saturday. Courtney and Libby were ready to go.

About 30 seconds into the game, Libby dumped a pass from the right corner into Kenna who was at the top of the box. Kenna put the ball in the back of the net. That was all we would need. The girls were up 4-0 at half, then completely flip-flopped positions with everyone who played offense in the first half switching to defense and vice-versa. We tacked on one more to make it a 5-0 victory for the Inferno. It was complete domination. Then, it was trophy time! Thanks to the coaches Don (in front), Tony (on the left) and Steve (on the right) for everything they've done for the girls this year.

Christmas Concert

Libby's been going to choir practice every Tuesday at 7:30 AM. One of their big events is the Holiday concert. Here she is after the concert with Zach, Tammy, and John.

Sara's 8!!

Sara turned 8 this year. Sara had her birthday party at Emerald City, which is a gymnastics place and a way cool play area with mazes, slides, swings and all kinds of other fun stuff. We were able to herd them into one spot for a few seconds and took a group shot.

After the few seconds were up, they took off for the climbing wall.

Then into the foam block pit. If they would have let me, I would have jumped in face first.

After an hour or so out in the play area, it was over to the party room for cake (we love cake!).

When we got home, there were packages on the front porch (we also love packages on the front porch!). Stuff from Aunt Barbara and Grandma Kathy and Papa Cory.

The Art Fair

Libby came home from school one day with a note from her art teacher saying that he had entered two of her works in the Shawnee Mission School District Art Fair. Needless to say, she was pretty excited (we were too!). Here she is with one of her two entries.

And her second entry. She was good enough to dress her surfer girl appropriately.

There was also face painting. Libby of course had to show her allegiance to Gus!

Falling Leaves and the Return of the Family

I put it off long enough since the weather was so good, the leaves weren't falling, but I finally had to rake leaves. Sandy had to get into the middle of things.

Sara couldn't let Sandy out-fun her.

And some exclusive video of Sara taking the big leap.

Sara keeps losing teeth. Here she is showing off her gap.

Once again, we had Mom & Dad and Karen & Steve (and their pack of dogs) in for Thanksgiving. Mom & Dad came in by train. Pretty cool. The girls put Mom & Dad through their paces while they were here. Sara got Mom to play video games for probably the first time in her life. Here she's 100 pin bowling on the Wii (I think Sara won the battle).

We also got to celebrate Dad's birthday. We decided against the one candle for each year thing. I don't think our insurance covered that situation.

The day after Thanksgiving was gorgeous (mid 60's, clear, and no wind). We all went to the Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum. If you're a history buff, it's a really cool place to visit. Very professionally done, with lots of cool artifacts. Here's the Liberty Memorial, with the entrance to the Museum below.

I told you there were cool artifacts. An actual French tank from World War I!!

And for a couple of extra bucks, you can take an elevator to the top of the Liberty Memorial and climb around on the outside observation deck. Not a bad view of Downtown. The building n the foreground is Union Station. The silver colored dome like structure is the Sprint Center (the Downtown arena).

Since Karen and Steve were here, we had to take the dogs to the dog park inside Shawnee Mission Park. 65 acres of open ground, woods, and of course access to the lake, all off-leash. Doggy nirvana. Sandy starts going nuts as we drive into the park. She knows that she'll be in the lake chasing sticks.

The October Surprise

After the cold start to the month, Indian Summer reared it's head for pretty much the rest of the month. Karen and Steve made a brief appearance this month as they stopped here in Lenexa on their aborted trip to the West Coast. They borrowed Steve's Dad's motor home but unfortunately it blew a brake line soon after arriving here, so they decided to turn back. We did get to celebrate Karen's birthday (although I won't say that she was born in 1970), and got to meet Miri, the newest addition to Karen and Steve's pack of dogs.

Here's the smoke clearing after Karen blew out way too many candles on the birthday cake.

And Miri acting tough with Steve.

Other than that, nothing too exciting. The girls had a blast on Halloween. They went out in a pack with the Johnsons and the McElroys. It was my turn to stay home and pass out candy, so Lori and the other Moms grabbed some beverages and wandered around the neighborhood.

Libby was an Indian, and Sara was a princess kitty.

Here's the pack on their way out the door. Courtney, Libby and Elizabeth in the back, and Natalie, Sara, and Adam in front.