North Dakota Pictures

I have taken some pictures lately of different things and wanted to share them.

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Life in North Dakota

It's been a while since I've posted anything about unique things we do in North Dakota so I thought I should do so now! As you know, Ian is playing hockey again this year. It's still with the Parks league but he's moved up a league so now he's playing actual games and even gets to travel for some of them! Yesterday was our first "away" game to Northwood, ND, and guess what?! Their rink is OUTSIDE!! We checked before leaving to make sure the game wasn't cancelled because the temp outside here was -1 (before wind chill)! It wasn't cancelled so we made sure we were bundled up and headed out! The sky was clear and it was beautiful out but BOY was it chilly! They paused the game every 6 minutes to let the boys go in to the "warming house". According to Brian, though, it was just out of the wind, not actually WARM! By the end of the game, the boys were ALL pink and Ian started crying in the car because his feet were finally thawing and it hurt. We told him he's a true NoDak now!

After the game, Josh asked if we could go to the Red Pepper - a local favorite. Since he was leaving the next day we decided to go (even though it really was out of the way). We went to the new one and it had some pretty neat items we got pictures of. Their "specialty" is the grinder sandwhich that Brian and Josh really like. Not exactly health food but it hit the spot!

SOOOO not funny!!!

I can't believe it, I just really can't! Yesterday was a beautiful day. Josh had Prom and we were able to get some outside pictures - the sun was shining it was in the 50's and it was so nice. Then, about an hour ago it started to ... you guessed it - SNOW!!!!! I thought even if it did snow there was no way it would stick - boy was I wrong! Just to show you the difference, I'm posting the "scrapbook" I made of Prom pics for Josh, then I'll post the pics I took today of the snow!

Here are a couple of pictures of the snow at our house!

Too crazy!!

Update and Cute Ellie

Well, life is getting a little more interesting here. Effors to fight the flood have stepped up quite a bit so there's a couple of extra hundred people that we're housing, feeding, etc. that are here to help out. Josh missed school the other day on an excused absence to go help sandbag. Brian's working long hours and will be working through the weekend. All activities have been cancelled/postponed until further notice. The gym that we normally go to every day is closed because it's one of the locations that's housing folks. And with the snow/cold there aren't a lot of options of getting out and getting the kids out. I'm considering going into town today just to get out of the house for a little bit and mix it up! Needless to say, please continue to pray for our communities here - people have already evacuated houses and there are houses in Fargo that have already been ruined. So, families are going to be in great need.

All of that said, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of Ellie from the last couple of days that I thought were pretty cute. This first one she was just being cute sitting in her rocking chair and "reading" the little book.

This next one is a picture of her with her very first lollipop. The only reason we let her have it is Ian was having one for dessert and had gotten it from a bag in my bathroom (not normally there just happened to have a couple there). A few minutes later, Ellie showed up at the table and had gotten the other one that had been there. So, we decided to reward her efforts! She enjoyed it but I don't plan to make it a habit for her!

This last one was taken the other day when we were having a blizzard. She can be found like this pretty frequently.
Yes, that's the cat's bed but for some reason, Ellie thinks it's hers. She'll sit in it, put her toys in it, put her doll in it for bed, etc. It's pretty cute.

Update on our weather

Well, we got a brief look at what spring in ND might look like and were lulled into believing it was really here, only to be back into winter weather that continues to come down!!! Having a bit of forethought, I took a couple of pictures yesterday to show you what it looked like...
This is the backyard yesterday - as you can see, the only snow really left was the big snow drift that had accumulated at our bird feeder.

This is our front porch - all of the snow was GONE!!! Amazing but true - also a reason the locals are concerned about flooding - it's all melting quickly!

So, after seeing what it looked like yesterday... here's what it looked like this morning!!!

As you can see, this is the backyard and all the snowdrifts are back where they were as if they never left! I just couldn't believe it!!

And, the front porch - the elephants are almost gone again!! CRAZY!!

All of that said, please be praying for our area. The president has issued a National State of Emergency for the Fargo area and now it's being moved up our way as well. Although we are pretty safe where we are, everyone who lives in town is uncertain what the next few days will hold and there's a lot of sandbagging happening to try and keep the flood from impacting everyone. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!!

Our Blizzard

Well, I'm sure most of you have heard but on Tuesday of this week, we experienced a bit of a blizzard! Although I am very much ready for spring, the blizzard proved to be an unexpected gift from God!! Our schedules have all been pretty crazy/busy and we just haven't had a lot of time together as a family...so the Lord provided a way for us to have just that! Although Brian went in to work for a couple of hours, he was home by 1pm and then we had the rest of the day together in our jammies!! We read together, played Uno together and just hung out. It was great!! Here is a picture of the blizzard happening outside:

Please note that this isn't as bad as it was at times - you couldn't even see the trees at times!!

Here's a picture of the blizzard in the house:

Cute story about this one. At one point I wasn't sure where Ellie was and she was being quiet (which usually means she's in her room getting her blankie and paci) so I was looking for her. And Ian said, "Aww, she's just looking outside the back door watching the snow." So, I went to see her and it turns out she wasn't just WATCHING the snow, she was playing with some that had made it inside our door!! She also enjoyed eating some of it. Pretty handy if you ask me, didn't have to get out in the cold to enjoy the snow!

Here's a picture of our front stoop the day after the storm. It took Brian quite a while to get it dug out and he had some help from a friend with a snow plow! Oh, and don't let the sun fool you - although it's BEAUTIFUL, we only got up to about -20 degrees!! You can see one of my elephants, but can you see the other?!

How we spent the day off

I love three day weekends! This time I was especially glad it was a three day weekend because we were so busy on Saturday that it felt like another day of the week so having Monday off just helped it to feel more like an actual weekend!

Monday morning I got up and went to a body sculpt aerobics class and when I got home Brian had made french toast for breakfast! Yum! Then, we finally opened a new Wii game my brother and his family sent us for Christmas. We were waiting until we were all together to play so it was finally the day! It's called Outdoor Adventure and it's a lot of fun plus physically demanding! So, after just doing aerobics I was starting to feel a bit wiped out and it wasn't even noon! Then, we decided that since we are experiencing a little bit of a heat wave right now with temperatures in the 20's it was the right time to finally do the sledding we've been talking about! After Ellie had her nap, we got bundled up and headed out to Turtle River (the same place we went for Ian's birthday back in August) that's only about 7 miles from our house - we'd heard there was a good sledding hill there. The only sleds we have are a metal disc one that was Brian's and a plastic one we got for Josh when we lived in Ohio so we weren't necessarily geared up sled wise but we were ready to have fun. It turns out the hill is quite a nice little hill and Ellie and I were the first ones to go down on the metal disc sled. We started from the top and as we were going down I had the thought of "I hope I didn't make the wrong choice going down with Ellie first without having done it myself!" We got a pretty good speed going and went over a few bumps that made us really bounce and I was so afraid I would lose her! BUT, I didn't lose her - just her boot and my hat! She said she wanted to do it again, though, so we went a few more times (not starting from as high up after the first run). After about the 4th time down she conveyed she was done so Brian took her to the warming house. I was very impressed that she did it and then wanted to do it again so she's got some guts! The boys had a good time, too, and of course the hardest part of sledding is going back UP the hill! Brian had taken a bad fall while ice skating with Ian on Sunday at the outdoor rink on base so he wasn't as interested in doing too much sledding but did finally do a run right before we left. I'd brought along hot chocolate so we all had a cup then did one more run and headed for home where I had a nice pot of chili waiting for us! What a perfect North Dakota day! Oh, and yes, I was hurting the next day after the aerobics, the Wii game and the sledding!

A note about the pictures - it turns out Ellie's hat is on backwards so that's why it looks a little awkward. The photo on the left is a picture of Ian going down the hill!

Update on our snow

Snow drift in front of our front window.

Front porch.

I took some more pictures the other day and thought I should share them with you so you can see our scenery! I took these from inside looking out. Haven't been brave enough to get out and take a picture of the drifts. In the back yard there are about 2-3 feet drifts. One of the things that we've enjoyed in being here are the snowshoe hares. This summer when we arrived I saw one out of the corner of my eye when we were out walking and said to Brian, "What in the world was that?" He hadn't seen it but then he finally saw it and was like I don't know? The things are HUGE!! We thought they were jackrabbits but it turns out they are snow shoe hares and now they are white so that's pretty cool. There are a couple of them that must live around our house because we see them quite frequently. I'm gonna have to try and get a picture some time. As I sit here and blog it's snowing more so the snow is only getting higher!!

Our North Dakota Weekend

Well, the cold has definitely come to us here in North Dakota and to top it all off, we were expecting the worst blizzard they'd seen in 10 years starting Saturday. And, wouldn't you know we had a ton of things going on Saturday! But let me back up a minute to Thursday and I'll go from there (and include pictures as I go)!

Brian and I were able to attend Josh's performance on Thursday thanks to a friend volunteering to come watch Ian and Ellie for us. We really enjoyed the show and seeing him get to be the lead! All the pictures I tried to take of just him came out blurry but this one of all of them during the play turned out okay - he's got a pretty serious face going!

Friday night Brian and I went to his squadron Christmas party. It was well done and we had a good time.

Here's the run-down of our Saturday: Josh had the ACT at 8am, Ian had dress rehearsals for the church's children's Christmas musical at 10am and hockey at 12:15pm. Josh then had the final performance of his play that evening at 7:30pm. We were able to accomplish everything on Saturday plus finally get a tree before heading home that afternoon! The wind was definitely starting to pick up but the roads were still fine. I wasn't crazy about Josh still having his performance that evening and Brian taking him but it worked out okay and they made it home fine. (In the picture Ian's the one on the left in the white helmet.)

In my mind, a blizzard is getting dumped on with a bunch of snow and not being able to go anywhere. It turns out that a blizzard must just mean the roads are not able to be traveled on due to visibility. Because it's so flat out here and the wind is so fierce, it kicks up all the snow that is on the ground and blows it around so hard that you aren't able to see in front of you. That's how Sunday was. We were in road condition red which meant we were only able to be on the roads if we had to be at work or something like that. So, we stayed in our jammies all day, decorated the tree we'd gotten, finished decorating our ginger bread house, watched movies, did our advent devotional and had a nice quiet day at home. What got canceled Sunday due to the weather was Ian's first piano recital and his Christmas musical at church. The musical is rescheduled to this Sunday but I don't know yet if his recital is being rescheduled.

Here's a picture of our house today and you can see the snow drifts in front of our windows! The sun's out and it's simply beautiful - even if the wind chill is supposed to be near -40 degrees!!!

Great White North

Well, I was beginning to think the saying "Great White North" was just a misnomer - until today! Don't get me wrong, it's been cold but today we are finally getting some of the white stuff to go with it. I took this picture about an hour ago (it's currently 3:50 central):
This I just took so you can see it's piling up quickly!

Our First Snow!!!

Yes, it's official we had our first snow this morning!! The wind was blowing like crazy last night - it was amazing to listen to - and we awoke this morning to snow blowing all around. What's weird about it is that yesterday was beautiful - I think we almost got to 60 degrees - so to wake up to snow was just amazing! It, obviously, didn't stick around but I was smart enough to get a couple of pictures before we left for church this morning since it was gone by the time we got home. Our temps only got up to about 36 today so much different than yesterday and the wind has been blowing like crazy all day! I was hoping it would at least wait until November 1 but according to all the locals it has been unseasonably warm for October so I guess I should be happy!! The other picture (not of our house) is the field across from our house.

Size in North Dakota

I have to tell about something we got a huge laugh out of the other night. We ended up going to this little diner our friends had told us about for dinner Monday night and the boys asked if they could have a cinnamon roll for dessert. Well, we originally thought about letting them get one and split it but they both complained about having to share so we decided to let them each get one thinking that we could all share two of them. Now, we made this decision having not actually seen them and thinking they were of normal human size. We should've remembered we're in North Dakota and portions seem a little bigger here. I saw the waitress coming with them and just burst out laughing because they were the biggest cinnamon rolls I think I've ever seen. So, of course, we had to get some pictures!!!

Needless to say we all shared one and took the other one home for another time!!

North Dakota Adventures

I keep thinking there are a few stories I want to share but they aren't specific to anything but then I realized they are some of our North Dakota adventures! So, I have a few of those I want to share now and I'll periodically share more as more come up.


The first adventure I want to share actually happened the day after we arrived here - the 4th of July! We were on our way home after the fireworks. We were on this stretch of open road (imagine that) that we believed was a speed limit of 70 the whole way. Well, after a little bit Brian starts to pull over to the side of the road and I was asking, "What's the matter?" and he says, "I think I'm being pulled over." I looked behind us and, sure enough, there were flashing lights coming from the car behind us. The officer came up to the window and says, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" To which Brian replies, "No, sir." He says, well you're doing 73 in a 55. Brian said, "Oh, we just arrived here yesterday and I thought it was 70." The officer says, "Well, there are these signs they're about "yay big" (using hand motions) - you'll see them if you're looking for them!" He ended up just giving us a warning but we still joke about the signs and our first and, hopefully, ONLY run-in with the local law enforcement!



The second adventure happened a few weeks ago. Brian is training to run a marathon in a couple of weeks in Ohio and because his knees started having issues the last time he tried to train he only does one big run a week. He was at the 16 mile run and he was getting all of his stuff together the night before when I asked him if he was going to take his phone with him and he said, "I wasn't really planning on it." I reminded him that he's always talking about safety and with as far as he was planning to go I felt like he should have his phone. So, although still reluctant he rearranged things so he would have it. He leaves EARLY to run before work and I sleep until my normal time. Well, the next morning I was awakened by the ring of the phone, answered it and heard the voice of my husband saying, "Joy, it's about to start storming, would you please come get me, I'm too far out to beat it home." So, I hopped in the car and went to rescue my husband from being struck by lightning. By the time I got close to where he said he was, it was POURING rain and lightning. I had slowed down to find him and finally saw him when he poked his head up from the ditch where he was croutched down. I finally got to be HIS hero (since he always seems to rescue me)!




Finally the last story I have to share isn't really much of a story it's just a point of interest. The boys got to go plow a wheat field a week ago. Brian has a lady that works for him who farms in the area and she invited us to join them on the combine. Well, it was later in the evening close to Ellie's bedtime so I stayed home while they went. They had a good time riding on the combine and thought it was pretty cool.