Holiday Trip Home

Troy and I just returned from a road trip to Minnesota for the holidays. I'm really glad we have the job flexibility to travel for a longer time period when we want to. Our trip was action-packed, as usual. We mostly visited with our families. Somehow, even after living away for all of these years, it's getting harder and not easier to be far away from them.

Some trip highlights:
 
-Bentleyville with my sis and her family immediately upon our arrival in Duluth (after a 11 hour day of driving). It was so sweet to see my nieces and how excited they were about the Christmas lights.

Ethan and Ria roasting marshmallows

-Getting time with family--especially with our nieces and nephews. They are growing so fast!

Auntie Lissa with Ria, Taylor and Amelia

Maks

Troy's brother Casey and his boy Jack

My sisters and nieces

Grandpa and Grandma with the girls

Grandpa Rick with Taylor

-The Rogers family get-together. We saw lots of folks we might not have gotten to see otherwise. Also, when I mentioned that I don't really drink hard liquor anymore, Troy's mom insisted that I do a shot with her. Ha!

Me and Angie

Troy with his uncles and dad

The Rogers clan

-Staying with Matt and Eryn in Chicago on the way back. They are such incredible hosts. They always have a variety of great activities and restaurant options planned for us. We laughed a lot and enjoyed some great food and pie together.

-There wasn't much snow in MN but we managed to get two cross-country ski outings: one with our good friend Sarah and one with my dad.

-Annual wine and cheese party at my mom's with close friends. Always lots of fun!

More pics are on my Flickr page

Over a month of Minnesota

Obviously, I've been terrible about keeping up with the blog. So many things have happened in the last month and more!

Our time in Minnesota was incredibly busy--mostly with good things. It was challenging to balance our work, BradFest organizing and visiting, but we worked hard at it.

BradFest was rained on both days but we still managed to raise some money and had a great time. Our efforts were recognized this year by the Two Harbors mayor, which was very exciting.

The mayor of Two Harbors with the BradFest organizers and Brad's parents.

 After BradFest, Troy brought the robots down to Minneapolis. Our friend Aaron designed EMMI's new logo. In exchange, he was promised a private robot concert. Aaron organized a nice, intimate gathering of his friends (and ours). It was nice to see so many music robot enthusiasts. Troy's composition professor, Scott Miller, showed up to jam with the robots, as did an old friend, Jeff Vigness.

We got to visit with many old friends and later went out on the town. Minneapolis is really a great city. I realize that more and more each time I return. One very unfortunate thing happened that night though. My camera was stolen (along with my cell phone). As you know, I love taking photos. And I loved my camera. I'm a bit heartbroken but found what I think will be a suitable replacement finally this week on Craigslist. I'm anxious to play around with it.

Some of the other major MN events:

I spent some time with my mom, aunt and cousins at my grandpa's cabin. My sister came up one day with the girls too. We realized we had 6 sets of sisters there at once! Pretty special.

Maddie, Barb, Val, mom and me

 I helped to throw a small baby shower for my sister. 

Suzi with Taylor, Marty, Heather, Laura, me and mom

Laura and Taylor

Nieces Ria and Amelia

Laura, Ria, me and mom

Troy's mom retired from teaching nursing. We were happy to be there for her surprise party. Unfortunately, I have no pics of that since my camera was gone at that point. :(

We had a fun game night at the Rogers with our friend Steve (who drove up all the way from Charlottesville for BradFest). I never realized how good Troy's mom was at beanbags! And has anyone ever heard of moose balls? It sounds weird but it's a pretty fun game!

My brother and sister both came home for a nice family dinner. It's a rare opportunity for all of us to be together.

Patrick and Jackson (his girlfriend's son, a sweetheart, who I met for the first time)

Family

Ria eating her favorite food. She went through 3 half cobs and was demanding more.  She didn't want to eat anything else!

Chowing down on the deck.

Towards the end of our stay, Troy and I were thrilled to get one night away to ourselves in nature. We went camping at Fenske Lake again. It was an incredible 24 hours. We had perfect weather. We went canoeing and swimming. We cooked delicious steaks over an open fire. We fell asleep listening to loons and wolves. It was just what we needed. I borrowed my mom's camera to take some shots, but it's hard to do this beautiful MN scenery justice.

I love my nieces to pieces!

We're back in Minnesota for a month or so to organize BradFest again. It's been a terribly busy time since I'm not really able to take time off, but I did find a bit of time this weekend for visiting. I finally got a chance to meet my niece Taylor. She's unbelievably tiny and sweet!

 

 And I had a blast with Ria, who is now 19 months old. She's got an incredible vocabulary already and my heart just melts every time I hear her say "Auntie!"

Picking raspberries

Eating raspberries with "Papa"

Peekaboo!

Sunday in the Snow

This weekend, Troy and I relaxed for what seems like the first time in a long time. We watched movies, made x-mas cookies with his family, and we also made some delicious meals. I cooked raspberry balsamic glazed chicken on Friday and Troy made stoofvlees (Flemish beef stew cooked with Belgian beer) on Saturday. He even made homemade frietjes and mayonnaise!

We've been finding ourselves missing Belgium a lot lately, so this was a special treat. Christmas is really a festive time of year there. Each town creates its own little Christmas market with food and hot drinks as well as crafts and even ice skating. Despite cold temps and gray days, people get outside and enjoy themselves.

Our plan today was to take advantage of Minnesota's snow and cold by getting out cross-country skiing. We have our own skis, but ironically, they are in storage in (the state of) Virginia. We found some cheap used ones at the Salvation Army for Troy. I was going to borrow Troy's old skis but the bindings of my borrowed skis didn't match the thrift store boots Troy found for me last week. But we didn't let that hold us back. Feeling a desperate need to get out into the woods, we went on a trudge through the snow instead. I'm glad we did. It was just what we needed. Snow and sunshine can be really invigorating! It was the perfect end to a wonderful weekend.