25 November 2018

 Hi everyone,

   Wow, Christmas is a month from today, and Thanksgiving is behind us. It was a good one. Weavers spent it in Utah with most of Kevin's family. Ben's and Sam's families were together in Minnesota. Mobleys stayed home, and Hessings came here.

   We (with Hessings) went to Jake's and Lisa's for Thanksgiving and had a nice time. Then later that day we went to Beth's and Kerry's and got to see Grandma too. Unfortunately, Calvin got sick later that night and his family headed home, in case the rest of them got sick too. So our visit with them was shorter than we'd hoped, but it was still wonderful. I hope the rest of their family has avoided the stomach bug. 

   One of the highlights of Thanksgiving for me was at Beth's when Calvin learned how to play the first few notes of the Darth Vader theme, on the piano. Then to be sure he wouldn't forget, he went around singing the tune to himself, "A A A F C A F C A," so he would remember how to play it on their piano at home. 

   It sounds like the two Humphries families had a nice time together, and I think Ben, Lynsey, and Joseph got home yesterday. Weavers should be home by now too. 

   A few days before Thanksgiving, Sam, Natalie, and the kids, were at the Dells, in Wisconsin and Alida fell on the kiddie slide and injured her mouth. It must have been so upsetting. I'm hoping Sam will have time to fill us all in on that and how she's doing now. 

   Friday night, Jocie and Janie came over for supper and stayed to play games, etc. They helped me start a puzzle, but left right after we got the border finished. Gran and I stay at it and before we knew it, we put the last piece in and it was 2:48 a.m. I don't remember when I've stayed up and done something like that . . . years and years ago. But it was fun! It was only 500 pieces, but it was difficult, right to the end. I'll try to include a picture of it. 

   We got snow for Thanksgiving, now it's just icy and still cold. I thought I had lots to say, but nothing more is coming to me.  Maybe some of you will be able to write.

   Love to you all,

Mom/Johanna/Nana

Noah, happy birthday tomorrow! Love you so much! We'll call you tomorrow evening. 

Hello everyone-

 

Thanks for the Thanksgiving update, Mom – it’s great to hear what was happening with everyone over the holiday. I like the idea of you and Gran staying up late to finish off a puzzle – that sounds fun – something I might like to try one of these days.

 

Bradley’s flight got in late Thursday night on November 15^th, and as Mom mentioned, Alida fell at an indoor water (Great Wolf Lodge) park the next day climbing the steps to go down a kiddie slide and knocked out her two front teeth. It really was a very sad situation as we had only been in the water park for just about an hour when the fun stopped and Alida hurt herself. We planned on two full days at the park, but we ended up coming home first thing the following morning because Alida wasn’t eating or drinking with her mouth being is such poor condition. We drove (3.5 hrs) straight to her dentist and they pulled the remaining front tooth, as the other one had come out at the waterpark. Anyway, once the other tooth was pulled, Alida started doing much (began eating and drinking) better and her mouth began to heal very quickly. Lesson for everyone is, don’t run at the water park even if you are in a hurry to go down the slide again – floor is slippery when wet! Saturday afternoon Bradley and Maddie helped me build a basketball arcade game for the basement. We had ping pong in the basement for quite a while, but it was time for a change – everyone seems to be enjoying the basketball game.   

 

We had Stake Conference the following day which was great, and then Ben’s family arrived that afternoon. We were able to do a lot of fun things with Ben, Lynsey and Joseph as well as had some nice downtime just chilling at the house – ask Ben if he knows anything about 90’s trivial pursuit?? Ben and Lynsey were able to be Maddie’s and Macy’s guests at “Special Friend Day” at their school, which I think is a little better than bringing your mom or dad for the second year in a row – thanks, Ben and Lynsey! Brad and Joseph camped out in the basement the whole week and played lots of games – and believe it or not, some of those games didn’t involve an electronic device! Haha!

Natalie and Lynsey headed up baking a lot of the (cookies, cake, rolls) goodies for Thanksgiving. We actually had Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, Boyd and Stephanie Anderson at their house in Lonsdale, MN. Ben and Brad helped me put my snow tires on and change the brakes on my Honda on Friday. That afternoon we went to a friend’s (Jack Migliori) baptism in Lakeville. Ben, Lynsey, Joseph, Bradley, and myself all started our day about 5am on Saturday as Ben’s crew was starting their drive back to Colorado and Bradley and I were working on the Storehouse truck. Bradley’s return flight was scheduled to depart Sunday afternoon about 3pm, but the plane was stuck in Kansas City due to a heavy snow storm and apparently they don’t have sufficient snow removal equipment at that airport. Bradley was put on the first flight out of MSP this morning and was on his way back to Colorado just before 6am. Pretty sure he was only a little late for school today…

 

I’m sure there are a lot of details I’m forgetting, but this pretty much sums up our week. Maybe some other folks that were in MN for Thanksgiving can fill in the details that I failed to include. A few pics with commentary are below. Hope this finds everyone happy and healthy!

 

Love you guys

 

Sam

 

 

 

Ben & Lynsey snuggling the girls – because you can never get enough snuggles, right??

  

 

Nat and Maddie making “The best cake ever” on Wednesday.

Lynsey and Macy making a HUGE batch of cookies!

 

Maddie and Bradley playing with the new Basketball game.

 

Bradley and Maddie chowing down at Culvers after we all went to see the new Grinch movie.

 

Ben, Bradley and me on a brisk (about 30 degrees) 10 mile ride at Lebabon Thursday morning. No pants allowed!

 

Alida eating some lo mein at Hy-Vee about 3 hours after her tooth was pulled – she was hungry! She has been avoiding crunchy/hard things to eat L.

 

This was Alida last night – new smile and playing doctor – whoever didn’t have a strong heartbeat was, “you the grinch!”

 

And here is our most experienced traveler going thru TSA security onto his gate (for the first time) all by himself this morning – time is flying by!

 

 

Samuel Humphries