FAIL! Man Clearing Snow off his Roof. Bahaha!

New Year's Eve 2011

This year, we had an INTERNATIONAL BUFFET for dinner.  Since many members of our family have served missions abroad or lived internationally, we decided this would be a fun switch up to our standard dinner.  Here are a few items we got to try.  Sure wish I'd taken my own pics of these.

• Norwegian Brunost (goat cheese) on bread: Will served his mission in Norway

• Egyptian Koshary: Dave and Shirlee spent 2010 living in Cairo, Egypt >> wiki description

 

• African Ugali/Posho: Neil served his mission in Uganda, Africa 

  

 

• Czech Knedlicky: Lance served his mission in the Czech Republic

The ones we had were filled with fruit, cream cheese, cinnamon, and then steamed.
After being steamed, they were topped with powdered sugar.  Yumm!

 

• Arvy family was overtaken with illnesses so they did not join us

• Since I've never been out of the country (which is going to change very shortly, wahoo!), I had no international cuisine to add.  Instead, I went with the Japanese-created Wii system!  Lol, someone needed to bring the entertainment if we were actually going to stay up until midnight! :)  If you haven't had the enjoyment of playing Just Dance yet, I highly recommend it!  I saw people dancing that I've never seen move before.  It was hilarious!  Even the kids were totally getting into it!  Watch the short clip below (though this does not do justice!)

Happy New Year to you all!

Family Snow Day

Like I said before, Christmas day is a difficult day to get the whole fam together.  So, we do a Christmas Eve dinner on the "on years", but EVERY year we do a family snow day.  We were hoping for a big dump of snow so we could build something cool in the back yard, similar in intensity as the images below, or maybe like the snow cave the boys built and slept in a couple years back.

2003 in the backyard

2005 in the mountains

Instead, this year we got lots of rain followed by a small inch of snow the day before we were together.  Thankfully, it was just enough to satisfy the kidlings in the back yard!  We sled down the hill and played in the snow for a couple hours before it was time for some hot cocoa.  Here are a few memories from the day.

Cath and Spencer (I think)

Deb and baby Mikey

Doug, Gordon, Eliza, Ali, Sam

Kids playing with Lance at the bottom of the hill

Gus... "I can't put my arms down!"  haha

Maya

Tyler

Sarah about to take one of the twins down the hill

Lizzie building "snow cakes"

Ali, the face a child annoyed with her older sister

Ethen's first experience tasting snow.  He couldn't get enough!

Lizzie

Eliza and the stocking Grandma Ronda made for her

Lunch time!