Happy New Year!

Mama and her two sweethearts.

We met Byron and Julie and their kids at an ice skating rink on New Year's Eve. I LOVE to ice skate. We figured that it has been at least 12 years since I was on a pair of skates. Mark had knee surgery this past summer and has had a lot of trouble with it so he sweetly offered to "sit it out" and take care of Nevaeh so I could skate with my boys.

We skated for a couple of hours and then we all headed back to our house. We ate the traditional pork and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes and hot dogs for those who didn't like sauerkraut for our supper. We played games, talked, watched videos together and the guys made plans to go muzzleloader hunting the next morning. We have a full basement and so we hung out down there with wide open space for the kids to run and play.

Robert put a campsite together in the basement to make a fun place to play for all the kids. All of the kids (Daryl considers himself past the kid stage and I think that he really wanted to sleep in his queen sized bed instead of on the hard floor!) slept at the campsite. The boys had one tent and the girls had the other. The Christmas tree was still lit with white lights from our church dinner and Robert used it for the nightlight. It also lended an air of reality to the indoor campsite.

Do you like the creek next to the boy's tent? Rob used a big piece of blue fabric and polyester fiber fill to make this snowed creek bank and water. He then carried in large rocks in a big bucket so he could make his campsite more authentic. The camping cookware was one of Robert's Christmas gifts. Notice the Ajax bottle of dish soap.

The tripod was also a Christmas gift. Rob went to great pains to create a "fire" without the flame, of course.

This was the boys' tent.

Lissy is stoking the "fire."

The girls' tent.