2008 Christmas/New Year trip

We've safely returned to our home in Monticello, Arkansas, after another Christmas/New Year adventure up north. Hard to believe those two weeks flew by so quickly, but they did!

We started our trip by taking Kenny out of school on Friday, December 19. His class had just had their Christmas party, and since no academic work was planned for the rest of the day, we figured it would be okay to start our travels a little early. On our way up to Wisconsin, we stopped in Memphis, Tennessee to visit our dear friend and colleague Mike Shelton for a brief visit. The kids always like to run around and explore the garden in his back yard, and Mike loves to entertain our kids. We then continued northward, stopping in Mount Vernon, Illinois for a stop at a hotel and a swim in their pool.

The next day we reached Madison, Wisconsin, and visited my sister Laurie, her husband Mark, and their two purebred hunting dogs, Mingo and Lily. Here, Lily soaks up some attention from Hope and Stephen:

My brother Bob had a brief respite from his busy month of snow removal, and swung over for a visit with us at Laurie's:

Here, Laurie smiles while holding Stephen:

She was miserable with a cold at the time, as was Stephen. A new storm system approached as we visited that afternoon, and with bitter cold and blowing snow forecast, we decided to remain overnight in Madison rather than driving through a blinding snowstorm in the dark to get to Rhinelander that evening. Lily, of course, used this opportunity to soak up even more attention:

We finally arrived in Rhinelander by late Sunday morning after driving for several hours in the cold, windy aftermath of that snowstorm. My youngest brother Bill had already arrived in Rhinelander, and was happy to give Kenny some pointers in chess:

Mom and dad had plenty of snow at their house, which we were happy to see. Our kids love to play in the snow--unfortunately, it was too cold for them to play a lot outside, and the snow was dry enough to not pack well... It was just fine for Grandma Bragg to pull Beth on the sled out into the pines:

and, of course, one of our favorite snow-covered views of Mom and Dad's house:

We had an enjoyable visit a Mom and Dad's, with some visit with other friends wedged in between Christmas shopping, sledding, and dealing with a sick baby. On Wednesday (Christmas Eve) we drove through a pretty heavy snow to my sister Lisa's house in Colfax, Wisconsin, to spend the night with her family. Here is Lisa with her youngest child, Leila:
And here Lisa is reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the kids:
Lisa's oldest, Michael, hammed for the camera while her husband Jon held Leila:

We went to evening mass at a lovely old church near downtown Eau Claire. Even though we got there late and didn't get to sit together as a family, our kids did remarkably well, and Kenny even won a "prize" (he got to put the baby Jesus in a manger) for being the kid who came from farthest away. Emma and Beth sat together by themselves, and were quite well behaved, and Michael dutifully sat next to me through the whole mass. Leila and Stephen were somewhat more vocal, but were troopers, as were Lisa and Jon...

Here, Beth, Emma, and Leila smile pretty for the camera:

Christmas morning was full of activity. The kids actually went to bed nicely on Christmas Eve, which meant that they were awake and ready to open presents at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas morning. We let them open their stockings, and this seemed to satisfy them until later that morning. We waited for the older Hurlburt children to arrive before opening the rest of the gifts. The picture below is of the Hurlburt boys...from left to right, David, Jonathan, and Michael.

Below, Kenny with a Tonka truck, while Lisa helps direct the distribution of the gifts:

Mom, Dad, and my brother Bill arrived shortly after we had finished the initial gift opening. Mom, of course, had a big pile of new gifts to get through. Shortly thereafter, my brother Bob, brother John and John's partner Jim Houzner arrived. Here, Mom awaits commentary from brother John regarding a gift...

Below, Jim Houzner works on some holiday cheer...

Susan Hurlburt holds her youngest sister:

Below, Beth and Stephen nap while Dad reads a book and Hope looks on:

Unfortunately, Stephen was VERY clingy to Hope and myself during our visit at Lisa's. Hopefully, this was because of the cold he had--he does have more separation anxiety than our other kids did, but not nearly as bad as he showed on Christmas...

After all the gifts had been opened, some of the kids got to ride in the special sled Jon Hurlburt has to pull behind his snowmobile:

Note the biggest of the kids, Jim Houzner, sitting in the back seat with Emma. They made a bunch of loops around Jon and Lisa's property:

They wanted to make more, but we had to drive back to Rhinelander that evening so we could leave the next morning for Whitmore Lake, Michigan, and the Pruden part of this trip.

After a long day's drive, we arrived at Hope's parents' home on the evening of December 26. We had to get to lower Michigan by early on December 27, because that afternoon we had tickets to attend a college hockey game (Michigan versus Michigan Tech) at Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit Red Wings play professional hockey. Before the hockey game, we went to the Greektown area of Detroit to park our car, have a late lunch at a neat Greek diner, and then take the "People Mover" (an elevated tramway that circles downtown Detroit). Below is a flaming cheese appetizer we got at the Greek restaurant:

Here are Hope and the kids outside of historic Joe Louis Arena:

We got to the stadium early so we could soak it all in:
We had originally planned to take the kids to a Detroit Red Wings game while we were up there, but we couldn't fit it into our schedule (or budget). The college hockey game was the next best thing, even thought Michigan Tech lost 5 to 1...

Our kids got to see them run the Zamboni, that funny-looking vehicle that smooths the ice between play:

The next day, a lot of Hope's family came over to Rich and Ann's home, and we had another round of gift opening and family visiting. Below, Beth turns on the charm:

and here is their newest cousin on the Pruden side, Alexandria Pruden:

Alexandria is standing next to her father Chris (Hope's first cousin), Chris's wife Sung (she's originally from Burma, now called Myanmar), and that's Hope's uncle Kevin in the back.

We also took advantage of our close proximity to get the kids the experience of going to a foreign country--in this case, we crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Ontario, Canada. We drove around the flat agricultural lands near Windsor, Ontario for a few hours, stopped at a Mennonite/Canadian/Mexican diner for lunch (that was an interested combination) before we returned to downtown Windsor for some tourist shopping. Rich bought his grandkids some t-shirts and Canadian flags to remember their trip:

We then hung out at their house for a few days, with Stephen helping his grandfather on some plumbing:
We headed back to Arkansas on January 2, and made such good time that we drove it in one day. The kids handled the long drive very well, which was good since I came down with another cold on this return trip. We returned to find our house in good shape, with temperatures into the 60s and 70s so far. I have a week's worth of field work ahead of me, so (naturally) that is when it is supposed to get cooler and rainier...

I wish we could have stayed longer and visited more people on this trip, but we didn't have many options. We look forward to seeing y'all in the new year! Happy 2009!!