Experiment finds child's face ineffective as sledge brake

On Boxing Day (which is an English tradition not celebrated elsewhere, much like Christmas pudding and mince pies - incidentally now that we're far from the mother ship we keep getting asked what mince pies are so we had to look it up, turns out pre-refrigeration people would kill their pig when winter started to set in and there wasn't enough food to keep it alive over winter and then pack it all around with dried fruit and put a pastry crust over it to preserve it . Over time the meat got left out) we had a really warm day and went to do some sledging at Staring Lake Park where they have a 'Sliding Hill', i.e. a hill specially designated for sliding down. We got a family sledge which would fit all of us on it and that was great fun until the last run of the day where we wiped out and poor Becky slid down on her face for a bit which didn't have much of a braking effect. Here are some pictures before the last sledge of the day.



Yesterday got a lot colder again and we decided against getting completely covered in snow and to do some ice-skating instead. Becky didn't have her own skates and Dan needed some new ones so we got them some second hand skates which is very common here, they have 8 second hand sports shops in the twin cities. Becky had never really tried skating by herself and it feels weird that it doesn't feel weird for a 3 year old to start to learn how to skate. Here is Becky starting to get the hang of it.

The roads have been particularly slippery of late and I now know why so many people have 4x4s, its to stop the wheel arches getting covered in with snirt. On our little Honda the snow piles up in the wheel arches so much its actually touching the wheels and makes braking a little random. We cleaned off the underside of the car before putting it away and got a load of snow off

Rewinding to Christmas Day we had a relatively quiet one, at least as quiet as it could be when Dan got a noisy laser gun.
and a far less noisy hat
Becky was happy with her marshmallow lollipop
and I think Andy would have liked one too
Dan's gun had the best translated instructions of any toy this year
and the day was made up of proper Christmassy things such as: new games
Turkey on the BBQ
Christmas dinner
gingerbread houses
and playing in the snow

Happy Christmas Everyone - Wish You Were Here

Happy Christmas to you all from Andy, Larry Dan and Becky. Wishing all of our friends and family could be here as we miss you all and need some help shoveling the driveway.


Well we've certainly having a white Christmas here with at least 24 inches of snow in December

No excuse not to use the BBQ though...
And although I never thought I'd say it, we do have enough snow now. I think this is partly due to us having to clear the driveway 5 days out of the last 8 and me not doing my back any favours by wielding two snow shovels at once to get it done more quickly.
We also had the water main to our house develop a crack today - so you can imagine that it being Christmas Eve not a lot got done but as you can tell from the picture below we now have 40ft of ice rink outside the house. To be fair the city did send someone out who has stuck cones over the pavement and salted and sanded it. Luckily it was on the cities side of the main so we shouldn't have to pay for it.On the plus side I've been snowboarding twice in the last week and it hurts a lot less when you fall over in the powder. I'm taking some time off of work too which is much needed. Someone from work sent this link around which everyone found extremely amusing (you might need IE to view it rather than firefox) so click here for a yuletide chortle.

There are now officially no more baking days left until Christmas so we finished today with a gingerbread house.

Crusty-Nostril Cold

Hitting the season for Christmas parties at the moment. Being the Scrouge that I am I wasn't going to do anything but Andy suggested we have a party here for the IT team and in a moment of weakness I agreed. Only now have I realized (far too late alas) that the reason for this is so that Andy can assume her dangerous alter-ego of 'The Fearsome and Unstoppable Baking Machine'. I mean, I like some shortbread with my tea as much, or maybe more, than the next man, but even I know that it has to stop somewhere - but not Andy. My only hope is to send her out for ingredients and hope she freezes long enough for me to hide the cookbooks. Luckily fortune is with me and the temperature has dropped from a balmy 3C on Sunday morning (which means we don't pack coats when we go out) to a high of -21C today. Here are some things that happen at this temperature:

• You can get an ice-cream headache in less than a minute if you go out without a hat on
• Your nostril hair freezes the first time you inhale through your nose
• The local school has a pyjama day and the kids wear their pyjamas to school and back again while trying not to get hypothermia

Anyway, shouldn't complain, Saturday was lovely and we went sledging and actually got to warm. Andy was always complaining that she was too cold so we went out and got her some proper winter clothes - like snow pants (over-trousers really) and decent boots. Up until now Andy has never wanted us to waste money on these as she 'never gets warm anyway so it wouldn't make any difference' (please tell me I'm not alone in thinking this is something of a self-fulfilling prophesy). The result was that we went sledging for an hour or so and got too warm!

Can you spot the snowball that Dan has just thrown in the picture below?

Since then it has snowed another 4-5 inches so we're beginning to get a proper wintery feel - and as the salt doesn't really work on the roads when its this cold there's nothing like sliding towards a busy junction with your foot on the brakes and nothing happening to really put one in the Christmas mood.

Here are a couple of phots from Claire's visit that didn't make it on in time.

Dan about to help me with the BBQ

Thanksgiving and Black Friday

The day before Thanksgiving I took the day off to get a speeding ticket - this is why I don't take time off. Becky was in nursery so we played our new addiction, the 'Settlers of Catan' board game.

Thanksgiving is the most 'traditional' of the American holidays. Lots of people will fly or drive home to be with their family and almost everyone has turkey. Our tradition is to have Claire here with us as she has been both years we're been here, we are actually planning to try to fatten her up and eat her one year to save on the turkey.

For the meantime, not being ones to argue with a fine tradition we also had turkey (done on the BBQ of course) adding in the British secret weapon.

You can't beat roast potatoes and they are almost unheard of here which makes them even more of a treat.

Andy also did a fantastic pumpkin pie, which might sound a bit odd until you realise that there is very little pumpkin in it, its actually really good.

Provided you can make it off of the sofa after all that a walk around the park is just what's needed with a chance for the kids to play on the swings.
The day after thanksgiving is Black Friday, the biggest sales day of the year by far. Its called Black Friday as it is typically the day most stores go into the black on their balance sheets. Not so sure about this year! Anyway given that stores open at 5am on the east coast I had to be in the office at 3:30am central time with a bunch of people from my team to be on point and check all our systems were operational. It all went pretty smoothly and I got out of the office in time for us to head into Stillwater in the afternoon.


Despite the fact that we'd had a pretty warm spell for about a week the river was still slightly frozen.

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We are getting the hand of making sure the kids are warm enough now. The rough rule of thumb is 'if they can move properly they don't have enough layers on'.


Claire here is demonstrating the popular 'Eat Yourself Warm' technique.



The next day we braved the Mall of America and the kids survived a 7 hour shopping trip. There is actually plenty for them to do so it really wasn't that bad and everyone here says it is too crowded to shop but compared to a UK high street in December it is comparatively deserted, you rarely have to queue up for anything unless you come on Friday at 5am.I also got to check out one of our new Best Buy Mobile locations which are a little bit like the larger Carphone Warehouse stores (but even nicer I think)