Remembering the true meaning of Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Bud and I are grateful the many blessings we have been given,

especially the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We hope all will take a minute to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas

Snow in Utah! Lots of Snow!

Its snowing, a lot!

It hasn't stopped snowing since yesterday morning!

 Talk about a winter wonderland!

 Isn't he cute, all bundled up?

 If she fell down, she would be like Randy in The Christmas Story.

I don't think she could get up!

(I could not get the clip to embed but here's the link to the clip.)

Our truck, buried.

 Kinda looks like Towmater from the movie Cars!

 She loves eating snow.  Thank goodness its not yellow!

 Showing off her snowball/snack.  

She makes a pretty good snowball!

 The view off the front steps.

Thank goodness our son-in-law shoveled a path.

 The path to the bunny.

 Where is the bunny?

Is that her hutch?

 A bunny tunnel.

 There must be a bunny somewhere!

 Some digging and we see her pen.

 We found her!

Letting the bunny enjoy some apples.

We have at least 18 inches of snow.  I think maybe it has actually stopped snowing.  Bud is going to fly to Utah tomorrow and we hope his flight won't get canceled.  Heathrow London airport has been buried in what is said to be the worst winter in the U.K. in a century.  Schiphol Amsterdam airport has not, as yet, been quite as affected, although Bud said there is 1 foot of snow on our balcony.  He is afraid he will actually end up spending Christmas in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport!  Let's pray for good weather for all the holiday travelers!

Missing in Action!

It has been almost a month since Bud or I have published a post.  A lot has happened so I will try to give a brief update.  As posted earlier, we had the arrival of our fourth grandchild.  I flew to Utah the first part of November to meet this new granddaughter and to help out however I could!  It is fun to see the difference in our grandson, who was born in August and our new grandbaby!

She looks so tiny next to this big boy.

They both look little next to these two big kids!

 I love pictures of yawning babies!

 It is hard to get two babies to look in the same direction

when you are trying to take their picture.

Our daughter calls her new niece a troll doll!

Why you ask?  Because her hair sticks straight up, 

just like the old troll dolls.  

All she needs is a jewel for her bellybutton!

This guy is four months old.  At his two month check up he was over 17 pounds and 24 inches long! He is huge! He has rolls upon rolls. I am sure he is over 20 pounds and much longer now.  He has the sweetest disposition, is very ticklish and has been sleeping through the night since he was 10 weeks old!

This helps with the sleeping through the night!  He loves his thumb.

This little bug is five weeks old.  (I need to get a better picture of her, by herself, from my son.) She is over ten pounds and her cheeks are getting bigger by the day.  She is starting to be aware of who is holding her, smiling . . . that is when she doesn't have her mouth open looking for food!  I think she will catch up to her cousin before we know it.

Of course no new baby picture is complete without one with the exhausted mom's in it!

Even the cat got caught in the act!

Bud managed to come over to later to meet both his new grandchildren for first time too.  I had to have some surgery during this time (glad to have it in the U.S. and not at the mercy of socialized medicine. I know, I know we are now there but it is still better here than in Europe - in my opinion.)  I also took a trip to New Mexico with my daughter's family, my daughter-in-law and baby to see my mother.  My son could not go because of getting ready for finals.  I will post more about this later but for now this will have to do!  Goodnight!

Ode to the Scottish

We loved our time in Scotland. The country is so beautiful and the people are

great! When I came across this video I had to post it.

Classic Scotland!  Enjoy

One Happy Daddy

There is another love in my life.

She was born November 5, 2010

She was 21inches and 8lbs 9oz.

For future blogs we will call her Louis. There is a story behind this nickname. When we first told my parents that we were having a baby I told my dad that we were going to name her Louis L'Amour. That is his favorite author and ever since then she has been called Louis by her Grandpa

Our Mystery Grandchild has Arrived!

Our 4th grandchild arrived yesterday!

And we didn't know if we were getting a boy baby or a girl baby.

Tell me what you think?

If you guessed a girl, then you're right.

Look at those cheeks!  

 Very proud papa!  I can't believe my baby has a baby!!

 I love you too.

 Holding hands.

 I think he has fallen in love with another girl!

 Here's that one that did all the hard work.

Doesn't she look great for just having had a baby?

We are so proud and happy at how well this tiny mama did

with her very big baby!  8 pounds 9 ounces!

 When our daughter went to check out her new niece and was looking at her in the nursery, there was another family looking at another baby.  Their teenage son saw our new baby and said, "Look an Asian baby."  That made our daughter laugh. The baby has so much hair though, we think she looks like an Eskimoo or Indian baby.

Our daughter said the wee one has a great set of lungs on her!

We can't wait to meet her!

Basterdsuiker

Basterdsuiker, which when translated means

Bastard Sugar!

Most of us will recognize it as brown sugar.

This is light bastard sugar; they also sell dark bastard sugar.

I am not sure why the Dutch call their brown sugar bastard sugar,

but I know I will never look at brown sugar that same!

The Horse-Drawn Funeral Procession

One day, we were in the Hague and saw a funeral procession.  According to the locals, the deceased person must have been wealthy because a funeral of this type is expensive.

 All of the horses were solid black.  They were covered with blankets.

 The carriage on the right is for the casket. 
The carriage on the left is for the family.

 The horses were all very tall--16 hands or more and black.  Beautiful animals.

 The horse handlers and the carriage drivers.

 Checking the last minute details.  Look at the shiny hooves on the horses.

 The hearse.

 The funeral procession.

 Check out the horses head ornaments.

 The funeral hearse with the attendees and the driver.

 Two horse carriage.

The funeral procession headed down the street.