A quick little trip

This past weekend we took a very quick trip down to the Twin Cities so that Ken could attend a Twin's game and the rest of us tagged along to do some visiting. We went down on Sunday right after morning church and as it ended up we left for home again on Monday morning. If the Twin's would have won on Sunday evening then Ken had tickets for Monday's game too so we would have stayed until Tuesday.

We went and stayed with my sister Anna and family. It is such a huge blessing that they live near enough that we can see them often (they come up, we go down, we see them at church events...). Anna and I have always been great friends, I was born just one year and 7 months after her and though she was definitely the older sister (our personality's are quite different), people often (still do!) thought we were twins and we have enjoyed that sort of closeness too. When she first got married they headed off to live in Indiana and then we lived in Iowa and Kansas so I figured we would have the letter writing, phone calling and seeing each other about once a year sort of relationship. God worked things out so we both headed back to MN in 2001 and I am very grateful for that!
We each have 4 kids (who are mostly in stair step fashion, starting with her almost 11 yr old, except for two of ours who both turn 6 this month.) The kids love to get together and I love to watch them get to play.
We ended up being down their on Beatrice's 6th birthday. It was an unusual birthday for her as it was very snowy out! Even though we live in MN, snow of that nature in October is not very normal. (Maybe it's global warming....)
The kids had fun playing in it anyway. They got in a little time outside before breakfast as we got on the road home shortly afterwards. Harrison and Jonathan each made a huge snowball which they then raced down the hill. (Which you can see in the video clip below.)

Their next door neighbors had also had a little fun with the snow. I thought their tiny snowman on the porch rail was cute so I snapped a picture.

While we were there on Sunday evening, Anna invited over the Davidson's who are good friends of ours (and Christy is also Ken's cousin). We enjoyed the fellowship time with them! Even with such a short trip we ended up being able to get quite a lot of visiting done. Ken also went to the Twin's game with another friend, Patrick Doherty so we got to see him as well.

With the 8-9 hours on the road (counting both ways) I was able to get quite a bit of reading in. I had fun reading in "John Adams" by David McCullough. I am finally about to the end of this very in depth historical 700 page book. It is very interesting but not exactly easy reading. I also had fun more thoroughly reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. I did some work at making a new menu where I will do more soaking of grains as well. I had won the book quite a while back from Knocked up Naturally and am happy to finally be putting it to some use.

That was our hectic weekend (It was hectic because first I had planned to go and then the kids were sick so I decided we would stay home, then Ken left later than planned and they seemed pretty much well by then so 45 minutes before church time I decided that yes the younger kids and I would go with Ken and the older ones after all. -It is fun to be spontaneous every so often! )

What is going on in your life? Did many of the rest of you get snow as well? We actually didn't get that heavy snowfall that they got on the cities on Monday but today it is snowing again here.