A few outside shots

We are spending some time in Holland this week. We have gone out into the snow a couple times. My parents got some snowshoes recently, and Brian and I tried them out. They took a little getting used to, but they were a lot of fun. My mom also got some gaters, which are apparently used to keep your legs dry when you go snowshoeing in deep snow. I had never heard of them before, but David was more familiar.

Dad and Mom, showing off the gaters:

Brian and I took the snowshoes all the way to the lake, which was very beautiful. We got there at dusk, so we had to hurry back to make it to the car before it got too dark.
Brian at Lake Michigan:

Han at Lake Michigan:

Dad on skis (left) and Brian on snowshoes (right):

More visit and mini-Christmas

Dave and Amy have headed back to South Carolina now. We really enjoyed spending time with them over the last week. Here are a few more pictures from their visit.

We played a couple different games together:


We met with Tammy and Jim for lunch:

We had a mini-Christmas, giving some gifts to each other, on Saturday afternoon.

Karen with 2010 ornament:

Rick with specialty foods:

Dave and Amy with matching mugs:

Karen and Brian:

Brian, hiding from the camera:

Wildlights

The Columbus Zoo has a special program every December called Wildlights. They cover the zoo with (energy-efficient LED) Christmas lights and extend the zoo hours into the evening to allow people to enjoy the light displays. The lights always look fantastic, but it is always chilly. We went to Wildlights this evening, and it was frigid. To make the temperatures more bareable, the zoo sells hot chocolate and has several of the indoor displays open, so you can sip a hot drink and/or got inside a building to thaw out a bit.

First, some of the beautiful light displays:
See the hippo?

Moose!

The polar bears were outside, but there is a nice display indoors about polar bears and global warming/climate change. We warmed up in this building, and took a few silly pictures too.

Making a friend?

Dave & Amy pet the bear; Brian and I observe but do not offer our hands to the wild animals.

Another popular indoor display is the manatee tank. Today I saw 2 manatees. The smaller one had some boat motor damage on its side. The stuff floating on the top of the water is lettuce.

Dave & Amy:

Rick, Dave, and Brian, posing in the manatee building:

Han with a tall toy soldier:

Dave & Amy visit

This week, Dave and Amy have been visiting from South Carolina. It has been great! We started the visit by having some Christmas cake. (Okay, so the visit was really just a good excuse to make a cake, but I did color the cake to make it more Christmasy.) I wanted to try out a new chocolate frosting recipe, which is delicious.

We met Grandma Sites and cousin Amy for lunch on Thursday at Der Dutchmann (an Amish family-style restaurant). L to R: Han, Rick, Gma, Karen, Brian, Amy, Dave

Here is a pic with only Grandma, Dave, and Amy.

Amy and Dave stopped by our place briefly to meet the ferrets. Chewbacca especially liked Amy.

So far, the visit has been a fun one. We are all happy Dave and Amy could get some time off to come see us.

Happy Holidays

Today we had our first real snow. It looks lovely. In the past couple weeks, we've decorated the house for Christmas. The lights on our tree make crazy patterns on the floor and walls. We put the tree in the living room by the large window, with the other plants.
Sinterklaas ornament:

Rain last night transitioned into snow, which led to some decent-sized icicles.

Brian brushing snow off the car:

Our outside lights, covered in snow: