Goal-Haustein Family: Catching up....

Where does the time go? I was sitting in my office, updating my Ironman Blog, making promises that I would keep the family blog up to date. That was almost exactly 2 months ago. Again, where does the time go??? So, here is a brief update on our happenings.

Thanksgiving

This year the kids were down with Russ (their bio dad) for Thanksgiving, my parents and sister stayed in California and Mooie and Bob went to Seattle...this left Corey and I to celebrate Turkey day alone for the first time. It was really hard on me, but I was amazed on how many people invited us over. We ended up spending dinner with Kelly & Sabina Milbrath. We had decided to spend the evening alone...but with neighbors like that; it wasn't going to happen!

Nicole & I at Coeur d' Alene Lake

Amahl & the Night Visitors

The week following Thanksgiving, Alex starred (yes lead role) in his first Opera; Amahl and the Night Visitors. The production was part of Gonazaga's Music Departments' Christmas program, and they needed a young boy to play the lead role. They had a few 100 children that auditioned and once they heard Alex...they were sold that he was the one. Alex's under-study was a Gonzaga student. He did an amazing job.

His Auntie Nicole flew up to see his performance (and crash the Costco Christmas Party) and she was amazed that Alex could sing like that. He is amazing...but we are keeping that a secret. No need for him to get an ego!

The Snow Storm

The kids got an early Christmas / Winter break thanks to the HUGE snow-storm that came upon us up here in the Northwest. On Dec. 16th we got hit with 10 inches in less than 10 hours. It was incredible. School was cancelled for Thursday and Friday...so winter break started 2 days early. (They were so sad....)

Kids the night the storm started. (Pay attention to the picnic table in the background!)

Our amazing snow storm has brought us over 110 inches to date (Jan. 3rd). We have killed our December record by 50 inches! We have another storm coming in tonight...and then we are suppose to warm up to the high 30's all next week. (Which means a lot of melting, slush and ice!)

Backyard (picnic table...) 24 hours later.

Christmas

Ahh...Christmas time! The kids had an amazing Christmas. Again, it was another Haustein first...we were alone. The original plan was that my parents would come up everyother year, and this year would have been their year to come up. BUT, with my Oma having hip replacement surgery (and my mom having to take 3 weeks off for that), my mom then winning her trip to Aruba (and my father having to take unplanned time off for that) and my father planning on retiring in a year...it just didn't work out.

Alli & Mommy being silly in our masks from Bah.

We had a great time as a family. We woke up with a ton of snow on the ground. It was a beautiful white Christmas. The night before Christmas I showed the kids how to turn on the coffee pot and gave explicit instructions that they were not allowed to wake up before 7:30 am. (This came about because of the years that I woke my parents up before 6 am and then Christmas was over by 7 am.)

Once we were up (and my coffee was made) we opened presents for 1 1/2 hours! It was incredible. Corey made us Pancakes with eggs in the middle and then we went out sledding and snow-boarding for the afternoon. It was a wonderful Christmas!