A busy Christmas & A flat tire

Christmas has just flown by! I can't believe it's already over. Since I have had to work the past 2 Christmases, I soaked this one up big time! We started by heading out to my parents on the 23rd. We stayed in New Prague until Christmas Day. I had such a great time. It was great finally getting to spend a good chunk of time with my family. Our car was packed full when we left which made it interesting traveling with Oscar. It was perhaps even more packed when we headed back to Mankato.

On the 23rd we just hung out with my parents. We played a game of Taboo and sat around and visited. Both my parents were off on Christmas Eve. We spent the day baking and making goodies for Christmas Day and finishing up some last minute gift wrapping and shopping. Then, that evening we went to church. I love going to church at Faith. It is so great to be back at my home church. On Christmas Day we got up and went to church then came home and Miked filmed the beginning of a movie. After that we started to get dinner ready and opened gifts. Oscar had 5 gifts under the tree! He's a pretty special little kitty I guess. For dinner we had ham, Christmas salad, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. For dessert, Hilary made chocolate mousse. Yum! After dinner we played another game of Taboo. Shortly after that it was time to get going. We were planning on staying until the 26th but we had heard the weather was suppose to be icky so decided to head back to Mankato early. It was probably a good thing we left early, because we were able to swing in to see Mike's parents before they left to go up to the Fick's cabin for Christmas on Friday. Mike and I were bummed we couldn't go up with them but it was my extended family's turn for Christmas this year.

Friday we were exhausted and I was fighting off an icky cold, so we spent the day vegging around the house watching movies. It was great and relaxing...except our house was a disaster! On Saturday we headed down to my extended family Christmas. First stop was in Luverne to see Grandma and Grandpa Bush. My uncle Dale and aunt Lisa were there as well. We had a good time visiting and of course snacking on Christmas goodies. Both sides of my family were celebrating Christmas at the same time on the same day so we missed the Bush side's meal with the rest of my cousins and uncle Steve. Around 2:30 we headed off to Sioux Falls to go to my Aunt Debbie's house for Swenson family Christmas. We had a great time there as well. We played a card game and opened gifts. This year we decided not to exchange gifts, but we all get things for Grandma and Grandpa Swenson and they always bakes us a bucket of cookies and gets us a little something. Before we ate, Mike gave the family prayer. I'm always so proud of him. He does such a nice job. For dinner we had BBQ beef sandwiches. Delicious! And, there was graduation cake because 3 of us graduated from college this December. Mike and I had to take off shortly after dinner. We had to try to get home at a reasonable hour because Mike had to preach at Heritage Lutheran Church in Apple Valley at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday.

So we were on our way back and we had just passed Luverne (making us about 1 1/2 -2 hours away from Mankato) when our tire burst. It was horrible! We had to pull over onto the side of the road and change the tire. Not only were we tired, but it was dark and about 8 degrees outside. Plus, there was wind. Yuck Yuck Yuck!! We had to take several breaks to get back in the car and warm up. Luckily, my parents were about 30-40 minutes behind us. After we got back on the road, they caught up to us and followed us back up to Mankato. We picked up Oscar, packed our bags and piled into mom and dad's car with Hilary and Steve for the ride to New Prague. We would have to use one of their cars to get up to Apple Valley in the morning. This was quite the change in our plans. We were just planning on driving up from Mankato on Sunday morning at around 6 am. It was a crammed car ride with 6 of us plus Oscar in the car, and when we got to New Prague, we were all exhausted.

Mike did well preaching on Sunday. He did 2 services plus a Bible Study. His voice was tired and sore after almost 3 hours of straight talking. Yesterday, we took the car in to get new tires. That $160 bill hurt but it is amazing how the Lord provides. We happened to get almost half of the money needed for the tires from Christmas gifts from family and graduation gifts, plus a monetary gift in the mail from someone at Bethany in Luverne who has adopted us as the seminary student. That made the sticker shock of new tires not quite so bad. Thank you Lord! Now we are back safe and sound in Mankato all cozy in our little house recovering from a very busy but fun week. We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a safe, healthy and blessed New Year!