'Tis The Season!!

Have I ever expressed how much I LOVE having a house?!?!?! Well, I do . . . I love everything about it! But I especially love it this holiday season! It has been SO much fun to decorate and "holidize."

We thought it was important to start a few of our very own family traditions this year and it started with our Christmas tree. Both Josh and I grew up having a real Christmas tree and thankfully we both agreed that we couldn't do it any other way - so, to the local nursery we went . . . It's amazing how wonderful it feels to be surrounded by all of those beautiful trees and the smell, ahhhh . . . the smell!! It didn't take us long to pick out our very first family Christmas tree and it's perfect!! Not too tall, not too skinny, not too fat, not lop-sided, no bald spots and so far, the needles aren't falling off. It fits so nicely in our family room that I almost want to keep it up all year!



Although our Christmas tree is beautiful and very festive, I wanted to fill our wonderful little house with as many decorations as I could . . . thankfully a trip back to Minnesota to my parent's house was planned in the near future (the surprise trip that Cayel and I made back the beginning of December) so I decided I would "shop" there. You heard me right, shop! Growing up I used to complain about all of the old "antique" junk my mom had and said I would NEVER decorate that way - well, now being the older (and much more mature :) adult that I am, I love the old antique feel of my parent's house and I love the warmth of it at Christmas time. Thankfully, my mom was thrilled (or honored :) that I would want to do my holiday decoration shopping at her house and she let me take freely. She had this adorable little potted Christmas tree on our front deck (made out of real evergreen branches) that was decorated with lights and berries - of course, I wanted one - to my surprise, she had an extra one in the garage waiting to be decorated. Sweet! In my front seat on the floor it went, ready to make the trip back to Spearfish with us. Now it sits decorated with lights and berries outside our front door which is also decorated with real evergreen garland and lights. It looks SO pretty . . . even Josh was impressed by the glow of our house when he came home from his hunting trip.






Another tradition that I thought I would try to start with Cayel this Christmas season is baking/decorating Christmas cookies. As a child, my mom used to pick a weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas when we would make a disaster of the kitchen and make tons of different cookies, chocolates and candies. Surprisingly, (between all of the visitors and the frequent trips this past month) we made the time to frost Christmas cookies. Thankfully, Grandma B did all the hard work (she baked the sugar cookies and sent them back to Spearfish with us) but Cayel had so much fun putting the frosting on them (speaking of frosting, I searched on-line for a creative recipe and it was HORRIBLE! Runny and tasted like nothing more than powdered sugar, if anyone has a special family recipe for sugar cookie frosting, I would love to have something to try for next year).




Now it's just a week away from Christmas . . . the house is decorated and festive, the Christmas cookies are frosted, the shopping is done, the gifts are wrapped and under the tree and a few new traditions and memories have been made - with a week to spare!!

Visitors and Trips Galore!!

We have been abundantly blessed with the opportunity to have MANY visitors and take MANY trips during the month of November and into December . . .

It all started the beginning of November with our friend Darren who came out to stay with us for 10 days. He and Josh used to work together in Sioux Falls at Wells Fargo and he has been making yearly trips out each November to hunt. He is such a nice guy and "blended" in great with our family . . . Cayel had a blast with a new "friend" staying at our house and thankfully Darren was so patient with this little dude following him around all week!

Three days after Darren left, my boss (or more like my friend :), Michelle came to stay with us. She was out doing our yearly office visit from Sioux Falls and rather than staying in a lonely hotel room, she decided to join the Horak family for a night. I think she got some practice being a grandma (not that you are old enough for that Michelle!) . . . her and Cayel snuggled up on the couch and watched Nemo. He thought he should get to stay home from T's house the next day to play with "Shell" - I don't think I could have pulled off a "sick day" with my boss being the person he wanted to play with :)?!?!?!

Michelle left at 4:30 Thursday afternoon and by 5:30, my dear friend Summer and her husband Jason and two kids (Alayna and Jayden) made a "pit stop" at our house for the night. They were driving from Minnesota to Bozeman, Montana to spend Thanksgiving with Summer's family. Thankfully we are the half way point for them and have had the opportunity to extend an invitation twice now. We (selfishly) keep hoping they will make more trips to Montana so we can spend more time with them :). Jayden (her youngest) and Cayel are less than 2 years apart so they had a BLAST playing together. They spent close to a half an hour in the tub playing with the bath art toys and by the time we preyed them out, their skin looked like raisins.

The artists . . .

The art . . .

Alayna, Jayden and Cayel

Both husbands and all 3 kids were snoring away by 9:00 so Summer and I talked each other's ear off until midnight . . . ahhh, I miss her!

That next morning (Friday), Jason and Summer left bright and early to finish their drive to Bozeman, Josh left around the same time to make the drive east to Gregory, SD for his Annual SDSU Alumni Pheasant Hunt and Cayel and I excitedly awaited the arrival of our next guests, Melissa and Faith.

Annual SDSU Alumni Pheasant Hunt:
For the past 5 years, Josh has been hunting in Gregory with about 15 other fellow die hard hunters that he went to college with. His friend Aaron Veskerna owns a guiding outfit called County Line Cocks and during their weekend stay, they are all fed, have a bed to sleep in and most importantly, land to hunt! This year they shot a total of about 89 pheasants in two days of hunting. Josh Larson (Josh's best man from Wilmar, MN) got to experience the Annual SDSU Hunt this year with Josh and sounds like they had a great time together!

SDSU Alumni (and then some)

Josh and Josh

Pheasant, it's what's for dinner . . .


Our weekend with Melissa and Faith:



It was a wonderfully relaxing weekend . . . we spent most of Friday catching up on each other's lives and talked ourselves into the wee morning hours. Saturday we lounged around the house in the morning and then took the kids to Chuck-E-Cheese in Rapid City to celebrate Faith's birthday (she had turned 7 on the 14th of November!).

Faith playing a game at Chuck-E-Cheese . . .

They had fun playing the games but Cayel wasn't too sure about "Mickey Mouse" (a/k/a Chuck-E-Cheese). Every corner we turned, that darn thing was there walking around trying to put a smile on the kids' faces - instead, Cayel cried (I guess Disney Land is out of the question anytime soon).

Tired kids after their excursion at Chuck-E-Cheese . . .

Saturday night our world famous babysitter (Sami) came over and watched the kids while Melissa and I went out for dinner. I forgot how much fun it is to get dressed up and share make-up and clothes with a girl friend (brought me back to college years :)!

Me and Melissa . . .

Sunday we took them to our church and came home and prepared a brunch feast! After stuffing ourselves we took long naps and spent the remainder of Sunday relaxing and savoring our last night together. It was a PERFECT weekend! By the way, thank you Faith for reading Cayel SO many books over the weekend and for all of the "horsy rides" - you will be a great big sister some day!

Faith giving Cayel the famous "horsy ride" . . .


Faith reading Cayel one of the million books that she read him that weekend . . .

Two days later, we made our way back to Minnesota to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family (thankfully I already blogged my "book" on that) . . . We got back to Spearfish the Sunday after Thanksgiving, had a couple of days to unpack and do laundry and then me and Cayel packed back up again and drove back to Minnesota to surprise my parents and spend another long weekend with them (I had a few days of vacation left to use and Josh was going to be gone on a hunting trip so I figured, why not?). We left Wednesday evening for Minnesota and Josh left Thursday for another "annual pheasant hunting trip" to Lake Preston (with the Wilmar guys this time).

Annual Lake Preston Pheasant Hunt:Similar to the Annual SDSU Pheasant Hunt in Gregory, the Annual Lake Preston Pheasant Hunt is just as important - a GUYS weekend! Josh and his friend Rene have been driving to Lake Preston (by Brookings, SD) to meet up with the Wilmar guys (I promise some day I will get a picture of the "Wilmar guys" so you all know who I am referring to) for a few years now. They stay at a MOTEL called Lake Preston Hotel (from the sounds of it, I think it is more of a MOTEL than a HOTEL :). This year the weather wasn't so cooperative, it was about 10 degrees with wind chills around 0 - but that didn't stop them!! The guys still managed to shoot 16 pheasants their first day, 15 their second day and 13 their third day . . . not bad for 6 guys!! By the sounds of it, "GUYS weekend," accomplished!

Our weekend in Minnesota:
The roads were horrible and after about an hour of driving, I wondered to myself why the heck I decided to drive 7+ hours again (after just having done it 3 days prior) . . . Finally at 1:30 a.m. we pulled into my parent's driveway. I left a note on the kitchen table saying "SURPRISE, we are home again" and called it a night. Thursday my sister Sarah decided to stay home from work (Jada had an ear infection) so we enjoyed spending the day together while the kids continued their playing (from the weekend before :). Friday Cayel and I drove to the cities and met up with my college friend Jackie and her son Brayden (who is 6 weeks younger than Cayel). We decided to be daring and attempt to take them to Nickelodeon Land at the Mall of America. I knew it could go one of two ways - wonderful or horrible! Cayel was an absolute ANGEL!!! He didn't fuss once, stayed dry ALL day (we are potty training), didn't argue with me about riding in the stroller and more impressively, did it all without a nap! He and Brayden had SO much fun - within 3 hours they did 7 rides (most of which I got the pleasure of chaperoning because Jackie is 7 months pregnant), did face painting (Cayel wanted it on his arm), ate ice cream and we ended the day with a tour of the Underwater Adventures (where we got to see sharks, fish - some of which I had never even heard of before, sea horses (so cute) and even an octopus - man they look weird).

Cayel and Brayden

Enjoying the rides at Nickelodeon Land




Underground Waterworld


The boys crammed in one stroller (doesn't look comfortable)!

After our adventures at the Mall of America, Cayel and I made our way to St. Paul where we surprised my wonderful friend Megan at her work (of course she cried when she saw us in the lobby)! Megan had just closed on her very first house the week of Thanksgiving so Cayel and I decided what better time to go visit her?!?!?! Saturday we drove back to my parents and spent the afternoon relaxing and recuperating - the kids decorated Nana's Christmas tree and had a blast doing it. Me, being the Type A personality that I am, had a hard time not re-doing what they had done (90% of the ornaments were at the bottom, some even had 2 on one branch) but I was reminded of a daily devotion that I had read earlier in the week "Don't be afraid to let your children decorate the tree - you can have a perfect one when they are grown." Ahhh, so true. My mom loved it all the same :)!

After a 7+ hour drive for all three of us (me and Cayel coming from MN and Josh coming from Lake Preston, SD) we all made it back home to Spearfish - safe and sound. And better yet, it was 65 degrees!!!

Operation Christmas Child

Dick and Linda spent Thanksgiving this year in Denver, Colorado volunteering their time at one of the Operation Christmas Child's processing centers . . .

(For those of you who many not know, Operation Christmas Child is a ministry of Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse organization. It is a ministry that brings joy and hope to young children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and the Good News of God's love!)

Dick is the Area Coordinator of OCC for the Western South Dakota region and as part of his involvement, he and Linda spent 2 full days at the processing center in Denver over Thanksgiving. The center operated from 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. sorting through and organizing boxes that were getting ready to be delivered to children all over the world (this particular processing center was going to be delivering the Christmas boxes to children in Mexico). In just one day, the center processed 50,000 boxes and over the next few weeks it is estimated that 6 MILLION boxes will be processed (with about 55,000 volunteers) in 6 processing centers. Below are a few pictures that Dick took of the behind the sceens operation of this AMAZING organization . . .




On a much smaller scale, a few weeks ago we got together as a family at Dick and Linda's and filled our own Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes to be shipped to little kiddos in hopes of brightening their Christmas with warm wishes, goodies and God's love. In just a couple of hours we filled 52 boxes with soap, wash clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs/brushes, paper, coloring crayons, glue sticks, pens/pencils, ponytail holders and jewlery for the girls, cars and bouncy balls for the boys, jump ropes, toppers, beany babies, crocks, hats, socks, underwear, t-shirts and of course - LOTS of candy!! It was an awesome afternoon and so rewarding to know that our little family would hopefully make the difference in a little child's life.

Josh and I are hoping to take our involvement in this wonderful organization to a new level next year and get Operation Christmas Child active in our church. We have close to 1000 people that attend our church each Sunday . . . think of the mountains we could move in our church alone?!?!?!