Sledding

We had no snow on Christmas this year but on the 26th in the evening it started snowing a pretty decent amount.  On the 28th Amy brought Evan and Grace over to sled with Bennett and Ashley.  It was great that Josh was willing to come play with them too so us moms didn't have to :-).  They had fun for almost 2 hours!

Mielke Christmas

Here are a few pics from our family Christmas on Dec. 26th.  I always have so much fun on this day and it is kinda nice that alot of the kids are getting older and don't need as much supervision, leaving the adults to have more fun!
I was also happy to hear that Jacob is planning to come to my moms farm for Christmas on the 26th until he dies!  Let's pray and hope he lives a terrific, long life! :-)

Mike's New Job

Today is Mike's birthday so I thought I'd do a quick post about him and update you on his new job. After working at the golf course for 13 years (plus a few more years at other courses), he decided it was time for a change.  For the past 2+ years he's been taking a few night classes in the computer networking field and around that same time he started job hunting.  It has taking him many many applications, many interviews and lots of disappointment.  But, he finally found a great job for him. He got hired by the City of Chaska as a Network & Field Tech.  The city has its own Internet provider so basically he needs to make sure that it is always working and if there are any problems, he'll troubleshoot to fix it.  Alot of the work can be done from the office but he still will be out and going to the businesses or homes to fix something on site if it can't be done from the office.  

We are hoping that this will become a great job for him that he grows to love (and not regret).  So far so good and he's really enjoying it!  His friend Wade also works with him and was part of the reason Mike got hired.  Another bonus about this job is that it is more pay than he was making at the golf course.  This is the only job that he applied for where he wouldn't be taking a starting out pay cut so we are super excited about that.  And, since he is working for the city, he'll have good benefits, extra perks like a membership to the community center, and paid bank Holiday's.  The holiday's is something so new to us also because he's used to working every summer holiday and here he gets every holiday off plus the weird ones like MLK Day etc.  

To celebrate his birthday he is with his friends on their annual ice fishing trip.  

Christmas Day 2014

After church on Christmas Day we went to my moms for a delicious meal and then way too many presents.  I wouldn't really say that each person got overloaded with gifts but, when you have a 16 person family, the mound of gifts is pretty huge.  We open 1 gift at a time and it literally took over two hours until we were done opening.  It was a great day!

Martin, Lisa and Julie (floor)

 

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we had a 5:00pm service at church which features the Sunday School children. Bennett and Ashley were both in this service and Bennett played the part of Joseph.

After church we came home and the kids found out that Santa came while we were gone!  Imagine that.  Bennett and Ashley each had 6 gifts.

Bennett got:  construction themed bedsheets, a USA puzzle, a Snackeez, game Pop The Pig, Curious George 4 pk of books, a Bulldozer

Ashley got:  Frozen themed bedsheets, a Hello Kitty puzzle, a Snackeez, Little People School Bus, Frozen Seek & Find book, Imagination Magnets activity board

They both seemed pretty happy with their gifts and we spent about $75 on each of them.  Lucky for me, I had lots of Target giftcards saved up from Swagbucks so technically, I probably only spent about $40 per kid.  

After gifts we had a lasagna supper, they played with their gifts for a bit and then off to bed.  Mike was tired also so by 8:30pm, the house was quiet and I was bored/lonely.  So I decided to go to my moms for alittle bit and see what they were up to.  I watched a home movie with them which was interesting...we were all so young!..Kristen was 3.  It was a video of our family opening up gifts on Christmas 1998.  Then, I decided that since I was still awake, I went to the CandleLight service at church at 11:00pm and was able to sit next to Shirley.