Christmas 2024
January 1, 2025
This post is intended mainly for the edification and/or amusement of our immediate family (or anyone else who gets a kick out of looking at family photos of people they don't know and reading odd inside jokes).
The date of this post is January 1, but that is not really true. In fact, it is kind of a brazen lie. It's the date that this post should have gone out, or at least the date that this post should have been written, or at least the date that this post should have at least been conceptualized. I can at least vouch for the fact that this post probably was sort of conceptualized around that time, but that's almost stretching it.
So now that that's all out of the way, let's do a little time warp back a few months and imagine it is December 2024 when we got an an airplane to go visit the kids.
While waiting to board the plane, the guy behind us in line went on and on about how you'd have to be pretty stupid to want to leave Florida to go to Minnesota at this time of year. We smiled and said we were actually looking forward to some snow. With a bewildered look, he turned to the people behind him in line to find someone more sympathetic to commiserate with.
This year, Minnesota did not disappoint in the snow department. Soon after we arrived, we were treated to a big heaping of the white stuff, and it managed to stick around (mostly) until Christmas! 🙂
The days leading up to Christmas were spent shopping for food, making food, shopping for more food, and just hanging out. Unfortunately, Audrey had come done with COVID or something, so she spent a bunch of time drinking ginger tea.
Audrey looking less sick than she felt
Alan enthusiastically wielding the fireplace poker he had gotten for his birthday last year
Apparently, ice cream is a bit of a nighttime ritual in this house
It's quite possible that Alan could survive solely on Aldi fake Cheerios
One afternoon before the snow started to melt, we took a pleasant winter walk (at times bordering more on "hike") with Alan at Battle Creek Regional Park.
Here's where the walk turned more "hike-like"
A fork in the path--which way should we go? North Rim or the Ski Jump?
We opted for the ski jump
Not exactly sure where a skier could jump here, but the view was nice
Obligatory artistic shot (every blog post has to have at least one!)
As is now a Koval Christmas Eve Tradition, we partook in the annual Christmas Eve Fish Dinner on--you guessed it--Christmas Eve. This year's fish was particularly attractive.
This year's catch was a beautiful Pompano (actually 2 of them). An added bonus was that they did not need de-scaling.
Of course, Audrey had decorated the house with flowers--even here in the kitchen!
The kids are not huge wine enthusiasts, but they thought this peach wine wasn't bad
Audrey was quite proud of her candlescape table decor
Kudos to Alan--the fish tasted as good as it looked!
And kudos to Andrew for a great eggnog cheesecake
Merry Christmas!
Check out the awesome dried citrus!
The Church of St. Mark all decked out for Christmas
The day after Christmas, we headed down "south" to Chicago to spend time with extended family.
What's a gathering on Julie's side of the family without games ...and Fanny Mae candy?
An intense Risk game
Andrew and Andrew--winner and loser of Bunco
Death of the flying monkey--a sad day
No caption required
The inlaws outlaws
The latest friendly-ish Bazar cat--an uncharacteristically charming break from tradition
Some unusual furniture choices at Stephanie and Eric's rental
While in Chicago, we also spent some good quality time with Babi, but for some reason we don't have any pictures to prove it. You'll just have to trust us on this. We had also planned to visit with the Glenn's for our annual New Years Eve get-together, but unfortunately Dave got sick the day of and they had to cancel. 🙁
Back up in Minnesota, we continued our theme of hanging out and enjoying our time with the kids. One day, Julie and Audrey visited the impressive Cathedral of St. Paul and went out for breakfast afterwards.
Yummy breakfast!
Alan practicing under the watchful eye of his coach, the Bulbous Chicken ...the true secret to his successful piano-playing prowess
Audrey and Julie baked and decorated a cake together for one of Audrey's co-worker's birthday. Midnight teal-blue is apparently the co-worker's favorite color, so that's what the cake had to be.
Not sure why there is no picture of the finished cake (maybe it's on Audrey's phone), but here is a slice she brought home. It was delicious!
...Meanwhile, the boys did whatever it is that they do on the computer
Eventually, it was time to get on a plane to go back to sunny Florida. We didn't run into Mr. "You'd be stupid to travel to Minnesota" at the airport this time around. Maybe he was going to be stuck in Minnesota all winter long.
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