as soon as christmas was in our rearview mirror, and we had recovered mostly from various illnesses, we began planning to host derek’s parents fiftieth wedding anniversary party at our house. i acquired generous amounts of sprinkles and golden decor at post christmas clearance sales. and everything was set. and then mayhem struck. the night […]
grandlidboms
all the christmasses, 2019.

in all the years that we have been local, we celebrate christmas early, with derek’s parents and his sister’s family, with a semi-swedish themed meal and gift exchange, at his parents house. i suppose they have celebrated it without us in the years that we weren’t local, but i guess i’ll allow it. anyhoooo. here’s […]
polar express(great smoky mountain railroad).

we love watching and reading the polar express every year at christmas, and always say that someday we should ride the one of the many polar express themed train rides offered in our neck of the woods. well, our “maybe someday” turned into this year, when our family gift from the grandlidboms was a polar […]
so much september.

aside from a quick little trip to ny with anna and hazel, we laid low for most of september. we kicked off our homeschool year. and continued with co-op. football started. we baked a lot. anna started ballet officially. and there were lots of bugs and ruby snuggles. firstly. we started homeschool. the room came […]
boring august.

you would think that since we are no longer traveling and i don’t have to squeeze blogging in amongst various amazing and epic adventures, that i would be able to keep up with it better. you would think. anyhoooo. it’s only 11 days into september (edited: 19 days) and i’m finally getting to the august […]
st. augustine with the grandlidboms.

for our final stop on our loop around florida, we met up with the grandlidboms in saint augustine. the wait between the last time we saw them and this time wasn’t as long as some of the visits out west, but the kids were just as excited, nonetheless. our first stop was dinner at a […]
the isaaczilla turns 12.

while we were in winston-salem, in january, the boy had his twelfth birthday. it seems like just a couple of minutes ago i was bringing him home from the hospital, but alas, it’s been a dozen years. it’s going by quickly and isaac has always been, shall we say, “spirited”, giving us a run for […]
january miscellany in ws/nc.

just after christmas, we decided that rather than hang out in winston-salem for the rest of dreary winter, we were going to head south to florida at the end of january. then, we made an even bigger decision to just get back on the road entirely, for at least another year and a half, while […]
raleigh, by train.

for christmas, we asked for folks to give the gift of experiences to the lidkids, instead of stuff to fill our camper. the grandlidboms, who love to ride trains, gave us the gift of an amtrak train trip to raleigh, where we would be able to go to a museum or two, have some lunch, […]
december in ws/nc.

december is always pretty exciting, obviously, because christmas. but we also get to have hazel’s birthday. plus we had some friends at the campground with us. there was a surprise snow. a birthday party. and a bonus christmas party (the grandlidbom swedish christmas). anyhooooo… here’s the parts of december i haven’t already blogged about…. first […]