Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

I am sitting on a plane from Amsterdam to Houston. John and I have just spent a week exploring Celle (in picture--charming, yes?) and Hannover, Germany. In about two months one of those fair cities will be our new home for three years. John is taking a new position with his company, Baker Hughes. He will be continuing his work in materials research but changing the focus of his efforts to a broader range of drilling tools (those were his words). We have always imagined that we would live overseas one day, but this opportunity came sooner than we thought and in such an ideal location that it required almost no discussion to reach a decision. Before graduate school John participated in an internship in a small town near Cologne, and later that same year (unbeknownst to each other) I moved to Vienna to begin two years of teaching. Fourteen years later we will again cross the pond, this time together and with two kids in tow. Elisabeth, now six, will begin second grade at eithe...

We joyfully celebrated Henry's third birthday on Friday. He knew most of his presents ahead of time, but his joy at opening gifts was not at all diminished. Saturday we celebrated with my family. Henry could hardly wait for "Timothy's bike" to come--his most longed for present. When it did come, he got to ride it for about 5 minutes before a cold rain began to fall. We headed inside for some games and by 10:30 Henry was saying he was ready for cake. Henry and Elisabeth had helped me decorate the cake--a purple dump truck cake as requested. When it was finally time to light the candles, Henry sang heartily right along with everyone, "Happy Birthday to You!" In the afternoon the rain finally stopped and Henry was more than ready to ride his bike--this time with coat and gloves on. The cold--at least a 10 degree drop since the morning-- didn't bother him a bit. He was just content to ride up and down the street like he'd been doing it for years. ...

Some family photos from the trip.

Henry and Elisabeth did play and work together at times. Here they are sledding (doubles luge) and coloring together. Here at some point decided that an old novelty cowboy hat from when I was a child would be enough to go outside. In this photo Henry is forlorn. Here we check to see the height of the icicles. Certainly taller than Elisabeth.

Uncle Andy also had motorized winter toys for the kids to enjoy. They both got to join him on the snowmobile and RZR (snowmobiling and razoring.) We also visited Sarah's horse and the kids gave her a treat and got to groom her a little. Andy also has a sauna. We all enjoyed it one night. After getting quite warm we ran into the backyard snow. Here you can see the snow angle that I made when I fell in to cool off. Exhilirating indeed! I suspect that the snow angle was made more by melting into the snow than by compacting or displacing it. The act of running out into the night in only a bathing suit did a number on my ankles. After they had warmed up again I realized that they were all cut up from the icy snow crust. Laurel and Dad joined me for the run into the cold but they wouldn't snow dive.

Sledding at Andy's place in Marquette was like graduation for the kids. The hill was longer, steeper, and had a turn. The weather was also colder. They loved it. This hill extracted much laughter, many tears over having to walk back to the top, some spectular bail-outs to avoid the trees, and a little bit of snow rash. As you can tell by now sledding was the primary activity every day. The usual vacation schedule was like this: Wake-Up Breakfast Play Games (or with new toys) Go sledding Lunch Rest time Sledding Dinner Bedtime. The indoor to outdoor transition was at least fifteen minutes and usually closer to 25minutes as we tried to round-up snow gear and get it on.

The thing about toboggans is this: You have to be old enough to realize that when you board, your ride will likely end in disaster. These young kids didn't know that. They won't really learn either. The promise of flying down a hill with several friends overpowers the caution that should be present. The other thing about toboggans is that you should always have someone familiar in the art of sled control aboard. That wasn't the case with these novice sliders. So, as you might expect that while everyone at the top was smiling there were tears and blood at the bottom. It is a good thing we took the photo at the top. As expected, despite the tears and blood, they all wanted to immediately go again! Toboggans just have to much promise of delight. Elisabeth and Mom make the Jesus birthday cake to go with Christmas dinner. A Christmas tradition is starting with this dessert in our family. The family Christmas Day photo, Andy is missing but we will meet up with him soon enough. A...