Storm, Treats and Yippee!

Friday brought us a beautiful fall day- MN style.  We got around 3 or 4 inches of snow and the roads were very slippery, as it changed from rain to snow and the water froze on the roads underneath the heavy, wet snow.  In fact, the snow was so heavy and wet that several branches fell off trees under the weight of the white stuff. 

 This tree is across the driveway in front of one of the churches in our parish that is next-door to the parsonage.  It looked like half the tree snapped off.  Uff da!

Egyptian Solveig, Narnian king Jonah, and Puppy Anju

Anju enjoyed her first Halloween.  She met her best friend (a neighboring pastor's 2-year-old) at our community's Halloween party and her sister helped her play some of the carnival games and get some candy.  We spent most of the party sitting at the table with her friend's family (who are our friends too- ha!), watching the 2-year-olds revel in the candy they had received.

Jonah and Solveig made their rounds at the party.  Solveig got a huge amount of candy playing games, while Jonah only went to the fishing ponds over and over getting a bag full of pencils, erasers and little plastic toys.  

On Sunday, the Sunday School sang during the service for All Saint's Day, and then had our fall party after the service, where we emphasized thankfulness for all God has done for us, and given us.  Shawn was preaching in Roseau in the afternoon, so he stopped quickly at the SS party for some pizza "to go" after the service at the other church in our parish and headed up north.  Following our church activities, the rest of us headed over to the skating rink for registration for figure skating.  Solveig and Jonah both signed up and headed on the ice for some free skating.  Jonah did SO well for his first time on the ice.  He will do great!  Anju wanted to go too, but had fun watching her siblings.

We took off from the skating rink (about 15 miles from our home) and headed to our nearest "big" town about 20 miles further down the road to do some after-Halloween shopping.  Walgreens had great deals- 75% off.  In addition to a big bag of animal crackers for 64 cents, Anju got 2 toddler-sized dress-up outfits (costumes) for less than $5.  One is an angel and one is a red dress with black polka dots.  Now she won't trip wearing Solveig's old preschool-sized dress-up clothes when the kids play dress-up- and we've got small dresses for our small visitors!  We had lots of fun over the weekend, but I was glad we had that extra hour!

Now the great news--our medical insurance did so well last year (it is for called workers/pastors in our synod and our sister synod) that they are not billing us for our November premium.  Soooo- now we have the money to get Anju's citizenship certificate and passport so that she will be able to get a SS number as a US citizen, and will have proof that she is indeed an American.  Yippee!