2006 Merry Christmas

We're a loving family....












who respects each other.

















Christmas 2005














Christmas 2005 

Swann Family Portrait Gallery

Christmas 2003



















Spring 2004













Summer 2004














Fall 2004 

Along the trails in Lake Hiddenwood, our favorite camping state park. We try to make it here at least once or twice a month but sometimes as often as once a week during good weather. Good weather must be defined by this quote:

There is no such thing as poor weather, only people poorly dressed for the weather.














Our inherited aluminum canoe becomes a fun diversion in early summer after the water has warmed up enough to not be dangerous and hasn't turned too green or murky to be disgusting.
A self portrait taken along the backpacking trail in the Black Hills. Our goal is to take one family backpacking trip for several days, up to a week, each year. I think we've only missed one year in the past five.

It's hard and stinky and exhausting and pushes us beyond what we think we can do. We love that.

Words that other people have used to describe our passion for camping:
nuts, crazy, deep end, determined, invested, committed, goofy, etc. 

Steven's favorite picture of me. 

The First Game of Monopoly that Sarah won a few Years Ago
Since then, we have played many games and many kinds of games. Almost nightly, you can find us setting up something or dealing out the cards. We laugh, we try, but we don't take it seriously. 

Traditions

One of the Swann family traditions for the last two generations is fondue on Christmas Eve. We make lots of raw meat to choose from and deep fry it in the hot oil fondue pot. We also prepare several sauces to dip the cooked meat into. Because of the high grease, we eat either a baked or twice baked potato and a small salad. Few of us like all of it but no one likes none of it so everyone is happy with part of it and concentrates on that part.

Sarah likes her cocktail wieners raw and Steven eats some of the shrimp before frying it. This picture is from our first year in Herreid, 2004. 

Caleb has a pool table in the basement. It's no longer flat but we still love to shoot a round or two on it most every day. About once a week or two, we have a family movie night and eat either pizza or junk food. Sometimes we have these to celebrate someone's accomplishment and then that person gets to pick the movie, as long as everyone can watch it. Usually though, Dad and I go to the gas station and choose one or get one out of our own supply or borrow one from a friend. 

We love reading, as evidenced by our library and book budget. Some of our favorite reads or current books in progress right now are:
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Mary Kate and Ashley Detectives Series
Dragons in Our Midst Series
Mitford Years Series by Jan Karon
Calvin and Hobbes comicbooks
Anything written by Dave Meuer
Romancing Your Child's Heart
Odyssey of Homer
Look and See books, like Where's Waldo
Anything written by G.A. Henty
 

One of the two computers in the living room, where the kids learn their Spanish, check email, surf ebay (no buying), and play Age of Empires II as a family. Steven and Caleb also like to hunt down terrorists in Rainbow Six and kill metal chickens (according to Mama) on MechWarrior 4. Sarah enjoys Barbie games, and a few websites with games her style. I check email, blog, shop, read, and once in a rare while IM. 

My latest living room decoration, this Narnia remniscent lampost, has gotten a holiday makeover with a new pine garland from my mom and moved to the entryway. We also hung all the stockings again on the coat hooks there too. This year we tried a white tinsel to put on the tree but it ended up looking like we just emptied the paper shredder onto the tree instead, not quite as glorious as I had imagined.

 

Marcia's parents are called Grandpa and Grandma. They live in Sioux Falls, SD. Grandpa works for Sioux Valley, driving their mobile MRI truck. Grandma works for HSBC, which is a credit card company. She has earned a couple trips to exotic places for her successes at work. They love to travel, do all sorts of new activities, play games (but they talk a lot in between turns so the games take forever) and cook tons and tons of food, no matter how many people are actually there to eat the food. We go to visit them three or four times a year and they come to see us once or twice a year so we end up getting together one way or another about every other month. Grandpa likes NASCAR and water aerobics and being goofy. Grandma is diabetic, likes Diet Coke, and laughing all the time. They are always working on another remodeling project somewhere in their house. I won't tell you how old they are but maybe you can guess from the picture since they are six months apart. 

Anothe pic of the favorite fishing hole, The Spillway with the bridge on the left and the concrete dam on the right, which we walk and play on when the creek is a little down. 

Caleb and a big ugly fish he caught this summer down at the shallow spillway of Spring Creek. The creek is so named because that's about the only time it actually runs all the way. Otherwise, Caleb just finds a spot where it's a little deeper and hasn't dried up yet to fish for a few hours. 

Here are two shots from the inside of our church, one upstairs and one downstairs. About 100 people attend on a Sunday morning. Christmas Eve is our largest service of the year with over 200 people that night. This year the children's Christmas program will be on that night and every other year is a candlelight service.
 

Steve, Marcia, Steve's grandmother (Gram), Steve's parents (Granny and Pawpaw). Gram lives in Memphis, TN, close to another son of hers. Granny and Pawpaw own a trailer here in Herreid but live in Waco, TX, close to Steve's brother John and his family. They are hoping to be down there during the school year and be up here during the summers. When they are here, the kids love spending the night over there in a bedroom just for them. WE usually have Sunday noon dinner with them and then play a board game or watch a movie together. Granny likes to collect mice things (pretend, of course) and Pawpaw doesn't like to collect anything. He reads a lot, especially about the end times of the world, WWII, and a game he writes scenarios for called Advanced Squad Leader. Gram loves gardening, when her health permits, and cats. My kids enjoy reading her tales of the cats' adventures. 

Sarah, in the middle, is singing with her two friends, Rilynn in pink, and Tegan in yellow and blue. They loved singing at church and hope to do it many times in the future too.
 

This is a picture of our Teens 4 Christ group that went on the campout. Sarah's in the front row with the black and pink swimsuit. Caleb in in red basketball clothes, of course. 

Caleb, Sarah, and Cookie on our last camping trip. For being an eight-year-old dog, she gets awfully energetic when we go outdoors with her. We just took her in during the month of August and she seems to do well here. This sweetie comes inside during the day but won't step onto our carpet, unless we leave the house without her. She prefers to sleep outside in her heated doghouse at night in the garage.

One small note of concern: Caleb and I went back to back in front of the mirror this morning. I barely won this time. I have just half an inch on him for now. I wonder if I quit feeding him green beans, if he'll quit growing. 

In early November, my mom got an unexpected vacation from work with the way her new schedule goes and the way getting days off can be arranged. She graciously took some of that time to visit us up here in Herreid and we loved the time together.

Thanksgiving went very well but quite differently than we had originally planned. We had hoped to go camping and bought heat 'n' eat type varieties of all the Thanksgiving meal trimmings. Unfortunately, we woke up to a cold, blustery day - like the wind was gusting over 30mph and we didn't want to be rolling down the highway in our tents like a hamster in its wheel!
So, my dear, kind husband volunteered to drive us to my parents in Sioux Falls and we arrived just in time for a 7pm dinner. My Aunt Andrea even surprised our family (but my parents knew) by swinging by for a while that evening. Steven is out of vacation days and so worked on his laptop the next day while the kids, my mom, and I went to the sales shopping.

I love shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I love shopping in the crowds. I love shopping when I'm the only one in the store. I love shopping by myself. I love shopping with friends. I especially love shopping with my mom because we like to look at the same things and keep the same pace. I miss shopping since we've been in Herreid. I love shopping almost as much as I love garage saleing, and that's a lot!

We left leisurely Saturday morning and, on a whim, stopped in Madison to have lunch with the Brown's and catch up with them for just a bit. Their newly remodeled house looks amazing and Amy is still gorgeous and still has perfect hair. Amy, when you write out your will, remember I want your hair!

I'm not sure if this next topic is good news or bad news. Brace yourselves: We brought back the light blue minivan to Herreid. It's been working great (great?! how dare it work great after all the trouble it gave us on the way home from the Big Horn Mountains backpacking trip, grrr) and my Dad couldn't get it to act up so he'd know how to fix it. We have let it come home and are gratefully using the lower gas mileage to our advantage. It is still not my friend, however. I may have some grudge issures here. I'd say pray for me but I'm not so sure it's right to pray over relationships with cars. :)

The house is lightly decorated for Christmas. I chose "lightly" this year because I didn't want to have to put much away come January. No scrooge attitudes this year, just a little slothfulness.

Since we've been back, much of our house excitements have come from the many phone calls attached to adopting. Our hopes are getting up, very up! There is even a decent chance of us being able to meet and visit with this intriguing girl named Paige before Christmas; how awesome would that be!!!

If you're in the shopping mood and out of people to buy for, she is fourteen and loves NASCAR, hair styling, fishing, and listening to music. Caleb and Sarah are getting jazzed about her maybe coming here. We'll get to paint and decorate a room according to her style pretty soon, if all keeps going so well, among a thousand other things. Can you even imagine the thousand other things?

We hope to snap our family Christmas picture to be printed for the church and any cards we mail out today. Those of you who get this newsletter and check the blog, I'm not planning on sending a card, just for time, guilt, and postage reasons. Will you still love me anyway? Of course, we give a picture to every family in the church and then I might send just a few out to some people without internet or those I don't have their email address. If you think that's grossly unfair, let me know and I'll get one to you too.

A thrilling part of the most likely adoption, is that we may have to retake our family photo and send out two this year. I totally would not mind at all!

I'll try to write a more formal Christmas letter next week. This weekend is our parsonage Open House and so I'm cleaning, making a wide variety of dips and things to put in the dips. It's a dumb name "Dip Bar" but I think it will be a nice change from the traditional cookies and treats at the other open houses. Plus, it should be relatively easy to do and not any more expensive than making fancy goodies. If you're in the area, stop by anytime on Saturday the 9th afternoon or early evening.

Keep us in your prayers please. And Paige too.

Blessings,
Marcia for the Swann's