The start of this road trip has just been one bump-in-the-road after another. Believe me, no one is looking forward to 15 days traveling to Wisconsin/Minnesota to see friends and family than me. But it’s been hard to keep a good attitude about all the miles that lie in front of us with all the problems we’ve had since before we even started.

Analise has had Girl Scout Day Camp all week, and Friday was to be the camp program at 2:30. We were going to go together, and leave for our trip right from camp. Thursday I got tons of cleaning and laundry done, but no packing, because a friend had invited Josiah to play for the day (and she was going to bring him to the camp). I was thrilled at the thought of 4.5 hours to myself on Friday, tons of time to get all the packing done.

Analise woke up Friday morning with a large bug bite on her leg, so we gave her Benadryl and rubbed some itch cream on it, and iced it while we drove to camp. I dropped Josiah off, and 10 minutes after I’d gotten home to get started on my day, the camp nurse called. She was bothered by how swollen her leg was, and it was really bothering her. So I headed out for another 50-mile round trip to camp to pick Analise up. We spent a bit of time finding her group and saying goodbye, since she wouldn’t be at the program. Then we zipped over to the doctor’s, who agreed it was probably a spider bite. He gave us a prescription for an antibiotic (just what I need… a bottle of medicine to keep cold for 10 days, and battle with Analise to take. UG!). We got home at 1pm. I got started packing, and Josiah came home at 1:50. Thankfully, Grandma came to play with the kids at 2:30, and after a stop at the pharmacy and one quick trip back home for a forgotten item, we were on our way by 3:50pm, actually about the same time as if we’d left from camp. But my packing was rushed and disorganized (and one set of DVD player headphone was accidentally packed buried in the back), and I was a tired, frazzled mess who had already spent over 3 hours in the car to camp and back twice yesterday BEFORE we left on an 8 hour trip to St. Louis.

It was a long trip, with tired kids, forcing Analise to take her medicine, and lots of grumpiness by everyone. We finally arrived at the super cool Moonrise Hotel at 1am, tucked into bed at 1:30.

Josiah was up at 6:30, and of course, pretty much the only bag Brian didn’t manage to unload was the snack bag, but the kids played quietly until 8. We had a good morning at Panera and then the kids and I went to Forest Park and played on the playground.

I let them ride their scooters for a bit, until Josiah tumbled and cracked his lip open. He screamed for 15 minutes, when a sno-cone finally calmed him a bit. But his poor lip and cheek have been bothering him off and on all day.  It looked jagged and ugly to begin with, then it looked better for a while, but by the evening, it was looking ugly again. Is that normal for split lips?

We headed off to the bike race this afternoon, and arrived in time for the kids to do their first race without training wheels. They did AWESOME! Josiah won (his group of 2), but he was so fast! And Analise was 2nd, and the first girl! They got t-shirts, ribbons and even teddy bears as their prizes. We then had a couple bike tumbles, which I guess is to be expected.

It rained 3 times during Brian’s 1-hour race, and we eventually ended up soaked, and the car got wet bc we left a window open (when it wasn’t raining it was quite hot!). Poor Brian raced well until he flatted with 2 laps to go, and then he ended up 2 places out of the money after chasing the group to the finish. We were all drenched and exhausted and quite grumpy after the bike race. But we drove down to see the Arch, and even saw a rainbow over it (barely visible in the picture below). The last plus was that we enjoyed two trips to our favorite Noodles & Company today, and our hotel is really comfortable and cool.

The sunset from our hotel room window was a lovely reminder of God’s grace and faithfulness. Thank goodness His mercies are new every morning! Tomorrow is another (BIG) bike race, a 6hr drive to Dubuque, IA where we’ll spend the night before driving on to Shell Lake on Monday. I know this trip will be worth it, though! I’m just praying God would grant a huge heaping of grace for each other and anything else “exciting” that happens!

We had an awesome winter wonderland trip visiting friends and family. The map above shows the places we visited on our return trip as well as the snow cover on the ground.

We left Shell Lake, WI on Tuesday driving across the state to Green Bay, WI to visit Kristine’s roommate from college and her family. We had a great time at Chuck-E-Cheese with Dena and Dan and their two kids (Derrick and Delia). Rick and Robin also joined in the fun at Chuck-E-Cheese as we tried to win tickets and played video games. Snow was in the forecast for Wednesday and sure enough, it started to snow pretty good as we left to head down to La Porte, IN to visit Kristine’s Grandma for New Year’s Eve.

It snowed pretty much the entire way, and it was a little bit dangerous because our wipers are not working so well from all the snow and grit. We made it and as you can tell from the map, they were already under a blanket of Lake Effect snow with another big storm coming in Thursday and Friday. We had a great time visiting family and bringing in the new year quietly before our return trip home to Alabama the next day. The snow started before we left, and we got to enjoy one last blast of snow before heading back down to Alabama … where it is supposed to snow this Thursday!!! Check out all the pictures and video below:

Lake effect snow in Indiana!

Scout Island, Shell Lake, WI

An ice fishing hut, Shell Lake, WI

Not quite thick enough to drive cars on, Shell Lake, WI

With an air temp of -10F, your breath freezes instantly onto your beard

Friends from college at UW Green Bay – Kristine, Robin, and Dena

Josiah, Derrick, and Analise hanging out on the jeep

Analise and Derrick danced in front of the camera for a while at Chuck-E-Cheese

I helped Josiah drive this snow mobile game

I worked the accelerator while Analise steered. She ended up turned around and going the wrong way!

Partially frozen Green Bay – I went for a 60 mile ride in VERY cold temps – probably felt the coldest at the end of this ride from all my rides

Lake effect snow falling for my last bike ride of the trip from La Porte, IN to New Buffalo, MI.

I parked my bike here and hiked the rest of the way up the boardwalk across the top of a small sand dune on Lake Michigan in New Buffalo, MI

The view of the rest of the boardwalk

A large floating piece of ice full of sea gulls

This ride was so cold that my water bottle froze and then all the gator-ice accumulated at the top as I tried to shake it down repeatedly into my mouth. I was so thirsty!

So cold leaving La Porte, the windows were freezing on the inside!

Today we had another fun adventure – ice skating! We had errands to run in Rice Lake (about 20 miles away), so we worked it out for me to bike down there on some nice backroads for a good 32 mile ride. It was COLD. The air temps were in the lower teens, but the wind was just unbelievable. I only had Kristine’s iphone with me to take these pictures, otherwise I would have taken video of the snow blowing across the road at 20mph. The outdoor ice skating pond was in not so good shape after the rain on Christmas day. It has been super cold since then, but the ice wasn’t very even.

Ice Skating Princesses

	My favorite picture of Analise and Kristine, the ice princesses
	Analise the ballerina ice skater
	We didn’t exactly follow instructions, but they were getting ready to take down the signs anyway (we saw a bunch of people ice skating on it after lunch)
	Three clips together here … Analise and Kristine almost wipe out at the end.
	Refueling at a midwestern favorite – Culver’s
	Josiah and me
	In Wisconsin – cheese is an art!

Mountain Biking Adventure

	Here’s the annotated topocreator route.
	Lots of long straight flat icy snowy roads – the challenge is finding a smooth line and riding as fast as you can without falling
	Some curvy roads too
	Some very icy roads – this is the stuff you want to avoid
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 1 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 2 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 3 of 3)
	The view from the high point of the ride
	Blowing snow – the windchill was incredible. There was one part of the ride where the wind was blowing hard from the side and being funneled right into my eye by my sunglasses. I had to turn to look into the wind because my eyeball felt like it was starting to freeze!
	Snow drifts
	Rice Lake – the cool thing about this picture is the island with a picnic table only in the winter (or by boat in the summer)
	Ski-do anyone?
	My mountain bike at the ice rink
	An icy version of me at the ice rink.

Wind skiing

This was awesome to watch. Unfortunately my batteries died right before this guy took off … literally. He got going very fast and then jumped at least 8 feet in the air with the windsail taking him up and setting him back down. I got a new set of batteries in just in time for him to make it back. How cool!!!

We had a fun skiing and biking adventure today. A friend of the Cardwell’s organized a small skiing outing with a couple different families. I decided to do a longer mountain bike ride and meet them out at the trailhead to take some pictures. Went great except that Josiah was still feeling sick with a probable ear infection and stayed home with Grandma Sandy. Before dinner, Kristine and Grandma Sandy and the kids went over to some of our most faithful blog readers Judy and Alison Ricci. Here are the pictures and videos that tell the story.

Friends

Hanging out with Alison and Judy Ricci

Skiing

	Analise, the ski princess getting ready to head out for a long ski
	Heading back down the trail after a long ski
	Trying to catch snow flakes while Mommy looks very cold and Dale and Molly ski ahead
	Being towed along at the very end – quite a workout for Kristine!

Biking

	I rode from Shell Lake to Spooner onto a fun road called Roundhouse Rd. I saw the dinner train where we had quite a fun adventure two years ago.
	Roundhouse Rd – typical snow covered rd from the ride
	The end of the line for this train – snow covered tracks
	Christmas decorations out in the country beyond Spooner
	Snow mobilers – I saw lots of them on this fine Sunday afternoon
	Snow mobilers alongside the road
	Horses in the snowy countryside
	Beautiful shell lake – over 3 miles across. I am hoping to bike across it tomorrow or Tuesday
	I’ve ridden in cold weather before, but this is the first time I’ve had ice freeze to my knees!
	Self-portrait about 3/4 of the way through the ride. Temps in the teens with slushy, salty, dirty snow kicked up on my face

Ton of snow here!!!

Gives new meaning to “scraping the windshield”

Post-scraping, just enough to move the car out of the driveway

Which snow scraping implement is from Alabama? Which two implements are from Wisconsin? I’ll give you a hint – which one looks totally inadequate to scrape a foot of snow off the windshield and hood of a car?

Snow plowed in – blocked driveway

Exploring the snowy street

Snowy nativity

Salem Lutheran Church – where Kristine and I got married 6 1/2 years ago – the view from the Cardwell front porch

Snowshoeing tracks (or maybe it was Big Foot)

Skiing with Dale and Molly

Beautiful maple tree amongst cedar and other trees

Beautiful snowy creek, spring-fed and stays unfrozen even in the coldest temps

Speaking of frozen, when we left to drive to dinner – the rear two doors of the car were frozen shut! The kids had to climb through the front doors in order to get into the car. Then, once we got to Denelie’s, the kids had to reverse the process and climb out the front seat. Here’s a video!

At Denelie’s for a great pizza dinner

Also, it had started to snow pretty heavily right before we left for dinner. I took this video of some kids getting ready to go down the big sledding hill.

It’s hard to see all the snow falling on youtube because of the video compression.

Dec 24-2AM	Dec 24-8AM (30 min. after being swept)
Dec 24-9AM (90 min. after being swept)	Dec 25-2AM (peak snow accumulation)
Dec 25-9AM (starting to rain)	Dec 25-8PM (after raining all day)
Dec 25-11PM (starting to snow again)	Dec 26-8AM (1″ or 2″ new accumulation)

The snowstorm is all but wrapped up now, and in comes the cold weather behind it. The sun has just come out for the first time since we have been here, and the snow is beautiful! The collage above shows all stages of the storm. It looks like we brought a little bit TOO much warm air up with us from the Gulf of Mexico as the system turned unexpectedly to rain most of the day on Christmas (Day 3 of the storm). But the cold weather took over again by 8PM when it started to snow pretty heavily again. By this morning (Day 4) we had another inch or two of fresh snow. I went snowshoeing to help map the ski trails next to the house with my Garmin. I’ll post those pictures and pictures of our car later tonight.

Josiah and Analise look at the Nativity outside Salem Lutheran Church before the 5pm Christmas Eve service

I interrupt the live snowstorm blogging for a quick thought about this beautiful evening…

We bundled up and trudged through the snowbanks and still falling snow to walk the half block to the 5pm Christmas Even service with my parents and the kids.  It was a nice family worship time, full of songs, the familiar words of the first Christmas story and keeping the kids entertained with crayons, paper and jingle bells (during the songs, muffled at other times!), and ultimately, keeping Josiah from playing with the candle flame and Analise from leaning her hair into the candle. I did find a few seconds to appreciate the quiet candle-lit song…

Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

As we were leaving, someone asked if I might come back to the 11pm service to sing “Mary, Did You Know?” in a quartet, as one of the members wasn’t going to be able to come back.  Since we live just steps from church and I’m always up for helping out, I said yes and somehow managed not to fall asleep before I needed to head back over at 10:30.

My beautiful little church holds so many memories for me.  Years and years of Lutheran worship, from traditional liturgy to contemporary songs, many a Christmas program, hundreds of Sundays singing with the choir, serving as acolyte, reader, usher, communion assistant, and pianist (though never at the same time!), vocal and piano solos, confirmation classes, and somewhat more recently, our wedding.  So many pieces of my faith were formed there, and I found myself closing my eyes and knowing the familiar words of liturgy by heart.   Just as the service started, one of my best friends from high school and her family sat down next to me, and we were both surprised and excited to see each other for the first time in more than 7 years.  She and I had sung many songs together at church, and I was taken back to 17 years ago tonight, when we sang a duet at the Christmas Eve service as juniors in high school.   Here now we sat as mothers, with a whole new look on this Silent Night at the miracle that took place that first Christmas Eve.

So as I stepped to the front tonight, I was reminded of how my faith has changed.  And yet… He was, He is and He is to come.  Our Emmanuel.

Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

The blind will see, the deaf will hear and the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding is the great I am.

Family picture in front of the Christmas tree after the 5pm service

Snowing outside Salem Lutheran during the start of the 11pm Christmas Eve service

Video of the snow outside Salem Lutheran during the start of the 11pm Christmas Eve service

Home sweet home Alabama (vacationing in northwestern Wisconsin) – check out the license plate and car dealership

This video shows the snowfall at about 2:30PM along with a snowplow clearing the road. Exciting stuff for an Alabama boy! Sorry for the crazy parakeet tweeting – I was standing right next to his cage and apparently invading “his space” when I was recording the video.

It has been snowing all day today with at least six inches already on the ground, and the weather forecast calls for the heaviest snow tonight with rates of 1-2 inches per hour! More pictures from throughout the day:

	The Cardwell house mid-morning
	Analise prepares to walk/crawl/hike through the foot of snow in the front yard
	Josiah walks through the snow near the sledding hill
	The sledding hill
	Josiah ready to go down the hill – he didn't go very far
	A video collage of Analise and Josiah hiking/walking through the snow.
	Also, I still had a chance to get an hour long bike ride in today — and I’ll hopefully ride again tonight weather permitting 😉

Well, you know what they say about a watched snowstorm never snows…

Last night at 2AM – the wind was blowing so hard it was only accumulating right next to the house:

This morning (8:30AM) – the view of the deck this morning only 30 minutes after it had been swept by somebody not participating in the documentary of the snowfall:

This morning (9:45AM) – the view of the deck only 1 hour, 45 minutes after being swept:

This morning (8:30AM) – the view out the front door:

It has just started to snow here … I’m up for a while tonight to document the progress of the storm. Weather forecast calls for 2-4 inches tonight, 3-6 inches tomorrow, and even more on Christmas day! Also, I’ve got pictures and video at the end of our cross-country skiing outing with the kids earlier today.

Here is a video of the light snow blowing in the strong wind about an hour after it started.

Here is a “documentary” video as I walk through the snow to video at the same spot again about three hours after the snow first started falling.

And here is part II after I walked on down the hill onto the street:

The swirling snow right outside the glass door next to my laptop:

Earlier today, we went skiing at the Red Barn Campground ski area. The kids did great despite the cold wind blowing hard. Here is a video of Josiah and Kristine at the beginning. This was Josiah’s first time to go skiing. He did really well!

Here is a collage of falling down moments – unfortunately the camera batteries died before I could get a good video of Analise skiing. She did great again this year.

Photos of our skiing outing: