Colombia Madness

I recently visited a friend who is halfway through his 8-month road trip from Salt Lake City to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. He was in Colombia when I had time to go visit, so I made the trip. We slept in the VW Vanogan (pictured) and had a police escort most of the trip. The van had a few hiccups along the way, so we never made it to the national park we had planned on visiting. We ended up hanging out in small mountain towns, which I was completely ok with. We ate great food (except the head I'm pictured eating), got a good workout push-starting the van, relaxed in some hot springs, and enjoyed seeing the sites of Bogota. It was an adventurous trip.

"What happened?"

I love in the middle of his dance when he falls down and says, "What happened?" That's my funny boy!

Coop's new room

Oh how I wish I would have remembered to take before pictures of this room. Oh well! I guess you will just have to imagine the green and gold stripes that use to adorn these walls and marvel at the new blues that look so amazing now! Yes, this is Coop's new room but he has yet to actually sleep in it. This is because of me, not him. I have not yet been brave enough to put him in this new big boy bed. It's not only nice that he can't get out of his crib, but this is my baby we are talking about! He can't be old enough to go into a big boy bed! It's just another step in the big boy direction and I don't know if I'm ready for that. Who knows when I'll actually have the nerve to do it! Maybe he'll be sharing the crib with his new baby brother ;-)

What a ham! I love it!

Easter Island

The other night the snow was just too good to pass up, so after Coop went down our good friends Joey & Kathryn came over and this is what we did.

Think of the movie "Get Smart" when he sees the assasin and yells "Easter Island, Easter Island!" This is our own authentic Easter Island head.

Call for Help

So I've been blogging religously this whole year thinking I could go to this website and make my blog into a book. A friend told me about it a while ago and I've been waiting till now (the end of the year) to do one. HOWEVER, I have come to find out that the website (blurb.com) does not support blogger.com but only supports livejournal and typespace...ugh, who uses those anyways! So now I am stuck! I know there has got to be a website/program out there that will support blogger and enable me to easily transfer my blogs to book format and complete my "The Popes '08" blogger book. Does anybody know of any?

More Christmas Traditions

I've finally got around to blogging the rest of our Christmas break. My family came up with some new things this past year and had so much fun with them that we decided to make them into yearly (actually bi-yearly due to sharing years with the in-laws) traditions. This first one, The Mini Olympics, was actually invented during our St. Lucia trip and slightly modified for our Christmas gathering. As you can see in the pictures below, each adult was partnered with a grandchild and had to complete 5 different activities; Darts- self explanatory, Mexican Horseshoes-throwing large washers into one of three holes; Luge Pong-blow the ping-pong ball around an obstacle course with your partner; Clothing Relay-put on jacket, gloves hat, scarf, unwrap a chocolate kiss, eat it, and take it all off; Boat Races- with previously made boats, we turned on the jets in the hot tub and saw whose boat was still floating at the end (ours was a pirate ship!) At the end of the festivities, everyone got a gold medal and 2 kisses from Grandma, who could ask for a better prize!

The next tradition was the Iron Chef. This consisted of each couple being assigned a course of the meal (i.e. appetizer, main dish, dessert, etc.) and having to use the secret ingredient in all of them. 1 hour time limit, no recipes allowed and you could only use what was already in the fridge. The secret ingredient was ginger. We actually had an amazing meal, surprising all of us! This was the first time we did this one and have since decided it's a keeper!

Finally, the Pinata tradition. This one started a few years back and once again, it proved to be so much fun that it stuck. Every year the boys in the fam take on the assignment of making and filling a pinata for the New Years Eve celebration. This year, due to time constraints and travel schedules it was a simple present pinata (in the past there have been unicorns and horses) but filled with puzzles, candy, pens, Tylenol, tampons, Bean-o, and lots more unexpected surprises (remember who is in charge of filling the pinata ;-) The kids absolutely love it and the adults sure don't mind taking a swing themselves!

I'm sure each year will bring more new traditions to accompany the old and for that, I can't wait!

Christmas Eve Sledding

Traditions! Traditions! It wouldn't be Christmas Eve without sledding in the Gundersen family. Coop couldn't have been happier. After every run you could hear the little guy saying, "Adin, adin!" He lasted the whole 2 hours without any complaints until it was time to get in the car. By then his hands and feet were ice cold and he wasn't too fond of the de-thawing feeling. I'm pretty sure that still won't stop him next year! He's his daddy in the making!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning came & let's just say Coop's not a morning person ;-)

But he eventually came out of his shell.

We had some cliff bars in our stockings for breakfast along with fruitsnacks and M&M's (there are no rules on Christmas morning). Coop got some cars, a ball popper, some ski pjs to match Daddy's, a big boy bed from Grandma & Grandpa Gundersen, and his most favorite present, a mini rolling backpack that now goes with him everywhere.

Wenatchee was covered in snow making our time there the perfect white Christmas! We love spending time with our family, it just completes the experience.

A Visit from Santa

My neice Maddy had no problems hopping up there and giving her list.

Coop was not so sure.

Neither was his cousin Beckham.

This was as close as he would get.

Soon enough he'll learn that he needs to suck up to the big guy!

I love Kung-Fuuuuuuu!

It's become a tradition in the Gundersen family to create a snow sculpture whenever mother nature permits and this year, she was begggin us to. So here he is, about 10 feet tall in my parent's backyard, holding a bowl of noodles and in the kung-fu full split. We have so much fun creating our sculptures and this one was built in a record time of only 4 hours. We added just a touch of spray paint to complete the panda look so as not to be confused with other wimpy bears (i.e. pooh bear, teddy bear, etc.). We love Kung-Fuuuuuuuu!

Just some of those that worked on Po.