January 3, 2011

The Colorado Haws Family

This week has been full of adventures. Andy had started in-processing this week and will check into his unit next week. The girls have had a great time being home and playing in the snow from the New Year’s storm that we had. We didn’t have a sled for them to go sledding, so we improvised and used a printer box with a rope tied to it. Needless to say that box did not last very long, so the next day we adventured out on the very icy road to please the girls by buying them a sled. I do have to say that I would be very happy if it did not snow here anymore because I am not one who likes to drive on icy roads. Kayla was so excited today because she now has officially moved from the nursery into the Sunbeam class at church. Haley was excited that Kayla was in primary with her and was being a very good big sister by showing Kayla where her class was and who her teacher was.

News from Wisconsin

It has been such a wonderful couple of weeks. We have been blessed with Julie and Jeff and Stacie and Kevin visiting. There have been many special memories made during this time.

We were able to do a secret Santa for a family in our community. The effort was greatly helped by the "strangers" in our home that dropped things on their doorstep or in one case handed them a card with some special gifts inside. We have had the opportunity to go ice skating and snow shoeing. We had family pictures taken. We played games, ran around the outside of the house barefoot in the snow. Only Kevin and Logan were that crazy. We had wonderful meals prepared by nearly everyone in the home. For some reason I was not invited to prepare one of the meals. We enjoyed several meals at local resturants. We pondered the Savior's birth and enjoyed a wonderful message presented by Kevin and Stacie. We gave and received gifts that will brighten our lives in the days to come. We laughed together and enjoyed a holiday season that was much too short.

It has been so good to spend the time together and makes me want to see a day that all our family can enjoy time together.

One of the biggest pieces of news was that Jeff and Renata and the boys will be coming up to Pennsylvania this spring. I will include a fun story that Jeff sent about their excitement in coming north.

From Jeff

I had a fun experience that I thought I would share.

Tonight Felipe, our oldest, began to show signs of excitement about coming to the US. Renata had been talking to the boys and trying to boost enthusiasm about the idea of going somewhere completely different. Unfortunately for Renata English is not so easy and the pronunciation can become confusing, so much so that amidst her explaining what she had seen online she began confusing the name of the destination.

All of a sudden with excitement in their eyes Renata and the boys came running back asking me to show them pictures of Transylvania. I recognize that I am a horrible person but I could not let this pass. Quickly I started showing them beautiful castles and country side. They were quite impressed but felt the underlying theme of Halloween throughout the Google searches. Felipe asked about Halloween and I tried to explain that Transylvania was home to the sinister stories of Count Dracula. A quick feeling of discomfort began to arouse, Brazilian are just too superstitious.

A picture would have told the whole tale but I laugh far too easily. I could not bear and had to confess that the move was to Pennsylvania.

After some complaints from the crowd along the lines of “This isn’t helping” and “I’m never going to learn that language” all calmed down and we looked through some pictures of the Bethlehem/Allentown area.