Michigan Living: Winter Week 28

So Winter is back...


Last week in our Blog we shared about the "unseasonably warm" temperatures...well those are officially over!!!






This week started off mild but then by Thursday, Friday & Saturday it got really cold and dumped about 2 1/2 - 3 inches of snow. Most of the snow fell Thursday over night so Friday morning was an adventure! We woke to the ground covered in snow with a few flurries still falling, so we began the process of taking the girls to school...this included digging the car out & scrapping ice off windows! Once in the car at about 7:15 a.m., we saw that the roads had not yet been cleared. For all you Michiganders, we were the slow pokes out there driving about 20 miles per hour & trying not to slip -n- slide into others (sorry if we held you up...although some in MI drive way to fast for the conditions so I think we should be thanked for saving your life!!!) Actually, the car did great and the girls made it to school safety. We even continued the fun and drove out to St. Johns to do breakfast with some friends.










After all the fun of driving in the snow I thought we should get outside and enjoy the white stuff, so today (Sunday) we donned the snow gear...loaded the sleds into the car and headed for the high school which has some great hills to sled down. We had a blast & nobody got hurt...which equals a good day!!!












Finally, for those who saw in lasts weeks blog our pictures of painting pottery for Danielle's birthday... well here are the finished products (Em drove to Lansing on Thursday before all the snow to pick them up...

Michigan Living: Winter Week 27

Welcome to the Third trimester...

... wait, hang on- nobody's pregnant (well, somebody's pregnant somewhere, but it's not one of us!), we've just entered our 27th week of Michigan Living and we're still alive! Not only are we still living but we're still LOVING it as well!


~Weather Update~

If you're following the national weather trends you probably keep hearing about how it's unseasonably warm on much of this end of the country. We'd like to say "you're welcome" for bringing a little CA sunshine with us, and invite you to freely participate in God's sparing us from a bone freezing first winter. Please don't feel any obligation, but financial gifts are always welcome!



~The Big Event~

So the big deal this week: we are the parents of a teen and a tween. Danielle turned 11 on Sunday and that means that she has entered the world of tweendom. Danielle chose to go to a local paint-your-own pottery place (you might remember it from Rebekah's 13th b-day party!), which meant 3 hours of pottery painting for the Carter ladies and 3 hours of Texas Hold-Em on the Blackberry for Chris.








Then all hell broke loose! You see, since the dawn of time we've had this agreement that we don't tell restaurant employees that it's our birthday-- that way nobody is embarrassed by loud, obnoxious birthday songs sung to you by total strangers. Well, Danielle's a different beast (at this point the DNA tests are inconclusive...) and all she wanted was for the Red Robin employees to sing to her... of course the free hot fudge Sunday might have been more what she was after, but she was totally willing to take the birthday song abuse in order to get to the dessert. Go figure!














~What's Up With the Youth Group?~




I don't typically put a ton of stuff about Student Life at Northpointe on here because we're really tracking our Michigan adventure, but since a number of you have been asking here's a taste of what Chris has been up to:





New name/Wednesday::group/Sunday Morning Middle School::group/
Sunday Night High School::group/Fall Bash/lessons series/two bands/1
intern/drama/phone calls/developing relationship/parents/wrist bands/
new set up/building project/broken stuff/free air hockey table/small
groups/High School LIFE::groups/intern leaves/Youth Team/new Creative
Arts Team/recruit volunteers/teaching training/tech nightmares/computer
crash/systems galore/Cafe/networking/Elder meetings/parent meetings/
light construction/serious destruction/encouraging people/
loving people/being with people/getting to know people/Jesus


~Oldie But Goodie~

I know this is a little old, but I just found this video of something we went to in early December. It's filmed over the Capitol building in Lansing and was actually pretty awesome (PS: That's not us talking in the video, but the folks standing next to us... sooooo, yaaaahhh...)

Michigan Living: Winter Weeks 25-26

WOW! Christmas flew by-- New Years flew by-- and it's only about 20 degrees outside!

Christmas Stuff:

Rebekah had her Holiday Choir concert- filled with all your holiday favorites like "Your a Mean One Mr. Grinch", "Sleigh Bells", "Holiday Romance" (What?), and an acapella rendition of "Carol of the Bells".



We also went to the Jackson County Fairgrounds to drive through a couple miles of lighted fairgrounds. Check out the video...







We spent Christmas Eve at Potter Park Zoo, which is free and desolate during the winter. The weather was sunny and 40 degrees, and the girls made good friends with the monkeys. Check out the video...



New Years Eve was spent in a massive Just Dance 3 party at our house, which was made up of three female and one male Carter. EPIC! (And no video!)

And the weather continually creeps colder and colder... last night the temps were about 15 degrees with a wind chill of 0-- that's pretty cold, eh? Not a lot of snow --yet (at least that's what the locals keep saying)-- but any flurry we get Chris or Em jump in the car to practice their snow driving. So far the biggest lesson we learned is that Michiganders slow down for nothing. It could be the middle of blizzard with roads iced over and folks would still be going 5 miles over the speed limit. I've never been the 'slow old man holding up traffic' before, but I'm wearing it pretty well right now!