Dear Santa: waaaaaaaaaaaah.

Found these girls wandering the lakewalk outside Fitgers. Kept 'em.

Today we were pleased and honored to find that the Gels clan passed along whatever illness we had to the Stalker clan (Lino Lakes chapter). Yay for proliferating disease! I'd be more proud if not wracked with guilt about it. Sorry, Jon and Kyla (and Suze, if you've gotten it by now)!

This morning we set off for Duluth proper (I consider Island Lake to be "fake" Duluth) so the Fitgers Brewery Complex could feel the blunt force of our girls. The idea behind this trek was that we could see Santa, who had just flown in for a quick visit. I invite you to take a moment and note how many pictures I've posted of the girls with Santa. Yup. Jen managed to make it to the couch beside Santa while holding Abby. I couldn't even get in the room holding Lily without inflicting some lasting psychological damage. She was right terrified of the jolly old chap.

What does it say about our kids - or even the psychology of kids at large - that we then went to visit 2 live reindeer on display, and they accepted this reality with no hint of apprehension or fear? Fat guy in a red suit with bells and candy? The devil. Large brown ungulates with horns growing out of their skulls? Commonplace. Were they not caged, I imagine we could have simply put the kids on top and called that our Santa picture.

Day two hundred and eighty five.

ps. Sorry to the Lukasewycz's for mispelling Andrew's name yesterday. Andred does have a nice ring, though.

Abby, peeping out from behind her mum.


Given a bit more time, this would have been a better shot. But she was crabby and I had to hurry.

Lily strolling