Happy New Year (is that unoriginal enough?)

Okay, I apologize to the 2 of my fans who have been clamoring for an update for a long time now. What can I say, life is crazy. = ) So anyway, I'm feeling completely and utterly unmotivated and uninspired at the moment and don't know where to start or what you want to hear. Christmas break was phenomenal - parts of it were phenomenally awful, but at least it was always phenomenal. Most of this feels like old news by now and most of you probably already heard the story, so anyway, I'll be brief. The plan was to head from Iowa up to International Falls the Friday before Christmas (that would be by air) and then drive from the Falls and get to Red Lake in the afternoon. We got up at 3 to drive to the airport and were dropped off there and standing in line for quite some time when were finally informed that all flights were canceled due to bad weather. So Dave's dad came back and picked us up and we loaded all the luggage back into the car and then started driving. The plan was to drive to Minneapolis to see if we could catch a stand by flight up to the Falls. So once we got there, we unloaded our obscene amount of luggage and dragged it for what seemed like miles - turned out we were at the completely wrong terminal so we were taking trains and such things to get to where we needed to be and after finally arriving at the desk, the lady told us there were other people in front of us in line and there was a slim chance we'd get on the flight. So Dave tried to get money back for our tickets which turned out to be a lengthy process and then we loaded up all our luggage and again dragged it the miles to the car. Loaded it all up and continued to drive for what seemed like 18 hundred years. The further north we got, we experienced some snow and nasty roads. And Dave thought the 502 was a cultural experience (for you Red Lakers). So anyway, we arrived in Red Lake at 3 in the morning, 24 hours after we got up that morning. When things got really miserable was when we were both so tired it was very difficult for one of us to stay awake to drive. But anyway, then we had a fun time with family and then I got sick Christmas eve and struggled with said illness for the reminder of the trip. It frequently felt as though a knife was lodged between my throat and left ear, in case anyone was wondering. Driving from the falls back to Iowa I felt very not well and yeah, I've had more fun on other days of my life. We spent time with Dave's family in Iowa and got to see Leonard and Twila which was fun. We were delayed one day heading back to Indiana due to weather and then when we finally did head back, we got a very flat tire in Chicago. Which seemed really fitting, somehow. Anyway, we did have a lot of fun despite all the unplanned adventure. And like I said, I'm feeling very uninspired, so maybe I'll just post some pictures and relieve you of having to read this any longer.