Lambeau Lights

Kelly’s missing her family has been well documented both here and in the press over the last few months. With her birthday tomorrow she misses them even more. This morning she received a care package from home. A big bunch of summer flowers from her Mum and Dad. Talk about an emotional start to the day.

I had planned a day of secret squirrel errands for her surprise birthday party this evening but that was thrown into total chaos once the flowers were smelt and the card was read.

Instead, Tari, Rob, Kathy and Nancy came to the rescue to finish what I had tried to start. Thank you to all.

Whilst everything else was being taken care of, we, as a family, did what you do best when you’re feeling a little down. Support the love of life in going to the mall and eating ice cream. Why does ice cream taste so good in the cold by the way? We’re all freezing, the roads are slippery and we’re each wearing layer ‘pon layer ‘pon layer (Aussies will get that). Yet there we were, with a dozen other people queuing for ice cream! It makes no sense. (For some reason I’m not so against using marks of exclamation anymore. Don’t know why, just not?)

With lifted spirits we did a little Christmas shopping, I got some time to do the things I couldn’t ask anybody else to help with and we enjoyed the day after all.

This evening, before the surprise party, Kelly, the boys and I all went down to Lambeau Field to enjoy the “Lambeau Festival of Lights”. It actually worked as great cover for my plans later on. Similar to their Halloween festivities we were able to do a whole host of things:

Pretend we were at the North Pole

Decorate Christmas cookies

Fashion cards for the troops in Iraq

Meet Santa Claus (The line was way too long so we settled for a background pic instead)

See Santa’s Locker and

Watch the lighting of the tree


We were looking forward to patting the reindeers too but with them being outside we decided to maintain our warmth and just look at them out of the window.

With snow outside, High School choirs in the background and Santa hats everywhere we knew that after months of anticipation, the single most festive season of our lives was finally upon us.