Construction...

As many of you know, our house has been a work in progress for the last 2 1/2 years, and I don't know if the end will ever be in sight! Jon got a 2 week break over Christmas and New Years, and even though we were on the road for 5 days, a project was planned and carried out.

Project phase I involved our foundation. Big money, and nothing to show for it, but at least our house won't continue to sink into the ground. Jon had figured out that our breakfast nook was sinking (as evidenced by our cracked brick and crooked cabinets), so we hired a foundation company to come fix it. This involved them digging down into the bedrock, putting steel pylons in place, and raising our poor little breakfast nook up so it was in line with the rest of the house.

Machine used to dig the 5 holes around the breakfast nook.

Big, deep holes!

Project phase II involved reinforcing our old, squeaky wood floors. Jon sistered all of the wood joists in the basement, and then reinforced the floor with steel beams before jacking them up so they were a bit more even. Fun times at the Haug house! We are lucky to have great neighbors who were around to help with the heavy lifting, and to do some welding.

Daddy's little helper

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas celebration continued on the 24th with the McConnell side of the family. We had a great spaghetti dinner, and had our annual present exchange. This year we had themes, and the Mac theme was food. We came out on the other end with a fabulous pumpkin cheesecake, and pancake mix and syrup.

Ollie with Great-Grandma MacChristmas day was spent with the Haug side of the family. Grandma Haug made another wonderful Christmas dinner, and Ollie actually ate more than just cranberry sauce this time! Our theme on the Haug side was paper. We got a desk calender and some lottery tickets. Fun times! Of course the evening ended with the traditional holiday card game. This year Jon and I got sucked in by Chris and Jenna and their Ticket To Ride board game. Jon was so obsessed we had to scour Madison for a special game store so we could buy it!

Our little man in his Christmas outfit.
Yearly pic of all of the Haug grandkids and great-grandkids
The two boys were partners in crime! Poor Alex, it took him 9 years and 6 girl cousins/sister/second cousins before another boy came along!
Relaxing in between games. Christmas poker

Lots of concentration over Ticket to Ride!

Sunday morning we had breakfast with our good friends Hillary and DB. We were supposed to have dinner on Saturday, but they were stuck in Seattle because of all of the snow storms! It was great to catch up with them and have a great breakfast before making the long trek home.

Bundled up for the trip home.
After getting through our first leg of the journey, we stopped at Gigi's (Great-grandma Greichunos) house for lunch. Aunt Mindy and Aunt Claudia were there to visit with us also. Oliver is such a lucky little man! After present opening extravaganza #4, our car was stuffed to the gills. It was a great break on the long journey back to Indianapolis.

Yea, more presents!
Ollie and Gigi
Trying his first oplatek, with a pizzelli in each hand.

Jingle bells, at the Dells...

This year we spent Christmas up in Madison with Jon's family, and a white Chirstmas it was! We started our journey on December 22 when we made the long drive up to Madison. We made a pit stop at Cabelas, a huge outdoor sporting goods store. Oliver loved all of the animal mounts, and went wild over the fish tanks. He was jumping up and down saying "fish, fish, fish!" Yes, our little man has finally started talking. He started saying fish for his goldfish crackers, but knows what real fish are too. He also says "blue" for blueberries, uh oh, and "woof" to the dogs. We got to Madison late and got a good nights sleep.

The 23rd started our first day of Christmas festivities. Grandma Marie got 2 suites at the Kalahari resort, so Jon, Ollie and I headed up there, and walked through the door just behind Chuck, Cassie and Alex. Grandpa Jeff met us at the door, and we quickly changed and headed to the water park. Oliver had an absolute blast! He loved splashing around in the pools, met a few little girlfriends, played with the fountains, etc. Our water baby has returned!

After a few hours of fun in the pool, we went back to our room where Jenna, Chris, and Jody had arrived. We had a nice pre-Christmas dinner and opened presents. The next day we spent some more time at the Kalahari amusement park. Ollie, Jon and Cassidy played for a long time on the slides and climbing area. What a great adventure! We even got our picture taken with a baby lion. How often does that opportunity come along?? Here are some pics from the Kalahari.

Christmas at the zoo.

So I thought that maybe Jon was a little crazy when he suggested that we trek down to the zoo in the freezing cold weather, but we do need to use our membership card, so we headed down to see the lights. We really did have a good time, we just had to be bundled up! Oliver got his picture taked with Santa, we rode the Christmas train, got to see a reindeer, and all of the beautiful lights! Oliver even got to pet a lizard, and he really tried hard to pet a shark. I don't know if we'll be heading to the zoo much more this winter, but Christmas at the zoo was fun.

Come here little sharks!

Smiling with Daddy in the cold!

Nice lizard!
Fun on the train ride.
Posing with Santa. I didn't even cry until after the photo!

Sorry!

Hi to all of our wonderful blog readers! So not only did our camera break last weekend, but our computer (yes, our brand new computer that we just bought) died. So it may be awhile before I can update the blog again! I'm doing this post from work, we're a little slow right now. So hope that everyone has a fabulous, wonderful Christmas, and I'll hopefully be able to do some December updates before the New Year! Love to you all.

Caroling, caroling, now we go...

On Saturday after all of the Turkey Day festivities were over, Oliver was finally reunited with his long lost friend Luke. They were so excited to see each other after 2 weeks of traveling! We all went out for a walk and to play at the park since it was such a nice day out! Brie joined us also. Brie is my cousin Karin's best friend from med school, and is staying with us for a month while she does a rotation at St. Vincent. We started our walk, as we always do, with a trip to Starbucks. When we arrived there, carolers were singing! So we sat for a bit and enjoyed our coffee while listening to some Christmas music before we hit the park. The boys had a great time, and Jon and Mike even showed them a few football plays.

Oliver and Luke were mesmerized by the carolers. Brie and a random dog that decided to jump on her lap.
Oliver and Luke in the tunnel. Oliver helping Luke get out of the tunnel.