Huismans in Helvetica: Christmas in Iowa!

This blog post is long overdue, but I still wanted to share a little about our Christmas adventures in Iowa. We flew in on December 14, which was one of the longest days of our lives especially since we were traveling with Carsten. Carsten only took three 1 hour naps on each of the three legs of our journey, but once again, his inability to nap in places other than his crib paid off by allowing him to seemlessly adjust to Iowa time. We were all feeling pretty crabby and tired after our long journey, so we were very grateful to my parents who graciously came and picked us up from Sioux Falls. We basically took it easy for the first week while we finished adjusting to jet-lag and got some much needed rest. We also spent time with my grandparents and parents, which was a lot of fun. My brother and sister came into town right before Christmas, and we really enjoyed the few days that we were all together again :). Ironically, I think we've spent more time all together in Switzerland than in the states (go vacation!). We all very much enjoyed spending time with our family during the Christams Holiday. Here are some photos of our time there:

We took Carsten to a free train ride in the Sioux Center mall. It wasn't very busy, so Carsten rode it for ~45 min! He absolutely loved it and was asking for 'more' (see next photo) before the train came to a stop (he knew the route after a couple of rides).

Carsten loved all the toys at my mom's house. There were some new toys and some old toys that used to be ours when we were little. I think Carsten's favorite was the horse :).

Cheesy baby

Carsten enjoyed the tree at my Grandma's house, and he also loved playing with the toys at her house with Grandpa. We got to spend some time at Grandma and Grandpa's during the week leading up to Christmas. Grandma schooled both Andy and I at Scrabble - good work Grandma! :)

Carsten got to have some fun playing with his Grandma and Grandpa. He rocked on the horse and the teeter totter with Grandma and then got to play with the toy toolbench and go on tractor rides with Grandpa. He had so much fun!

Carsten got to have some fun moments with Grandpa Ranschau who we got to see on several occasions.

The Hoogeveen family all dressed up for the Christmas Eve service!

Carsten started getting the hang of opening gifts, and he came away with some really fun gifts from our family :). We opened our family gifts on Christmas Eve, and then had Swiss fondue that we had brought back from Egg.

Sometimes when I take a photo, I think 'this is totally going in the blog.' This was one of those photos.

On Christmas Day we had the Ranschau festivities at Mom and Dad's house in the afternoon, and then went to have Hoogeveen festivities at Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen's house in the evening. It was a busy day! Carsten and Uncle Norm got the award for most similarly dressed :). Carsten also entertained every one with enthusiastic bouncing on the horse.

Santa came to Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen's house, and Carsten was given a nice riding toy that we unfortunately did not have room to take back. However, he did enjoy it before we left :). Carsten and Andrew looked pretty cute (sorry Megan!).