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I had a great trip back home to Minnesota a couple weeks ago. Didn’t do much other than enjoy some time on the lake in my brother’s new boat. It was great to be somewhere you can actually enjoy the outdoors without melting in the heat! And it was good timing since Ryan left for Poland just a week later.

Our friend Helen (not pictured above. I mean, she couldn’t keep her eyes open in any photos. I’m just sayin … but here she is) invited us to dinner at Hibiscus in Dallas for her 30th birthday. It was an awesome time, and a delicious dinner. Kari and I both had fish, and it melted in our mouths. So good.

After dinner we met up with a few others at the Capitol Pub (that’s Kari, Kate and Melissa there above). Very cool place, just down the street from Hibiscus in the neighborhood that’s apparently among the few “it” places in Dallas. At least it was, until I was spotted there.

So we made it back from our long weekend in Chattanooga, TN, with our little (adorable) nephew Ford. Jason’s cousin Daniel got married in the area, so we figured it was a great excuse to get a cabin and meet up with the family. Had a nice time relaxing and hanging out with Jeff, Allison, Ford (their take) and Jason’s dad. We even got a hike in while we were there. We’ve been dying to get outside and do something since we’ve been back from Peru. It wasn’t quite the Andes, but it was still pretty! Photos from the trip.

Spent a nice, although chilly, afternoon last Sunday at the Ballpark in Arlington with our friends Scott, Julie, their 4-year-old son Jack, and Helen and Peter. It was great to meet Helen’s friend Peter, and it was fun getting to hang out with everyone. Most of the game was spent trading favorite Beatles songs with Jack. He knows more than I do, for sure. His current favorite, he told me yesterday, is “Old Brown Shoe,” which I had to listen to on YouTube because I didn’t recognize it. For the record, my current favorite is “Blackbird.”

Check out a few more pictures from the game.

We made it back from our trip to Acapulco, a little more tan and a lot more relaxed. Our hotel was incredible, a five-star resort that Kari’s parents arranged for very cheap, thanks to a friend’s timeshare.

We sat on the beach, drank daiquiris, sat by the pool, and then started all over again in the morning. The weather was great, the waves were big and we weren’t exactly happy to have to come back home. Check out some photos from our trip.

Update: We forgot to include our harrowing tale about how we survived an earthquake! Well, it wasn’t all that harrowing really, but it was still our first experience in an earthquake, so that alone is pretty exciting. It was so small my mom and dad didn’t even wake up, but Jason and I flew out of bed. We weren’t sure what was going on, and after enough time had passed we convinced ourselves we were dreaming. But after talking to some others the next morning, we confirmed we weren’t dreaming and had indeed survived our first earthquake, as small as it might have been!

We made a quick trip over to Shreveport a couple weekends ago for Kari’s first Mardi Gras. She had no idea what to expect, and although it wasn’t as crazy as New Orleans, thousands of people turned out on a beautiful night for the parade. And Kari got a pretty good idea of what Mardi Gras is all about.

We didn’t catch a ton of stuff — a couple of tall guys in front of us saw to that — but we got our fair share and had a great time hanging out with Jason’s dad and his dad’s friends. And wow, we had some of the best Chinese food (home-cooked eggrolls and spring rolls, beef and broccoli, rice with chicken and plenty more) that we’ve ever tasted.

We’ve just returned from Columbia, where we met our nephew Ford. He’s so tiny! And so cute! It was my first prolonged (maybe first ever) time with such a new baby, and it was such a great experience for us. It is amazing to hold something that is so dependent on you (really on his parents, thank goodness!) for everything. It gives you such an awesome feeling of purpose and responsibility. Thanks so much to Jeff and Allison for sharing it all with us. He is a lucky baby to have such caring parents (who are able to keep their great sense of humor through it all). We can’t wait to watch Ford as he grows up.

We’re a little slow delivering the news, but it’s a boy! Jeff and Allison had Robert Langford Crane (they call him Ford) on January 2. Isn’t he cute! Some people say he looks like Jason, but I don’t know, Ford’s pretty handsome… The proud aunt and uncle are headed out to visit the little guy soon. We’ll bring back more photos. If you want to read more about him, check out Jeff and Allison’s blog at www.cranebaby.com.

The last time that it was snowing when our plane landed in Minneapolis was in April (seriously) a few years ago. This time around it was December, which made a lot more sense to the boy from Louisiana. Over the course of the next five days, it snowed about seven inches, with a lot of it falling on Christmas Day. It was Jason’s first white Christmas, and it was well worth the cold. Check out more photos from our trip.

Well, not really. But if you’re visiting the ice sculptures at the Gaylord Texan it is! They keep the exhibit at 9 degrees and give you wimpy little coats that don’t do much to keep you warm! They need to take a trip to Minnesota to research proper winter apparel. But, despite the chill in the air, we had a good time with Jason’s dad checking out the awesome ice sculptures. In fact the entire Gaylord was very cool with all of its Christmas decorations. The highlight was definitely the ice slide at the end of the tour. Almost as fun as a water slide!