Sydney & Zack conquer the world

Sidecut Metropark

2012-01-21T14:52:00.015-05:00

Today was the celebration of the new ice skating rink at Sidecut park and also to show off the portable lighting for the area. Luckily, it was one of the only snowy days we've had this season!! There was enough snow for sledding, but the ice rink was definately not even near frozen.

It was pretty cool because they had s'mores for everyone. Make your own, at one of the really big fire pits.

I think this is my new favorite photo place! Look at this awesome tree, so many options!

Here I am modeling my new ski jacket. Snazzy eh?

A handsome, rugged, young man!

The kids thought the s'mores and hot chocolate were delicious!

This is how crowded the sledding hill was. It was fun, but I have never seen so many people here! It's too bad they had to advertise this event because I liked the sledding hill to be our little secret :)

Part of the event was ice sculpting. Very pretty.

After sledding my little man was just too tired (aka, lazy) to walk to the truck. Luckily Sydney pitched in and gave her bro a ride.

So sad

2012-01-13T12:35:00.001-05:00

Quote from the backseat on our way to the hotel... "I'm so bored here without any electronics!!". (from Zachary)

Happy New Year!!!

2012-01-01T23:32:00.001-05:00

We decided that this was the year the kids could stay up until midnight to help us ring in the New Year. First on our agenda was to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. We had just finished the book a few days ago and we were all very excited to see the movie. Initially Sydney had no interest in it (too scary!) but after reading the book she was quite intrigued also. The movie was good - I had seen it years ago but had forgotten pretty much everything in it. The book definately explained a lot more, but the movie was good.

Then we played a new Wii game that Sydney had gotten for Christmas. Appropriately it was called Wii Party Games. It was pretty funny. We all had a good laugh out of it, and soon it was time to turn on the Rocking New Years Eve show on TV. I'm not sure what the kids thought about the ball once they actually saw it. They had many questions about it during the last few days. It is really quite an odd event when you think about it :)

A few minutes to midnight we busted out the bubbly and had snacks. The kids had the sparkling grape juice and Alan and I had rose champagne.

Hang in there Zachary, you can stay awake!!

Cheers!! Here's to a healthy and happy new year for everyone!

No party would be complete without some explosives (huh?) so we shot off a couple of party poppers. It did make a bit of a mess, but who cares!

After the toast and the new year kisses, we headed outside to launch a Chinese lantern for each of us. We all picked out a different color and lit them up.

It took a little while to get them burning and floating in the air, but finally they did fly. One of them had a bit of trouble making it past our house and bumped into our roof. I thought we had just started the fire that would burn down our house! No worries though, it just kept on flying.

They did go up pretty high into the air, and eventually they turned into just a speck of light in the distance. I wondered if any of the neighbors saw them, and thought they were UFOs! Or worse yet, if they had started to decend, still on fire, and landed on a neighbor's house!!

This is a bad picture, but the lantern is the small light to the right of the street lamp.

It was a fun New Years Eve, and we all had a good time. The kids didn't get to bed until 12:59 - which might explain why they are both so tired today and are starting to catch a cold. Ooops. :)

Skiing at Boyne

2011-12-29T19:52:00.001-05:00

Once again we got on the first chairlift at an impressive 10am, which was super shocking considering we had to drive farther and check out of our room. Today's forecast was for a high of 32 but it certainly didn't feel like it! There was quite a bit of the mountain that wasn't open yet. Zachary really wanted to go to one of the large terrain parks and also see the half pipe. Unfortunately both of those had not been shaped yet because of the lack of snow and we ended up being on a part of the mountain we really had no right being on! The only way down was via a black diamond run and that certainly wasn't any fun. The kids were crying the whole way down because they were frustrated (rightfully so). I didn't think they were ever going to get down!! But eventually we did get to the bottom and we took a well desired break to enjoy some hot chocolate.
The rest of the day got better as we stayed on the green and blue runs. We stayed until 4pm! We had a good ride home since the roads were dry an clear.
Now our next big event will be our Harry Potter night happening on New Years Eve. We finished reading the first Harry Potter book on the car ride home, so we will be watching the movie that night. It will also be the first time the kids are staying up with us to ring in the new year. We have seen that they certainly have the ability to
do so (as evidenced by their sleepovers) so it should be a fun evening!!

Ski day at Nubs Nob

2011-12-28T19:50:00.000-05:00

After a hearty breakfast (yummy spiced waffles!!) we headed over to Nubs Nob. Kudos to my family for getting on the first chairlift at 10am and even getting a front row parking spot!! The snow on the slopes was nothing too exciting, but given that there was NO snow outside of the mountain, it was actually an impressive detail. The kids did a great job of remembering how to ski again. Our biggest challenge of the day was the cold temperatures. It was only 18 degrees when we finished skiing. Luckily I think I was the only complainer about it - I was happily surprised that the kids hardly said anything about it.
For dinner we went to the Mitchell Street Pub which had a long line. The wait time seemed longer, but it was really only a half hour. Hooray for iPhones to keep us entertained.

Ski trip up North

2011-12-27T18:47:00.000-05:00

With Christmas over, and the scraps of the last wrapping paper shreds picked up, it was now time to turn our thoughts to the other awesome event in December... the annual ski trip!
We headed up North despite there being hardly any snow on the ground. When we got there, we were bummed to learn that the Tubing area wasn't even open yet. We stayed in our favorite hotel in Petoskey. The one with the beautifully decorated lobby, super comfy beds, and those yummy waffles in the morning.

Halloween fun!

2011-11-01T20:57:00.000-04:00

Look out, it's that time again!! Halloween!!

This year Sydney wanted to be "something scary" so she picked spider witch. Luckily it was the costume I bought on clearance last Halloween. bonus! Zachary was a Ninja. For some reason he didn't want to wear his hood other than for a few pictures. Odd, because when he has his hoodie on, the hood is usually up! go figure. Anyhow, here they are ready for some candy.

The night was just a blur - I didn't even get any pictures of Alan and I with the kids! Luckily Grandma & Grandpa Bachli came over to pass out candy so I got to run around with Alan and the kids. I need to be better organized next year and come up with a costume for myself.

We ran into one of Sydney's BFF's (Rebecca) and spent the night running around with her.

After 2 hours of running around, we were all tired and we retreated back home to the warmth and to count out the loads of candy the kids received. It was so much the kids could make life size models of themselves!

Good thing our neighbors give out lots of Reeses PB cups... they are my favorites!! :)

Apple picking at MacQueens!

2011-09-25T22:54:00.000-04:00

With the weather feeling so much like fall (and really it is fall around here now) we decided to head over to the apple orchard to pick some apples. We had intended to get to the orchard before their festival (an apple butter festival I think) happened, but even now the orchard was a mad house of people with the same idea. Imagine that!

The kids couldn't wait to shimmy up the trees and pick some apples. They were big helpers this year.

Of course I made the family pose for pictures. The apple orchard is just perfect for pictures!

Yep, I see some family xmas cards... :)

Hamming it up!

This is the best part of owning a truck... climbing on it to pick the big apples that no one else could reach!

Travel back in time...

2011-09-24T22:30:00.000-04:00

Imagine if you will, being back in 1850 traveling on a canal boat in Ohio.... We visited the canal boat today in Grand Rapids. We have seen the Volunteer many times running on the towpath trail (well, Alan has seen it many more times than I have!).

The tour was a 45 minute ride in which people in period costumes explained what life was like back in 1850. Imagine ripping down the canal at a whopping 4 miles an hour to Cincinnati (in a mere 6 days!). It was quite interesting and the fall weather was beautiful. When we got to the locks (the only operational historic lock in Ohio), we had to be pulled by the boat employees.

We also learned what a Mule was (not a donkey!) The mules pulled us along the canal.

Imagine me forgetting to grab our hoodies for the ride though! Good thing I had a blanket in my car to keep us warm. Well, it was warm at our house when we left, who would have thought it was going to be so cool. Looks like Zack was not so thrilled that I forgot his coat. oops!

After our boat ride we took a tour of the mill.

Camping at Pokagon

2011-09-18T22:47:00.001-04:00

It's definately fall around here again, and that means weekend camping trips! Now that we don't have soccer interrupting our weekends, I'm hoping we'll take a few more trips. For this trip we went to Pokagon state park in Indiana. We camped in our favorite campsite... the one with the big rock!

The kids also love the nature center at the park. We went on our first nature walk with a guide. We learned a lot - most especially how to correctly identify posion ivy! We got a new saying "hairy scary". good to know :)

Zachary made a milestone lately - he can now conquer the monkey bars!! That is very exciting (but also sad because he's not so much a little boy nowadays). He did a great job, made it to one side and back again.

We also went on a hayride around the campground.

We all had fun - until the driver scolded everyone for causing straw to fall out of the wagon. Geez, what a crank!

Even though Sydney was really hoping to find many caterpillars, we only found one wooly bear. We brought it home, but it's not looking so good. We did find a little frog that was really cute too. Thank god the kids let him go.

The kids stayed up really late riding their bikes around. Well, at least 9pm seemed pretty late since it was so dark out (and chilly!).

Nighttime is also time for s'mores. Yum yum yum! My favorite :) The kids even had theirs the "right" way this time, with toasted marshmallows. They liked them, but they still like eating all of the parts separate.

The kids did stay up until 10:30 both nights, so that was late for them. But with the heater cranked in the camper, we all sleep in pretty late, so I don't mind too much.

Sunday morning we went down to the beach. We were surprised to see 4 beautiful swans swimming in the lake. When we first saw them we thought they were fake!

The beach was empty - but still a fun place to explore.

They begged Daddy for a super push on the swings. Hang on tight kids!!

This is a pretty cool picture because Sydney took it. I don't know if she purposely tried to get me off center or not, but I think so. I think some of my random mumblings about shooting pictures has rubbed off on her!!

A beautiful day at the Inn as well. Some day we will stay at the Inn for the weekend, to see how the "other half" lives :)

Running update

2011-09-03T23:07:00.000-04:00

Today we ran the Boy Scouts Half Marathon race in Bowling Green. I knew Alan was going to be running it, and I saw it was a smaller race, so I thought I might have a chance of scoring a 3rd place medal, so I decided to sign up too. Sometimes I have those crazy ideas *after* my good runs :)

The weather was starting to cool down so it seemed like the perfect time to run a race. Much to our surprise, the weather kicked back up in the 90's right before the race, and on race day the forcasted high was 94 degrees! Well, no problem, just try to run it easy and not hurt ourselves was the plan.
Since it was so hot Alan ran with no shirt and I just had a sports bra on. That was a nice change because quite frankly, I would run in my sports bra everyday if I could - I hate to have the feeling that I am overdressed or getting hot because of my running gear.

Once the race got started Alan was no where in sight of me, so I just kept running the best I could. I ran it at a comfortable pace, but knew I wasn't going to beat my PR (1:55) because I saw the little pacer dude on my watch run right off my screen ahead of me. oh well. I did stop at almost every water stop though, walking through them all (it was a nice break from the heat!). By the time I had got to the end, I was running around the track and saw the finish line. As I squinted I could see that the clock still had a 1 in front of it! (1 hour time) I was in disbelief. I really need to learn how to read my watch better because I was soooooo close to coming in under 2 hours on this race! So I ran the best I could, but the clock flipped and I finished in 2:00:22. darn! Next time I will do better reading my watch :)

Alan also got a surprise at the finish line - he was also "taking it easy" and when he crossed the line at 1:34, he had gotten 1st place in his age class! Not so shabby!! It was a good race.

As we were lounging around before picking up the kids from Grandma & Grandpa's house I got a call from Sydney's BFF Morgan and they invited both Sydney and Zachary over for a sleepover! That was great news. I knew they would be a bit tired from being at Grandma & Grandpa's, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity so I sent them over there for the night. That allowed Alan and I to go to see the movie Appollo 18 (good!) and then over to Granite City for a brew. The perfect way to end a super day!

Random pictures of the kids

2011-08-30T22:25:00.000-04:00

A couple of nice pictures of the kids... I was playing around with my fixed lens again. Maybe getting a little better with it :)

Bachli Family Camping Trip

2011-07-31T13:09:00.017-04:00

Time again for our annual camping trip with my family. Not sure why I planned this to happen in July - it was so darn hot! We went to Maumee Bay again and my brother got a really nice shaded lot. We will definately need to keep that one in mind for our next trip :)

The kids just love playing with their cousins. They were running all over the place, wearing the boys out!

Here we are keeping warm around the campfire... well, not really . We were mostly all sitting far from it, didn't need the heat.

Grandma brought along some squirt guns and the kids had a great time spraying everyone.

We went on a nature walk and found this deer. It took me and Sydney forever to see the deer. If you look closely at this picture, he is in the upper right hand part of it. Little ears peeking out of the grass. My brother and his family are super great at finding animals in the wild, whether it is a deer, or a tiny spider, they find them all!

We decided to take a dip in the lake. I think this is the first time I've ever been swimming here. Lake Erie just kind of creeps me out. We told the kids that this is the complete opposite of what the water will be like in Mexico. Note the seaweed next to Sydney!

We spent a bit of time biking around the park. The breeze from riding the bikes was a nice relief from the heat.

We had a delicious dinner together. So much yummy food :)

After stuffing ourselves at dinner, we headed over to the ice cream social! We couldn't miss it because this time they had sundaes in addition to the usual cones and root beer floats. They were so good, I approve!

Another fun thing going on near the ice cream social was the "nature guy". He brought along an eastern fox snake. Of course Sydney was right up there to hold him. No fear here!

We had a "slumber" party nice also, where the kids got to sleep with a parent. I got Zachary. He stayed up until almost 11pm the night before. He was a late sleeper in the morning. Looked like a litte angel. awwww

Our easy Sunday morning breakfast is now a box of donuts. Did you notice we eat a look of somewhat unhealthy choices when we are camping?? well, that's the fun of it. Chips, ice cream, donuts. It's all a part of having fun and stepping outside of the norm for a weekend.

I did burn off many calories on our Saturday morning run. Alan and I went out for 6 miles. I think I sweated off 2 gallons of water, it was a hard run. Also, I was challenged to a scooter race by Sydney. On the first lap around the loop I was winning, but after that I just can't keep up with her and she beat me bad.

Here is a beautiful panaromic picture from the top of the sledding hill. We even remembered quarters so the kids could look out of the viewfinder.

After that, the kids raced to the bottom of the hill and ran back up. All full of energy (and all charged up from the donuts!!)

Sydney enjoyed her role as dog watcher. She loves Bindi :)

And then, it was time to go home again. Seemed like a super quick weekend. I am hoping we can all get together in September or early October for a camping trip again, when it's not so hot!

Monarch caterpillars

2011-07-25T10:46:00.000-04:00

So our caterpillar, which we found as an egg when we were camping in NY, is now a big, hungry, hungry caterpillar! He is chomping through milkweed leaves at an astonishing rate, so we needed to get some more food for him. Luckily there are several milkweed plants near the bike trail.

I cracked up when I saw the look on Zachary's face in this picture. I think it really expresses his true feelings on our bike ride on this super hot day...

Here are the plants, ready for picking.

Pardon the mess, we haven't cleaned up his space yet - but look, he ate the ENTIRE leaf over night!

This is the last time we saw him as a caterpillar. He soon morphed into a chrysalis, awaiting his turn to become a beautiful monarch butterfly!!

And wouldn't you know it, we found another egg, so we'll be raising another caterpillar in a day or two :)

Final camping day at Letchworth State Park

2011-07-14T16:43:00.013-04:00

We started out our day with some delicious pancakes made by Daddy. I love having him make us breakfast, it is one of my most favorite camping traditions.

Then we decided to venture out on another trail. The kids liked hiking, althought a mile is about enough for them at this age :) We did see some beautiful scenery.

We also made it on time, and went to the tour of the dam near the entrance of the park. We tried yesterday, but were late (shocking, I know). It was a good tour, and we got to go down inside the dam (lots of cold, pitchdark concrete). This dam was built to be a "dry" dam, so there is no lake typically in front of the dam. Made it look like it was all dried up and we came in the wrong season!

A few days ago we found one butterfly egg (after searching *many* plants) and today he decided to hatch into a caterpillar. He was so tiny, but I know soon he'll be munching away at that leave and be a super caterpillar!! Can you see him? He's in the upper middle of this picture....

At night we had a game of frisbee golf (which I totally suck at btw).

We also put the laptop out and made our own little "drive in" with it. We watched Despicable Me, complete with smores. That as a great way to end our camping trip.

Letchworth park, fitness and fishing

2011-07-13T16:31:00.015-04:00

Today we decided to conquer the fitness trail that was set up at the park. Some stops were very simple: stretches. Others were only a challenge for some of us (Lisa - balance beam, Zachary - king of balance beam). Some were even feats of strength, like this arm walking thinging station. I definately could not do it. In fact, my arms were sore for almost 2 days from doing pushups!

This was a bit of challenge for the non-coordinated people in our group :)

Here's another scenic view of the park.

We also went on a fishing trip today. This is a stocked pond with Rainbow Trout in it. However, the trout did not seem to be thrilled with our choice of bait: buns and hot dogs.

Hmmm, they don't even want a whole hot dog!!

Niagara Falls day

2011-07-12T23:36:00.013-04:00

We headed out from our campspot at 9:30 this morning. It was supposed to be an hour and a half drive to the falls, but we did have some challenges staying on our Google Maps route again today, but not too bad.

When we got to the Niagara Falls region, we were told about a tour of the major attractions... On an air conditioned bus. We were sold! Something about driving around in an unfamilar area, and doing a lot of walking in this heat really sounded unappealing, so we took the tour. Luckily Zachary can still pass for 5 years old, so his ticket was free :)

I thought the statue of Liberty was going to be bigger than this....

Our first stop was the Cave of the Winds, which actually doesn't even have a cave anymore, but it was really cool. See the tiny yellow things in this picture? Those are the people walking over to the falls - the spot where we would be soon!

We got some free shoes to wear, so we didn't have to get our shoes wet (any also for safety concerns I bet). We loved those things. They were so comfy we wore them the whole tour!

We donned our ponchos and got to walk right up to the Bridal Wave falls and touch it.

The closer we got to the falls, the wetter we got - but the kids loved it.

Next we went to the Daredevils Museum. It did have quite a bit of memoribila from past crazy people who went over the falls. What the heck were these people thinking?

Next stop was the Whirlpool area on the gorge overlook.

Finally the biggie - the Maid of the Mist boat ride. We all had a great time on that. It was a spectacular, upclose view of the falls.

The last stop was the Observation deck.

We went to Canada for a look around. We had a great view of the falls and got to see some unbelievable rainbows in the mist.

We ate dinner at Planet Hollywood and finally headed back to camp around 7:30. We were all pretty tired from our exciting day. The kids described it as our best camping trip ever! Zachary exclaimed that he would never forget the Falls!!

Letchworth State Park : Exploring the falls

2011-07-11T17:06:00.009-04:00

Today we ventured out into the trails of the park to see the falls and the gorge. The park itself stretches out 26 miles from one end to the other so there was a lot of driving to get around. Good thing, because it was *really* hot today.

This made for a nice picture. Almost good enough for a Christmas card photo. hmmm....

This one? Not so Christmas card worthy, but certainly not too bad. My new haircut is really a pain. Short hair makes my hair unruly and very hair to keep decent looking. Oh, and I should probably burn that t-shirt when I get home. Not so flattering. But I digress....

I can't remember if this was the upper, middle or lower falls, but I think it was the middle falls.

We had to walks LOTS of stairs to get there. whew!!

We did get to see a pretty rainbow by the falls though.

These are the upper falls.

For all of our hiking, we rewarded ourselves with a big (huge!) ice cream cone and some playtime at the park. Remember how Zachary's ice cream fell off his cone within several minutes of getting it?? Luckily the ice cream lady was nice and gave him another scoop... in a bowl.

Letchworth State Park - Western NY camping trip

2011-07-10T15:20:00.000-04:00

We went to Western New York camping, at Letchworth State Park. Imagine my surprise when I had been telling everyone that we were going to the Adirondack mountains but really, we were hours away from there! However, our campground was really nice, and our campsite was private and quiet.

Letchworth is known as the Grand Canyon of the East, and we soon found out why. They have a beautiful gorge with several waterfalls.

They also had this huge chair! :) great for photos.

One of the woodland creatures that we encountered was this snail. Sydney found it and originally thought it was just a shell. She didn't realize that there was a snail inside of it, and he didn't emerge until we gave him some water and I think it rejuvinated him. He was ready to hit the trails after he was refreshed. He was so cute!

Dinner time! yum, delicious camping chow!

At night our campsite was visited by the friendly natives - look at the picnic bench seat... yep, a racoon. He was barely even afraid of us.

1st camping trip of 2011

2011-06-12T14:35:00.001-04:00

We started the 2011 camping season with a trip to Maumee Bay State Park. It was supposed to be a rainy weekend, but it turned out pretty nice. It was a bit cooler, but that is perfect for camping. We stayed at site 142, our usual spot.

Soon after setting up our camping site we had a visitor. Apparently this deer was not too afraid of humans. But when Sydney tried to pet him, he did run pretty fast :)

We made a campfire on Friday night, and was going to watch a movie on our laptop, but it did start sprinkling just a little, so we went inside and had Jiffy Pop and watched the movie indoors instead.

The next day we took a ride around the campground, over to the beach, hotel, and nature center. Zack is so speedy fast now without those training wheels.

Sydney really likes her new bike too. She is still getting the hang of the hand brakes (she crashed into me to stop!) but for the most part she can get along really good on it.

We were greeted by this family of turtles sunning themselves at the nature center.

I'm sure there is no correlation to the humungo Pixie Sticks and our children's somewhat questionable behavior. ha!

To keep our sanity, we took the kids over to the beach in the afternoon and got them all day ride passes for the waterslide. They had a blast!

It was reported that they each went down the slide at least 45 times!

We were happy not to hear them arguing with each other!! :) :)

Later that night we headed over to the ice cream social put on by the campground helpers. As always, it was delicious!

Late at night, Sydney and Daddy went to see some fireworks being fired off at the beach area. We also went to a car show that night in the same area. It was a long, fun weekend!

On Sunday we took advantage of the free games in the campground. We started with a fast paced game of cornhole.

Then we tried out the ladder game. It was a bit more challenging, but it was a good time.

Can't wait to go camping again!!

Kindergarten Graduation

2011-06-03T21:33:00.001-04:00

Today was Zack's big day - graduation from Kindergarten! Here he is with his teacher, Miss Katie. She did a great job and the kids just adored her.

The ceremony was held at a church right next to the school. They performed several songs before the diplomas were handed out.

I thought it was so cute how Miss Katie instructed them to hold their hands together... and they listened and obeyed every command she had!

After the ceremony Zachary had already taken his hat off by the time we got over to him. So we had him put it back on for some pictures. It started out well and he was all smiles with Sydney.

Quickly he turned into a cranky kid and didn't want to get his picture taken anymore. Despite our threats of taking away his DS, his attitue didn't improve, so I said we'd just go with it and remember him just how he was that day... an ornery kid! :)

Ha! I still think it's pretty funny. Such a fuss over a couple of pictures. oh well. Also funny - we've already lost his tassel. I swear our house is a black hole, we lose so much stuff around here!

My new camera lens

2011-05-31T22:15:00.000-04:00

I love my new camera lens... when I can get the right shot. The problem is I have to take a billion shots to get a good one! (true story). I'm sure my kids just dread when I bring out the big camera - they know that are in for a "photo shoot". Today's happened around the pool as I fooled around with the settings.

I'm not sure if it's my lack of knowledge or skill, or if it's just my subject that is too wiggly (sure!). My portraits just don't seem to come out as clear as I hope they would be... but I sure do get some great pictures of plants!

Oh those little toes...

2011-05-31T22:03:00.001-04:00

After our swim today, this is what I find hiding under the towels on my chair :) hmmm, wonder who they belong to?

Cedar Point - first trip of 2011! :)

2011-05-30T22:51:00.000-04:00

As new Cedar Point season pass holders, I was anxious to hit the park for the first time in 2011 and get on some rides! It was a super great day for Sydney (in addition to being her 8th birthday!) as she now clears the 48 inch mark on the sign. That means a park full of roller coasters awaits here. Sadly, Zachary was a tad shy of the elusive 46 inch mark, so no coasters for him. As you can imagine, that was a bit of bummer for him - because as he told us, he would ride ALL of the coasters and not be scared of them like Sydney might be.

When he hits 46 inches tall, he'll be big enough to ride Shoot the Rapids. In the meantime he just has to dream about it and practice hitting the riders with water jets. Zachary and I did get some pretty good shots in, so we were definately doing something right!

Today was Memorial Day, and with the hot weather, and it being a Monday holiday, there really weren't al lot of people at the park. We got to ride some of our favorite rides several times. We didn't even mind getting soaked on Shoot the Rapids. It was a welcome relief from the near 90 degree weather.

We also bought a new rolling cooler for our upcoming adventures and packed it up full of food for lunch and dinner. As a special treat, we brought along the rainbow cupcakes that were left over from the party yesterday. Yum!!

I think I am mostly designated at the "spinny ride" rider. Especially today since Alan is not feeling so great. Sydney wanted to keep going on the Corkscrew and then the Tilt-a-Whirl. I had to put a pause on those rides for awhile to let my stomach settle. blah!

The kids are such cute mini coaster riders. No fear!!

While Alan and Sydney went on the big rides, Zachary and I got to spend some quality time on his favority spinny rides. Alan mentioned to Sydney that the Magnum was not as scary as the Corkscrew, so she agreed to go on it the Magnum. She was not so thrilled when she got off of it... seems it was a bit more scary than Alan remembered! I'm surprised she even agreed to get on it. Seems she didn't really check it out before she got on it!

We made it a short day because the kids still have a couple more days of school left. And us parents were whipped from the heat!!

My little reader

2011-05-30T22:03:00.007-04:00

We always need to remind Sydney that on the weekends, we want her to wait until 7am until she comes into our room. However, she always forgets and around 6:15 or 6:30 we get a little visitor jumping into our bed waking us up. On her birthday though, she remembered the rule and as I passed by her bedroom just before 7am, I found her sitting on her window seat reading her favorite Fairy book. She told me she was waiting until 7am to come visit us. It's so cool to see her deeply engrossed in her books :)

New Bike!

2011-05-30T09:19:00.001-04:00

Turning 8 means time for a new bike! We found one for Sydney that has hand brakes and gears, it's really cool. Sydney definately likes it a lot. There has actually been less of an adjustment to the new bike than I expected. No crashes or anything [yet]. :) She is one proud bike owner.

Kids Kilometers

2011-05-28T11:26:00.000-04:00

As members of the Toledo Roadrunners we get to partake in some fun club events. Today was the Kids Kilometers, which is a series of races just for the kids. For those 7 and under, it's a 1K. Since Sydney's birthday hasn't quite arrived yet, she gets to be probably the oldest 7 year old here! Unfortunately it was another drizzly day in May, and it didn't stop for the runners.

And they're off!!

Sydney and Zack decided to keep their coats on during the run - they were quite warm at the end of the run!

Here is Sydney in a super close finish. Sydney came in 3rd in the girls group, just a step behind this girl who took 2nd place.

Zachary finished 8th in the boys. A strong finish for both of the kids!

A bit wet, but still having fun and proud of their accomplishment!

The kids were given lunch bags as a prize. After the race, the clouds went away and it was a nice day. Go figure :) The kids are starting to expect rain on their runs now!

Sydney's birthday treats

2011-05-27T22:50:00.000-04:00

The theme of Sydney's birthday seemed to be cupcakes this year. I put them on her birthday party invites, so fittingly we made cupcakes for her birthday treats too. Alan made this awesome batch of cupcakes for her to take into school. This was Alan's first time making cupcakes and he did great! He always makes me a cake for my birthday, but never in the small cupcake variety. Sydney's classmates reported that they were delicious :)

I ran across a blog that had made rainbow cupcakes. I thought they looked so good, I just had to try them! Lucky for me Sydney's birthday was coming up, and she loves treats :)

I didn't exactly follow the recipe on the blog, just the concept. I used regular cake mix and just divided it into different colors.

Here's the thing about cupcakes - making them stresses me out! It's just difficult for me to get the right amount into the little liners, let alone do it with 5 different colors (and not make a mess of the pans!). But I have to say, I did a pretty good job this time.

Here is the end result... don't they look great?! That is the first time I have ever piped the frosting on the cupcakes, and I think I am sold. They end up looking so fancy. It was actually easier than using a knife to spread it on I think.

Kindergarten Zoo Trip

2011-05-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

This was Daddy's big week. First, he made Sydney yummy cupcakes to take in as a birthday treat to share with the class. Then he got to assemble her new bike. Finally, he got to be a chaperone on the Kindergarten field trip to the zoo!

He got to be in charge of Zack Attack - the 3 Zack's in the class (well, 2 Zack's and 1 Zachary as our Zachary pointed out to us!).

The kids all enjoyed a ride on the train.

Hey boys, isn't that a replica of dung you're climbing on??

The kids went on a scavenger hunt through the zoo, which took them to a majority of the places in the park (great idea Miss Katie!). Zack Attack was the first group done. When they left, they all got these cool hats to remember their fun day.

Poor blog!

2011-04-25T11:09:00.000-04:00

I've been neglecting this blog lately! Seems life just gets so busy sometimes :)
Funny (but sad) stuff I heard at kindergarten this morning.... Miss Katie asked me how our trip to Boston was. She mentioned that when she asked Zachary about the trip he just said that he got to play his DS. And it was cold. hmmmm, wonder if he noticed all of those 27,000 runners and Daddy going past??

Ski day at Vail

2011-03-05T09:14:00.019-05:00

For probably the first time ever, we arrived "early" at Vail! We headed into town searching for the free parking spots. In Vail, you can either shell out $25 to park in the garage for the day, or park at one of the free parking spots scattered throughout the town. Unfortunately most of the free spots require you to take a shuttle bus to the slopes, which only runs every 30 or 40 minutes. That makes for quite a lag time from when you get parked if you just miss the bus. So we found a location within walking distance at a municipal building. Yahoo, our day is starting out great!
We actually were on the chairlift at 9:05, a feat I'm not sure we've ever accomplished. There was fresh new snow and the sun was shining. We headed over to Blue Sky Basin right away. Along the way we were stopped by a friendly SharpShooter employee who took some fun pictures of us. Too bad they cost so much money to buy, as some of these pictures were quite cute :)

Our plans for the day included meeting up with my friend Carol who was also on vacation, but staying at Vail.
We had an early lunch at the "Dawg Haus". This is a cool place because you get to eat outdoors and the prices are relatively affordable - $7.25 for a footlong chili dog. It was a huge hot dog and it refueled us for a long day of skiing.
Around 1:30 we met up with Carol and her friends and we skied around the front side of the mountain. We ended up skiing until 4:00pm, at which time we decided it had been a long enough day of skiing. My arms and legs were quite tired and sore by that time so it was definitely a good quiting time for me!
When we walked back to our car we were bummed to see that we got a parking ticket! ughhh. A $38 parking ticket. Oh man. However, we really did feel like that parking spot was a good one, so we will be sending a letter to the town of Vail to fight the ticket.
When we got back to our condo we went to the hot tub again. For dinner we went to the Kickapoo Tavern and enjoyed a huge plate (only a half order!) of nachos. They were delicious. Then back to the condo to fall asleep in front of the TV :)

Skiing Breck

2011-03-04T00:08:00.002-05:00

We spent our first day of skiing on our trip at Breckenridge. I really like Breck because there are many peaks to ski on, all in a row - that makes it seem easily to navigate (or maybe just easier to read the map, because we did end up getting lost a few time!). Lots of varied terrain. We even got to venture up a t-bar to the peak of one of the mountains were a windy, freezing bowl awaited us! In addition to the normal cold windy weather that is usually there, we also got to experience quite a bit of snowfall on occasion. Seems like one of the peaks would have snow blowing, and the other would be sunny. We did ski the whole resort and enjoyed most of it. The most memorial experience of the day though was when I did a face plant. I was following Alan though some trees and I got my ski tip caught on a little tree. Then I immediately plowed face first into the snow - very hard. I checked my teeth right away, and was relived to found out they were all still there. I did get a fat lip though, and black bruise under my lip. It also hurt my ribs on one side. But I survived. Eventually. :)
For dinner we went to our fav "Downstairs at Eric's" and enjoyed a pitcher of beer, burgers and fries. uggh, we were pretty stuffed by the time we left. After we got back to our condo, we enjoyed the warm waters of our hot tub. It sure felt good!

Snow day - Side Cut Park

2011-02-26T10:18:00.000-05:00

Today the kids and Alan were lucky enough to have a snow day. Yep, they actually closed the University! Lucky them! Unfortuately for me it was only a level 2 emergency so I had to still go to work. Since I didn't have to get the kids ready and take them anywhere I actually got to work almost an hour early than I normally do! Mostly because I was going to leave early so I could come home and enjoy the snow with the family. When I got home, we took a trip over to Side Cut metropark to go on the sledding hill. The hill was pretty busy and we noticed immediately that someone had built some small jumps at the end of the hill. Sounds fun, right? Well it sure did for Zachary and he kept trying to go down and hit one of them. Sure enough he finallhy did. When he launched off that jump, well, it didn't end well. He landed face first. Then he started bawling. Poor kid!! I thought for sure he had hurt his mouth, but what was actually giving him pain was his arm. Seems he twisted it in some odd direction and it really hurt. I thought at first he may have broken it, but he didn't and after sitting it out for awhile he as feeling up to one more "boring" run down the hill and a walk in the woods.

We had some fun playing in the woods.

Watch out Alan, I sense a sneak attack!!!

Penguin Power!

2011-02-20T08:29:00.000-05:00

The 2nd graders have to make a penguin for their science project. Did I mention it had to be full size? Sydney got the Chinstrap penguin, which is 27 inches tall. For me it was a given that her penguin was going to be sewn out of fabric. Fire up the glue gun, this will be fun! (or maybe not) We started by making a pattern and then cutting it out of old white t-shirts that we have. Due to all of the technical conferences we used to attend, we have an ample amount of t-shirts to use, which was a plus. After I sewed it on my sewing machine and flipped it around for it's grand reveal, Sydney initially informed me that it didn't look like the pattern. And she didn't like it. oh my. Well after I convinced her that we didn't have enough plain white t-shirts (with no designs to show through on them) to make another one, she finally came around to liking it.
Then it was time to bring it to life! We filled it up with left over stuffing and t-shirt fabric leftovers. Sydney sewed up the opening.

First, he got his signature "strap" drawn on him. We also needed to make him stand up so we glued him to a piece of cardboard and gave him some pink feet. Then we designed some flippers and other features out of black felt. Glued it all on him, and he was done!

We thought he turned out so cute that he is going to live in Zachary's room when he comes back from school. Zachary can't wait!

Ski trip to Boyne

2011-02-06T23:52:00.000-05:00

We decided to make a short ski trip up to Boyne this weekend. We drove up Friday night. Since we got there late we didn't even get a chance to go out to dinner - but that was OK, because we have 2 days of skiing ahead of us!

At Nubs Nob Zachary immediately started asking about going on double black diamond runs. Well, we need to set some limits, so we let him only go on single black diamonds! :) This one had moguls and a steep side. He did manage to go down the moguls with Alan the first time without falling. He wanted to show me how well he did, so I went with him.

Unfortunately when Zachary skied down the black diamond run with me, he kept falling, which made him frustrated. It ended in tears and repeatedly telling me that it was my fault he was falling! Not sure how he came up with that, but that was the end of black diamond runs for the day.

Zachary plans his next run.

Sydney snuggles with daddy by the fireplace when we stopped to get hot chocolate and warm up.

Sydney's boots broke on our last trip, but she loved the boots. So we decided some duct tape would do just fine keeping them snug and on her leg. Luckily, that did the trick and she didn't complain once. However, the red pieces on the floor were a telltale sign of what was to come with Zachary's boots.

The bottom plates were definately falling apart rapidly. At first it was just the heel plates - but by the end of the day the front plates were starting to fall apart too!!

We all had fun skiing at Boyne Mountain.

The kids couldn't even wait for us to hit the slopes.

The last part of our day at Boyne Mountain was spend on the terrain parks. Zack had no fear as he went over the box. He even convinced all of us to try it out too. We all got a good laugh as we all went across it fine, but Alan fell! Alan did try it a second time and did just fine :)

For our last run the kids wanted to go check out the largest terrain park - the half pipe! It was huge when we got in it. I'm sure Zachary will be a master of all of the terrain features soon.

Rainbow

2011-01-31T12:58:00.000-05:00

Today when I was dropping Zachary off at Kindergarten I noticed that there was a rainbow hidden behind the clouds. It was pretty special because it had not been raining (or even snowing!) near us and the rainbow was partially hidden, but looked wider than most rainbows I have seen. So I told Zachary that it was going to be a very special day today because of that rainbow. Zachary replied "I wish rainbows never faded." :) What a nice thought!

Snow day!!

2011-01-19T08:43:00.000-05:00

well, technically it was a school closure due to icy roads. The kids were so excited! The conversation went like this...
"Yeah Zack, school is closed today!!"
"Woohoo! It's a stay home day!!"
"No, we still have to go to Discovery. Mom has to work."
"YAHOO!!! WE GET TO TAKE OUR DS's TO DISCOVERY!!!!"
....and then then buzz never stopped, not even the minute after I dropped them off and they ran away to play with their friends at CDC. :)

Slumber party fun

2011-01-14T11:23:00.004-05:00

Zachary had a whole weekend of birthday parties scheduled, so we decided Sydney should have a friend or two over to spend the night. She invited two of her close buds, Morgan and Rebecca. Zachary's party on Friday was actually a slumber party - his first! It was a classmate from kindergarten, and the boys were all very excited about it. Zachary called it a "video gaming slumber party". oh my. So after I dropped Zachary off at his party, we picked up Sydney's friends. Unfortunately Rebecca is allergic to cats, but we did a pretty good job of keeping them away from her. The girls had a lot of crazy fun, giggling and running all over the house. Eventually at 9pm they settled down for a movie (Madagascar 2) and some popcorn. After the movie, they stayed up until about midnight! I went to sleep around 11:30, but I know they were still giggling when I fell asleep.

Boy was I surprised when her friends came wandering into our bedroom at 4:15 am! I guess Rebecca's throat was a bit sore from the kitties by that time. I was hoping they would go back to sleep, but I guess they were ready to begin their day! I hardly got any sleep that morning and decided to get up around 6:30. It sure made for a long day!!

Meanwhile, I was told that Zachary stayed up until around midnight also, but slept in until 7:15. Still, both the kids were whipped on Saturday!! He got a really cool lightsaber, Darth Vader mask (and some 3D glasses) from the birthday party.

I won!! I won!!

2011-01-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

Occasions like this come around so rare, that I have to share!! For New Years Eve we spent a relaxing evening of munching on wine and cheese, snacks, and playing Trival Pursuit. This year's game went surprisingly fast and I actually won! It was pretty awesome :)

Looks like it's going to be a great year!!

Movie Night

2010-12-30T22:06:00.000-05:00

Movie night is so much fun now since we have that cool new popcorn maker! The popcorn is DELICIOUS!! so yummy.....

Skiing at Boyne Mountain

2010-12-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

After a slow start, we made to Boyne Mountain. With it being a holiday week, it was busy at the rentals and they were running out of equipment. We were sweating it! Thankfully, they had what we needed for Sydney. The lines weren't too bad and unlike yesterday the sun was out making it feel a bit warmer.

We got stuck in a few places and had the make the kids go down blue (Intermediate) runs. They did pretty good - a bit slow which was expected, but hardly any complaining :) They will be great skiers in no time.

Since the roads were so good, we decided to stay until 4:00 for our full day of skiing. A great trip!!

Ski day at Nubs Nob

2010-12-28T22:10:00.005-05:00

Day 2 of our after-Christmas ski trip. It's so nice to have the week off of work as the new year is beginning, not worrying too much about the house being cluttered with opened presents, and wrapping paper (still) and of course the decorations that we love so much, but end up wearing out their welcome after a month :) I'm always sad to see the decorations go, but there is something to be said about that feeling of great organization when they get packed away and a cleaning frenzy begins!

We decided to get full lifts for the kids instead of just sticking to the free beginner area. That worked out good. The kids also got to partake in our "bad junk food" menu for lunch - Little Debbies!!

When we were skiing at Nubs Nob today, these highlights occurred:

* Zachary no longer needs his edgie-wedgies!! yahoo!

* The kids skied their first blue runs - well, by mistake, but still, they did it!

* Alan ran into a kid while he was skiing backwards!
* Sydney's boot buckle broke off her boots and we needed to rent skis & boots for her :(

* Zachary ran into a tree! Luckily it was only his leg that hit it, but he still got his ski knocked off and he fell down :)

* I jumped off a chair lift while trying not to "land" on Zachary getting off the lift!

Finish it off with a late dinner at Lou's Pizza, meeting up with Dawn and her cousin, and it was a big day indeed! That must be why Alan fell asleep at 9:30 :)

Day 1 of Boyne Ski trip

2010-12-27T21:15:00.002-05:00

We hit the road in the morning (made it out at 9:15, yahoo!) and was thrilled to find that the roads were clear and it was an easy 5 hour drive up north. Even more enjoyable was that the kids were occupied with their new DS's so we didn't hear any complaining or fighting the whole trip!! That was the best! :)

We went tubing over at Boyne Highlands. It was a lot of fun. This year they did not have a "fast" and "slow" side, but just one run. Still, it was good and we were there for an hour before dinner.

Dinner was at the Mitchell St. Pub. Good food, and hot nachos! Who would have guessed that "spicy" on the menu description really meant spicy!! (not me I guess. haha!)

Artwork

2010-12-27T10:09:00.003-05:00

Here are some random pieces of artwork that have been decorating our house for the holidays...

Checking out the Christmas loot!

2010-12-26T11:37:00.005-05:00

We had a day full of checking out the new toys. Sure, it still looks like our house exploded with all of the toys and boxes all over the place, but there's nothing like a few lazy days after Christmas :)

Christmas at the Bachli's

2010-12-25T22:28:00.001-05:00

Time again for opening presents! We had a delicious dinner at Grandma & Grandpa's house with the whole family. Then we opened gifts.

Christmas morning

2010-12-25T09:21:00.002-05:00

Christmas morning was a blur! Zachary climbed in our bed at 5:50 am. Santa hadn't visited us yet, because the Christmas tree lights weren't turned on yet. So he squirmed around, waiting for the tree lights to signal the toys had arrived, and for his sister to wake up. Around 6:20 we noticed the lights were on - and he jumped out of bed telling us that he was going to wake up Sydney! Luckily we stopped him and we got a couple more minutes of laying in bed :) Soon enough Sydney came running into our bedroom and the craziness began!

It was flying wrapping paper everywhere - gift after gift!!

They were very excited for their gifts from Santa - Sydney got a Password Journal, MP3 player, and the Blackout Bingo game. Zachary got an MP3 player, Hot Wheels cars, Pokemon cards and a baby penguin. The kids also got a bunch of gift from us, including (Zachary) OSU blanket, sleeping bag, car calendar, Bakugan balls and from Sydney he got a night sky projection kit, and a race car kit. Sydney got the Apples to Apples game, a sleeping bag, snowmen earrings and from Zachary she got a spiral art toy and pretty ornament he made at school. Both kids also got us presents such as wonderful Christmas pictures and decorations. With some help from Grandma and Grandpa Willford, both kids got DSi's. The DSi's were definately a hit, but they did love everything they got.

Reindeer food

2010-12-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

The kindergartens were all sent home with bags of "Reindeer food" for Christmas Eve. As it got later in the night, and we started tracking Santa's travels on NORAD, it was time to put the food out to welcome the sleigh to our house.
This is what our Reindeer food said:
Sprinkle on the lawn at night

The moon will make it sparkle bright
As Santa's reindeer fly and roam
This will guide them to your home

We found the perfect spot for it out in the backyard and sprinkled it around. I think it's going to work!!

Christmas Eve Fun - a skiing refresher course

2010-12-24T20:25:00.003-05:00

The kids needed a refresher course before hitting the slopes of Boyne soon, so Alan took them over to the new sledding hill. It went pretty well - the top of the hill was too steep for the first run, but by gradually working their way up to the top they were able to conquer in no time.

After skiing it was time for sledding. Sometime during this fun Zachary had requested to be spun as he went down on the circle sled. Alan was glad to oblige and said that he would spin him so fast that "his eyes would bleed!". Apparently that was an omen as Zachary did crash and come home with a bit of a bruise/scratch from this morning! (photographic evidence to be seen in just a few days....)

Warming up by the fire. Ahhhh. The best part of the trip was when they stopped over to my office and miraculously I was allowed to go home from work after their visit. Good thing my boss has a soft spot for families!!

Can we PLEEEEEEASE open a present??

2010-12-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

First the kids kept asking why there weren't any presents under the Christmas tree. Given that Santa doesn't bring all of the gifts at our house, there were getting downright anxious and curious where the gifts were. So I put a few under there. THEN, they begged to open just one present. Alan had the perfect idea.... so we gave them each a small present to unwrap....

They were quite surprised to find the gift contained their own underpants and socks!! haha Hope they remember it next time they want to open a present!!

Family Christmas Pictures

2010-12-24T09:20:00.001-05:00

Aren't we a good looking bunch?? These could have easily been used at Christmas card photos - too bad I took them on Christmas Eve :) My family just *loves* these photo sessions. Well maybe "love" is a bit strong of a word to use. haha

Fun day with Mom

2010-12-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

Since it is now Winter Break from school, we decided to have a fun Monday. We met up with Chase over at Playground World in Sylvania. Chase and Zachary don't get many chances to play together anymore because Chase no longer goes to Discovery. They were very happy to see each other again :)

After playing at Playground World, we went over to the mall and Sydney checked out what her next purchase would be over at Build A Bear. She selected a robe and slippers for her bear, very cute!

We love Legos!!

2010-12-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

Aren't Legos the best?! The kids have so much playing and making fun new creations with them.

Zoo Lights

2010-12-18T22:41:00.013-05:00

We took advantage of the decent weather and headed over to the Zoo for the Lights Before Christmas. As always, they were beautiful. At least it wasn't close to 0 degrees, but we did have long johns under our snow pants!!

The hot chocolate was delicous and a nice break from the chill.

New Sledding Hill

2010-12-18T22:14:00.009-05:00

We are so lucky to have a cool new sledding hill so close to us. It has a fire ring to warm up next to.

On one side of the hill there is a couple of bumps that will get you flying in the air if you hit it just right!

And the kids are big enough to pull their own sleds up the hill this year without assistance! Yahoo!!

Kindergarten Christmas Program

2010-12-17T22:50:00.008-05:00

There was excitement in the air as the kids got ready to put on the kindergarten Christmas program. The performance was at the church right down the road from school. Zachary had been practicing every day for the last week in the car on the way to school.

The kids really knew the words to most of the songs and there was not a shy performer in the house! They belted out every song with enthusiasm.

All of the kids looked so cute, and they were well behaved - following all of the moves Miss Katie had carefully choreographed to each tune. The best song award went to "Rocking around the Christmas Tree" for sure. The kids were wearing glasses, playing air-guitars and air-drums and snapping along to the song. Zachary had to learn how to snap his fingers so that was a big accomplishment for him.

2010-12-13T23:02:00.000-05:00

Today we ended up having a snow day. It was a bit of a bummer because I was supposed to be picking up Sydney and her best bud Gabby from school today. Luckily I got in touch with her parents and was able to have her come over to our house anyways. Gabby is going to be moving to Texas very soon so it was going to be their last playdate here before she moves.

We will definately all miss her!!

A visit to the Big Guy, Santa!

2010-12-12T22:32:00.013-05:00

Since we were all dressed up from the xmas party at Aunt Anita's house, we made a trip over to see Santa at Levis Commons.

Sydney had prepared a list this year so that she would not forget anything. She did pretty good, forgetting only one thing I think.

Zachary was drawing a blank, but he did remember a couple of things. :) Santa reminded them that they can always just tell Mom & Dad if they remember anything else and we would let him know.

Christmas at the Willfords

2010-12-12T10:19:00.019-05:00

This year Aunt Anita was the host of the Willford Christmas party. As usual is was a whirlwind of people, presents, and Max running around :) The girls (Sydney and Alexus) got all dressed up in their best holiday dresses for the occasion. I even got Zachary to dress up a little too.

Just like years past, Austin got to be the target of the kids attack. He and his girlfriend got to wrestle with the kids - like it or not :) They had so much fun running around and playing together.

Gage wasn't really into the group photo. Poor little guy :(

The kids got some really great presents. We also had a whole bunch of excellent food and snacks!

Christmas Cookie Cooking!

2010-12-11T13:00:00.015-05:00

We once again messed up our entire kitchen in the name of Christmas treats! I was a little less aggressive this year and only picked out a couple of recipes this year. I think I had actually picked out more, but by the time we baked the first batches of these, I saw we had plenty of cookies and didn't need any more.

It was so cute - the kids were so interested in being helpers this year. They put their aprons on and dug right in to their tasks.

We also made chocolate treats for teachers and family. They started out with milk chocolate, and then we added a layer of white chocolate, and sprinkled candy canes on top. They turned out sooooo good!

Best gingerbread house ever!!

2010-12-10T22:56:00.011-05:00

Our gingerbread building skills just keep getting better each year. This year's design included figures from our holiday favorite - Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer!

We upgraded our property to include a pretzel fence this year also.

Christmas at the Manor House

2010-12-07T21:54:00.009-05:00

The Manor house at Wildwood park was all decorated again for the holidays. I remember going there when I was a kid, and I still love seeing the rooms just as much. It's fun to imagine what it would it would be like if the Manor house was my house.

Our budding scholar

2010-12-05T22:48:00.000-05:00

Sydney had a big test to study for, so we found a website that was perfect for the subject she was working on. She looks so big using the computer!

To be fair, we found Zachary some homework to work on too!

Here comes Santa Claus....

2010-12-04T22:53:00.006-05:00

Santa is hitching up his sleigh and bringing lots of presents to all of the good little girls and boys...

Surprise! Zachary even gets something :)

Naughty kitties!!

2010-12-03T22:40:00.005-05:00

I love Pico and Zoe, but they sure do get in a bit of trouble!! They are mischievous and high energy, a little too much at times. We made a cool winter project - a "crystal" snowflake. The snowflake took all night to crystalize and stick to the pipecleaners. Much to our surprise, when we woke up in the morning, the kitties had been dipping their paws into the water and left the crystalized footprints all over the counter!! Naughty, naughty, naughty!!

Penguin show!

2010-12-02T21:52:00.004-05:00

That boy loves his penguins!! We got this fun movie at the library today. I think Zachary would adopt them all if he could!

2010 Christmas Cards

2010-12-01T10:01:00.002-05:00

I just loved the pictures I took on our trip up North this year, so I used them to make our Christmas cards this year. I think the card came out really good!!

The Fine Arts

2010-11-27T21:35:00.002-05:00

Tonight we took the kids over to the Valentine Theatre to see the Nutcracker. I love that place, it's so old and beautiful. The kids actually did really well - stayed seated for almost all of the show. We had seats in the first row of the balcony, which were good seats. I'd pick those seats again.

After the show we went over to Mutz for dinner. Mutz is another old historical place, so it was a little "tour" of downtown Toledo. It was also funny because when we got there, we were the only people at the restaurant! But it was nice and cozy so we stayed for some food and tried to the turn the kids into pool sharks!

They had a lot of fun playing pool - especially Zachary!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

2010-11-26T21:05:00.000-05:00

As soon as the turkey is cleared away, it's time to deck the halls! The kids have been a huge help this year. They practically ripped the boxes open and put up all of the decorations.

I loved that the kids stopped the decorating to read the Christmas books that we had tucked inside the boxes.

When the tree "skirt" came out, they had to try it on for size.

When the tree skirt was put down, the kids ran around and around in circles, chasing each other.

Zack got the honorary role of the tree assembler. Up it went!

I got to string the lights around, but after that I was only allowed to supervise. No one seemed to care about my decorating rules of putting the bulbs on the outside and inside of the branches, to make it seem "fuller" :)

Finally, the bow was put on the tree and it was ready for another season. Shortly after that, the first bulb was knocked down and broken by those naughty kitties!!

Willford Turkey Trot

2010-11-25T21:26:00.002-05:00

In order to burn off some calories from our Thanksgiving feast, I decided to head out for a family run. Sydney was up to the challenge, but Zachary wasn't very interested. Unfortunately Alan couldn't join us because he is still letting his foot injury heel - so it was just us chicks this year. Next year, hopefully we'll all be running! Sydney did a great job and made it all the way around the neighborhood with me - not running the whole time, but it was definately a great start :)

Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T16:43:00.003-05:00

Hey there Pilgrims! It's Turkey Day!!

This year I decided to go all out and create a culinary masterpiece! I put herbed butter under the skin of this bird - and stuff it with fresh herbs. It rested on a bed of celery and carrots. Yum! Well, it did turn out pretty good, although turkey really isn't one of my favorite foods. I'll eat it, but large quantities of it just isn't very appealing to me. Not sure if I'll do this again next year, but it was a fun challenge to make something this "fancy"!

Grandma & Grandpa came over and we celebrated out holiday feast with many nutrious and delicious foods :)

The placecards looked a lot like those awesome turkeys we made.

Yeah me!!

Tree lighting at Levis Commons

2010-11-20T21:35:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Levis Commons. Also known as, "free outside to see a tree light up and then go to Maggie Moo's"!! It's hard to decide if my favorite part is the tree, and celebrating the start of the holiday season - or the delicious ice cream treats!! Yum!

The mall looked beautiful with trees all lite up and Santa's house all decked out, awaiting little visitors :)

Such crafty birds

2010-11-14T21:51:00.002-05:00

I was thinking that poor old Thanksgiving doesn't get it's fair share of holiday decorations around our house. So I saw this cute craft in my Family Fun magazine and decided to give it a try.

I was thinking that this was something that kids could help out with and assemble with me - but those felt "feathers" ended up being a lot of work to cut out! And instead of regular glue, I used the hot glue gun, which hurt my fingers :( but in the end they were quite adorable - even though they couldn't stand up on their own... they are destined to be a treasure for years to come.

A day at the Zoo

2010-11-11T21:16:00.000-05:00

Siku has got to be the biggest baby I've even seen! Even though he is almost a month away from turning 1 year old, she is huge! However, it is easy to figure out which bear is the baby when he plays. Jumping in the water, popping up at the visitors, always on the go.

Today was a free day for the kids - it was a teacher in-service day, and we were heading over to have conferences with the kids teachers after our day at the zoo.

It was beautiful weather, a great day!!

Fall Photo op

2010-11-07T21:44:00.004-05:00

I love the fall. I love the weather, the leaves, the beautiful colors! The kids were begging for us to make a big pile of leaves to jump in -and I sensed a great photo op! Even though we don't have any large trees in our yard, we get enough blown in from the bordering lots.

It was a bit of work and surprisingly Zachary even wanted to pitch in and help out. He did a great job. It made me proud to see him helping out :)

Halloween

2010-10-31T22:01:00.005-04:00

Isn't Halloween great?? All of the planning that goes into the costumes. Coming up with the perfect look. And dreaming about all of the candy!!

Although at first Sydney had mentioned being a cheerleader... again (3rd year), she then picked out a ladybug costume. She then changed her mind again and went with a black cat theme. Zachary originally picked out Iron Man, but ended up being Batman. Both were very cute.

The kids were so excited they were skipping down the sidewalks!

Some of our neighbors had really cool decorations. The kids were finally brave enough to go through the haunted porch over at the Glowacki's house.

The kids were on the go the whole time - almost running from to house. Not yet, but probably next year they will be.

The kids got a huge amount of candy - all really good stuff!! They even had some full and king size chocoloate bars (my favorites!!).

Of course they sorted out their candy into piles, just like we did when we were kids. Ah yes, Halloween is pretty great.

Sydney made a "candy Sydney".

Kindergarten Harvest Party

2010-10-28T22:02:00.002-04:00

This year I took on the role of party planner for the Harvest Party over for the Kindergarten class. We decorated the room with balloons and streamers, and my co-planner brought lots of treats.

For their craft the kids made foam picture frames. The plan was to give the kids a picture of themselves at the party, but Zachary wanted to put a picture of the praying mantis from our camping trip in it instead! :) I have to admit it, that insect really did rock.

The kids had tons of food, and tons of cookies. Yum, it was quite a feast.

Here they are being silly with Miss Katie.

Carving pumpkins

2010-10-26T22:50:00.000-04:00

It was finally time to carve our Halloween pumpkins. The kids had been asking about it ever since we got them, but I wanted to wait a bit since the weather had been warm so they didn't get yucky fast.

Sydney sketched out what her design should look like and labeled it "that won" (one).

Zachary, the boy who doesn't like to get his hands messy, didn't want to have anything to do with cleaning out the pumpkins. At first he refused to do it, so I had to do it for him.

But finally Alan insisted that he do it himself, and after he tried it out he found out that it really wasn't so bad after all :)

Our designs came out really good. Apparently I am the oddball one in the family - can you pick which one is my creation??

Last camping trip of the season

2010-10-24T22:59:00.000-04:00

The weather has been beautiful for October. Crisp nights, sunny days - well, at least the weekend we picked to go camping was. With our fall season now being busy with soccer games, we were really wanting to go out for another camping trip as we feel we may have missed a couple of opportunities. This weekend was just perfect. We packed up and headed over to Maumee Bay. The forecast was originally for rain, but we took our chances and it turned out great. This was the first time we'd gone on such short notice, and it turned out probably better than any of our other trips. Everything went so smooth, I think we need to stop planning so much for our future trips! :)
Friday night was Jiffy Pop night. Yum!!!

I had to get some pictures of the kids together, hoping I could make some Christmas cards out of them. I'm going to try to get my photo stuff ordered early this year so I can spend more time during the holidays... well, probably just shopping and stressing out over the other million things I want to do. haha!

The fire felt so good. It got a bit chilly in the evening, but our camper was toasty warm. Heck, it was probably too hot! We were only one of 2 pop-up campers at the campground this weekend. I think the park was maybe 25% full.

We did go to Zack's last soccer game on Saturday, and on the way back from the game we stopped at Sonic for lunch. That was fun treat, and so delicious! The kids got these funny glasses. Zack is convinced that his orange glasses are sunglasses and has been wearing them everywhere.

They are a pretty cool toy, I like!

Ok, what would a camping trip be without me scrapbooking?? well, I had to make some cool Halloween themed notes for Sydney's lunch box. If didn't make those notes, I would forget to write one everyday, and they are so cute.

For Sunday breakfast we had super easy, super yummy donuts!! I think this may become a new Sunday tradition. No mess, just throw the box away! :)

As we were taking a bike ride, we found this guy in the middle the street. He was so cool! Ironically, Zack has a book all about praying mantis so we were very educated about him. What a shock to find him in the street.

He was very friendly and we let him walk all around, up and down our arms. When we finally let him go, we stuck him in the bushes and sure enough, after looking away for just a second, it was nearly impossible to find him again. He was so well camoflauged. Makes you wonder how many other cool animals are hiding out there....

Sad to see you go - Goodbye 2010 camping season!

Another soccer game

2010-10-23T22:44:00.000-04:00

Zachary is just so darn cute in his soccer uniform. He really likes to play and seems to be understanding the rules of the game.

Sydney doesn't find the games as interesting as I do, but she's not too bad :) At least she keeps herself occupied!

They had a substitute coach at this game, but he did great with the kids.

Maybe Sydney can be a cheerleader!

Donuts with Dads

2010-10-21T22:37:00.000-04:00

Over at the elementary school they celebrate Dad's with a breakfast for them. The donuts were delicious (or so I've heard!). In a shrewd marketing move, they host the donut day at the same time as the book fair so all of the kids can convince their Dad's to spend some bucks and buy some books!

Columbus Marathon 2010

2010-10-17T22:26:00.002-04:00

Here we are all bright eyed and bushy tailed... well maybe bright eyed anyways. It's the start of the Columbus Marathon and we just parked the car at 7:10am. The race will be starting and we're all set to go.

The morning did not start out as we planned. We figured since we did not have the kids with us (thanks Grandma & Grandpa!) we would be right on schedule, having a relaxing morning. I think it started out well (5:45am), but what we did not plan for was the backed up traffic on the expressway! The expressway was pretty dead as expected, but when we got to our exit, the cars were backed up for miles trying to exit. And they weren't moving! This made us VERY nervous, because if we were stopped here, I figured the parking garage (which we prepaid our parking for..) would be super busy as well. So we ditched that idea and went for Plan B, which was getting off at the next exit and finding different parking arrangements. That turned out to be a great idea and we were able to get into the city pretty easily and parked in our normal parking lot. This time we even paid - so we didn't get a big parking fine like last year!! :)

We are looking snazzy. The temperature is about 50 degrees, and should be perfect for running.

Stylish cap on me!! (not)

A new plan at the race this year was to have corrals at the starting gate, so the runners would be staggered based on their speed. Sounds great! ... except there was not enough room for all of the runners in corral 2 (mine) and I ended up waiting on the sidewalk right next to the corrals until the race started! Fortunately those people were merged into the corral when the race started and we didn't have to wait for all of the corrals to exit first.
It did end up being a beautiful race day, perfect weather. There were tons of bands providing entertainment on the course and I can't even remember a spot along the course when there weren't any spectators cheering us on (oh, the pressure - can't stop now, they're watching me!!).
I ran a good pace - when I got down the last 5 minutes I could see the turn for the finish line in sight... my super goal was 1:55, and I was not sure if I could make it. I was getting so close! Luckily, right about the time when my watch hit 1:55:01 I was heading for the finish line - and it's all downhill! I started the sprint of my life, my little legs going as fast as they could, and I crossed the finish line in 1:55:49. WHEW!! That made me very happy :)

I got to take a picture of Alan right before mile 26. Even though he is in pain, he is looking pretty good. But here's the thing... I give Alan these awesome action shots...

... and these are the pictures he takes of me! Come on, I'm hoping I'm not ALWAYS looking that bad! That was from the Toledo Race for the Cure a few weeks ago. Good thing I didn't have to pay for that race photo!! ;)

Alan finished @ 3:19 on his full marathon. Woohoo!! He was in a bit of pain, as he was running on an injured foot - so I helped him limp to the car for a rest. We're both ready to take a break from running... for a little while.

Sonic comes to visit

2010-10-10T22:32:00.001-04:00

I'm not sure why I don't have more pictures of this, but we got the great honor of bringing home the kindergarten pet - Sonic! Sonic is a cute little mouse, but phew, he really is stinky. Of course we had to keep him away from the kitties, so he didn't come out to play a lot, but after a while the cats seem to lose interest in him anyways. This weekend was actually 3 days long, so on Monday when the kids went over to Jennifer's house for a playday while I went for a long run, Sonic got to go too. Ironically, Zachary enjoyed the thought of having the mouse at our house, but he didn't want to hold him and by Monday Sonic had stayed in his bedroom almost all day.

Lunch at 577 Foundation

2010-10-10T22:26:00.000-04:00

Since Alan had a long run to do, we decided to go have a picnic lunch over at the 577 Foundation. It was a beautiful day. The 577 Foundation is such a peaceful place. It's quickly becoming our favorite little santuary.

We had plenty of apples from our trip to the orchard last month.

The kids played around in the Zen garden.

Of course we stopped over at the log cabin too, and talked about all of the great things we have nowadays. Like indoor plumbing! haha

Cedar Point Halloweekends!

2010-10-09T22:16:00.001-04:00

It's time once again for Cedar Point to decorate the park with spooky delights! We love going for Halloweekends, the park looks so cool.

Zack was not cooperating for the picture!

This maze was a piece of cake for the kids. They loved the kids haunted house - they got chocolate candies at the end!

While Sydney and Daddy were riding the coasters, Zack and I were enjoying a ride on this spinny thing.

Luckily I didn't get too woozy from those rides. The kids just love them, but they are hard to "stomach" for us big kids!

One of the best parts of the day was that we bought season passes for next year - so hopefully we will be visiting Cedar Point a lot next year!!

This is a funny photo booth experience - Notice how happy Zachary is at the beginning of the photo shoot, but by the end someone had quite annoyed him!! Ah, such is life....

MacQueen's field trip

2010-10-08T22:19:00.000-04:00

I was originally going to be a chaperone for this field trip, but when I was told that it was pretty much each parent driving their own kids because there were so many people interested, I declined. I did get to go on this trip last year for Preschool, so it probably was the same thing. But here is the class hanging out in front of the store at MacQueen's.

It was a beautiful fall day - couldn't have asked for better weather!

Cheer camp

2010-10-02T22:06:00.002-04:00

Sydney particpated in the school's Cheer Camp again this year. She got to learn cheers and then they performed at a football game's half time show. Unfortunately it was a drizzly day at the football game, but she still had fun and did a great job!

She was so excited that her best bud Gabriella was there too. They were both so cute!

My day of cooking insanity!

2010-09-27T21:44:00.001-04:00

I'm not sure what got into me - maybe it was the change of seasons. Felt like I needed to make some freezer food so I could have more time to relax after work and not cook. Maybe I was just hungry! who knows... but it started out with picking a whole bunch of recipes, and going crazy shopping for enough food to feed an army.... My fridge was so packed there was absolutely no space for anything else at all!

I started out by baking some yummy oatmeal bars. Or so I thought, they smelled delicious but were really pretty weak. Could have used a cup of sugar! However I did later find out that they were pretty good mixed in with some yogurt.

As the day progressed I realized I was not going to be making my goal of cooking all of the dishes I selected. Especially after the sink clogged up right when my kitchen was filled with food and dirty dishes. Note to self, don't throw grease down the drain - even if it is mixed in with a lot of water :(

Note the plunger in the kitchen? Not a good sign when you are cooking!

After Alan got home from work, he spent several hours working on the drain and had to finally buy a snake to clear it out. He's so good! :)

Here's another shock - after preparing all of the food, there was so much it didn't fit in my freezer! doh! I even had to take some of it to work at put it in that freezer. But after all of that, I did end up with some yummy food. I hope to be enjoying the fruits of my labor soon!

MacQueen's Orchard

2010-09-26T21:16:00.008-04:00

The trees are getting full of apples - it's that time again - time to go pick some apples!! I'm certain my family loves our annual photosession... well, ok, maybe they enjoy the actual picking of apples and the yummy treats we hope to make with the apples. But I love this opportunity to get some great pictures of everyone.

We had this great idea of how to pick the biggest apples on the tree!

This year both kids were allowed to drive the truck, just a little, in the orchard. They loved it!

Monarch butterfly

2010-09-23T21:39:00.001-04:00

We finally have a butterfly! It was such a cool thing to watch the change from tiny caterpillars into full grown butterflies.

Zack's first soccer game

2010-09-19T22:51:00.004-04:00

Today was Zack's first soccer game. He was pretty excited about it. We got to play against our good friend Jacob, and two kids from school. It was cute to watch the first time players, like Zack. A few times they were looking in the opposite direction of the ball! For the most part they did a great job though, and even though no score was being kept track of, Zack informed us that the other team won the first game and his team won the second game :)

One of the parents brought a snack and it included Sunny D. He was so thrilled with that - he kept telling us "I can't believe we got this whole container of orange juice!". It was a big hit - guess I know what to buy when it's my snack turn!

Go Tigers!!

Pokagon camping trip

2010-09-12T21:29:00.000-04:00

The "Pokagon curse" definately seems to have worn off from the Willfords. We have had several super great camping trips here. This was no exception. It was a beautiful crisp fall weekend, just perfect for camping.

Alan made a great breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausages. I think this is one of my new favorite traditions of camping - letting daddy take over the cooking duties for the morning!

We had our favorite campsite - right next to the giant rock. The kids climbed over it all weekend. We also found another caterpillar to take home and raise into a butterfly.

I'm not sure why, but Zachary had no interest in riding on the horse. Sydney loved it as usual. I can't wait until the kids are big enough to go out on the trails with the horses. That will be fun.

The training wheels come off!!

2010-09-06T21:41:00.001-04:00

This is a day Alan has been waiting for. Zachary learns how to ride his bike without training wheels!! It takes a bit of time and space taking off the training wheels and transporting them when we go camping - that is why Alan hoped he would get rid of them soon. Once Zachary started trying, he picked up on it really well. I think he caught on faster than Sydney did!

Look at him go!!!

We are so proud of you !!!

Fulton County Fair

2010-09-04T21:07:00.019-04:00

One sure sign that summer will be ending soon is the annual fair. There is nothing quite as good as the chocolate milkshakes at the fair. yum yum yum!!

Seems we started a new tradition of the kids going on the bungee jumpers. No one has mastered a jump yet - maybe next year Sydney will.

We didn't buy an unlimited ride pass, but we did let the kids go one ride. They chose the fun house.

Later we went to look at the tractors and farming equipment. It was a fun day. We certainly look forward to this trip every year.

East Harbor camping trip

2010-08-29T21:56:00.000-04:00

We took a camping trip over to East Harbor state park. Our main reason for that campground was it's close location to a fun place - Mystery Hill & Prehistoric Forest. Alan had visited Mystery Hill as a kid, and when he heard this location was going to be closing after this season, we needed to go check it out! It was pretty funny - just looking at the house on Mystery Hill was making Alan and I woozy!! As you can see - water runs uphill!!

It was really hard to walk around in the building - the kids witnessed this "force of nature" when they saw a ball roll uphill! :)

This chair appeared to be floating as I sat on it....

After tumbling around in the house for a bit, we headed outside to the Prehistoric Forest. The kids got to dig for fossils.

Here's a good one!!

Wow, look at the size of those snakes!! Zack can hardly believe it...

I don't know, were the dinosaurs really this orange color?? who knows, maybe...

Watch out kids, you'll be eaten alive!

Our next stop was the African Safari Wildlife park. It is a drive through park where we encountered all sorts of hungry animals. They gave us a big cup of dry food to feed the animals, but the animals were getting spoiled by the bags of carrots that some people were feeding them, so our dry food lasted quite a long time.

The animals certainly were not shy - they just stick their heads in the windows looking for a snack.

"Hello????"

I didn't mind most of the animals - well, at least after I got over my initial fear! - but then a huge, stinky buffalo put his head in the window. Ewww! He was a little too large for my liking - and we closed the windows everytime they came near us on the rest of the adventure!!

The animals roamed all over their habitat - the babies were so cute!

Although Zack didn't want to partipate, Sydney enjoyed getting a little close to the animals.

At the very end we finally decided to buy a bag of carrots too, hoping to get a giraffe to have a snack. However, every car in front of us must have had the same idea because the giraffe's wouldn't even look at us. Instead the zebra's got our carrots, which was OK too.

The park also had some nice exhibits - and even a pony ride.

One of the main attractions was pig races. I believe we were rooting for Pig Daddy. They were all pretty darn quick, but our guy didn't win.

Back at camp, we had beautiful weather. It was a perfect camping weekend. One of the best parts for the kids was that Sydney got a reward for having a perfect spelling test - Alan bought her the Doodle Jump game for his iPhone and they got to play it. So happy!

Our campsite wasn't super private, but it was nice anyways.

And to end our trip we got to see a beautiful sunset. A perfect ending to a perfect trip!

Sydney's new look...

2010-08-25T10:17:00.002-04:00

So Sydney started begging me to get bangs cut in her hair, just about the same time the her friend got them. At first I was very sceptical and against the idea. I do like her hair long, and one length, although I am the first to admit that most times it looks like it needs a brushing - 30 seconds after she claims she "brushed" it. So when she brought up the topic, I resisted. Then I asked her to show me a picture from her school yearbook of the hairstyle she was looking for. She found several kids with bangs, but they all looked pretty dorky to me. I finally caved in, and agreed to trim some longer, "whispy" bangs to one side of her hair. I figured that would be the least destructive :)
I started trimming, and when I was finished Sydney ran to the mirror to take a look. I was surprised when she came out saying "I don't like them!!", and then she cried... and cried some more :( oh man, that was a bummer. She continued to say it, as if I could just glue the hair back on where it used to be! In an effort to regain happiness, I explained how they will grow out eventually and she can wear headbands and clips until they do. Luckily she found that to be a good way to hide them, and finally calmed down. Sadly, that won't be the last time she gets a hairdo that she doesn't like!

I think it looks pretty good in this "after" picture - granted it was all straighted out this morning, and nicely "fluffed".

Back to school! (First day of Kindergarten!!)

2010-08-19T10:13:00.000-04:00

It's back to school time!! I can't believe school is starting already, since it's only August 19th. But the kids are excited about it, and ready to go. We now have two offical "school age" kids - Zack is heading off to kindergarten this year!

Nice backpack selections...

Zack was super excited about going to Kindergarten. He kept asking "how many more days...?".

Waiting at the bus stop for Sydney's bus to come.

There she goes !!

Zack headed off to his kindergaren class. Here is his desk - at the "green" table.

Miss Katie is his teacher.

Bird Lake

2010-08-16T20:34:00.010-04:00

We had the very great opportunity of going up to a cottage on Bird Lake that is owned by Jacob & Kendall's grandparents. Well, we kind of invited ourselves to go along, but I think Jennifer was happy to have us there :) I thought it would be a great way to enjoy one of the few remaining days of summer before school begins. The lake was a quick hour or so drive away, and the kids kept entertained by communicating by walkie talkie the whole ride there (between separate cars).

The kids had a lot of fun playing on the beach area and wading in the water around the docks.

We got to take a trip around the lake in the paddleboat. It was a beautiful day, really sunny and warm.

Jennifer made some super yummy brownies. They were chocolately and gooey! Delicious!!

After lunch Jacob show Sydney and Zack the finer points of jumping off the docks.

Block Party

2010-08-15T20:48:00.013-04:00

I think today was the hottest day of the entire year. Seriously!! Way hot!! And of course it was the day of our block party. In the middle of the day. ugghhh Even so, we loaded up the plate of treats, grabbed the lawn chairs and headed over to the street of the party.
We had the honor of having the new Walleye (hockey team) mascot visiting our party.

The kids had a bike parade to start out the party.

There was some seriously yummy food at the party. Even Zack found something he liked (shocking!! haha)

The fire department visited also and showed off their fire truck and equipment.

We even had a clown to entertain the crowd. He did great job and also made balloon animals for everyone.

Although we had fun, I was ready to head inside to get out of the sun!! whew, I was whipped by the end of the party.

Day 8 - the bonus day!

2010-08-07T16:59:00.000-04:00

Our flight doesn't leave until 8pm, so we have another day to hang out at the Kennedy Space center. Today was the only day it really rained much during the day, so we didn't mind being indoors again.
But to start our day out right, we had to have more ice cream.... for breakfast!! yum, I could get used to this! Hey, it is vacation after all.

Kennedy offered many opportunities for us to be become spacemen (or is that "spacepersons"??)

Alan got to repair the Hubble Telescope!

Hanging out with the moon man

Sydney is guiding the rocket safely into space (or maybe she's just talking to her friend, I can't tell)

Here we are hanging out on the moon!

Well, that wraps up our trip. Despite the hot hot weather, we had a great time!