Mommy...

"I want to stay with you forever" (whispered to Mommy by Zack as I carried him to bed)

the Jellybean Tree

I finished up a mural in the kid's play loft today. It's our own Jellybean tree!

Ski day 3 - Keystone

For our last day of skiing we decided to stay right at our own resort. Once again it was a beautiful sunny day - we had to eventually take off part of our coats and put them in lockers because we were getting so overheating on the slopes! That's because we were doing some trick moves at the A51 terrain park. Or maybe not - perhaps we were really just falling off the box that we were trying for the first time - but we weren't afraid of the jumps and had a great time playing around.


Alan "rocking the box" at the terrain park...


For dinner we had some brews and a pizza at Fatty's Pizzeria in Breckenridge.




It was a quick trip, but a much needed break.

Ski day 2 - Loveland

Loveland is an awesome local ski resort that sits on top the Eisenhower tunnel. It's right on the continental divide. We went skiing there on our 2nd day. We go there almost every time we are in Colorado, but I think this was one of the very few times that it was actually warm instead of frigid. With the altitude so high, above the tree line, it can get pretty nasty up there when the temperature is cold and the wind is blowing. We had a great day of skiing, and had some fun wipe outs too!

After skiing we went to the Dam Brewery. Yummy!

Ski trip to Colorado!!

Sure, this is supposed to be a kids blog, but we like to put in notes and stories about other things too. We took a quick ski trip out to Colorado this year and stayed at the River Run condo in Keystone. http://www.vrbo.com/21218 What a great place to stay. This was our 2nd time at this particular condo. You can always get good deals at the last minute if you search for them.

On our first day of skiing, we went to Breckenridge. They got a new gondola since the last time we were there. Speaking of which, lift ticket prices are soooooooo expensive now. We had to pay $172 for only 2 tickets, when almost 3 years ago we only paid $43 a ticket. Ouch!

Breckenridge had great snow, and it was sunny. We even skied the Devils Crotch! (a double black diamond run) After skiing we headed to our favorite restaurant, Downstairs at Erics in Breckenridge. Remember Alan taking that fall on the stairs???

Woopy Woop

The kids take the bungie cords that are in the truck and have them hanging between the car seat and the back of the front row seats. Then they hang the other bungies on them. They now serve as phones, devices to steer the train, and Zack especially likes them when the look like "woopy woops"!

Too many!!

We went to the Toledo Zoo to see to see a performance that the Toledo Ballet was putting on. It was excerps from the Nutcracker show that they put on every year. Well, during the dance of the sugar plum fairies, all of the dancers came out on stage and had the same outfits on. When Zack saw them all, he loudly proclaimed "there's too many!!!" He said it so loud he almosted seemed distressed by their appearance! He got that from a book called "Too many frogs", but I think he really meant to say that there's "alot" of dancers :)

Alpine Valley ski trip

Zack takes his first cruise down the hill at Alpine Valley. He made it all the way down without falling, skiing right next to Mommy. He had a good time and went down the hill 4 times, until he started getting a little grumpy, then he was easily convinced to go enjoy some hot chocolate in the lodge. He said the best part of skiing was going up the hill on the Magic Carpet and he wouldn't stop telling us that he wants to go on the chairlift next time!



Sydney was doing a really good job skiing - especially since it was only the second time she's been skiing! Here she is going down the hill all by herself. She is becoming a pro at going down the hill - very fast - in a straight line. Oh well, there's always next year to learn "pizzas and french fries"
Hopefully we'll get a few more days of snow around here so we can go again - and get Zack up on that chairlift!!

Sledding

Even though we only have enough snow to barely cover the ground, we had to get out sledding. It's really only been snowy for a couple of days this winter. Hardly any snow at all, so this was our first sledding trip of the winter. We went over to Sidecut Metro park close by our house. The hill wasn't really steep, but the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.

On our last trip down the hill, the sled finally gave in to the enormous weight of Alan's butt and a hole was broke through the sled. haha It probably had more to do with the stick they ran over on the way down, but the verdict is still out. :)

Best artwork ever!

Here are the latest pictures that Sydney drew for us. One of Sydney & Mommy and the other of Zack and Daddy!

"Oh my goodness..."

"... it's a Nut Grabber!" Sydney's new catch phrase around the holidays :)

"Oh my goodness!!"

Zack exclaims as we are out for a drive looking at all of the Christmas lights on other people's houses.

Lights at the Zoo

We took a trip to the Zoo tonight to see all of the Christmas lights. The kids loved the "dancing" lights which were synchronized to "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas". Zack and Sydney went to see Santa and they told Santa they wanted a train & red race car (Zack) and a ballerina & princess (Sydney).

Don't look now!

We watched the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer last night. Every time the Abominable Snowman came on, Zack covered his eyes with both of his hands!

"Mom??"

"What Zack?"
"Whatever!!"

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun!! We couldn't have asked for a better night, it was actually warm, almost 60 degrees I think, so we sure weren't cold running from door to door. We were lucky to recruit Grandma & Grandpa B over to pass out candy while we went all around the neighborhood. We stayed out for almost the whole two hours. What a great time!

That blue thing!

We went for a camping trip this past weekend to Maumee Bay State park. We have really been enjoying the new camper and getting a lot of use out of it so far. This past trip we had Grandma and Grandpa B camping next to us in their RV. It was a lot of fun and the kids were always scampering back and forth between the campsites. They kept very busy catching caterpillars - they caught 4 different kinds. We also went down to the beach, on bike rides, and nature walks. When we were walking on the boardwalk nature trail, Zack wanted to be carried by Grandma and he called her "that blue thing" since she had on a blue coat! His favorite part of the camping trip was "playing" and "eating white things" (marshmallows!). At least he's incorporating his colors into his speech very nicely!

Investigation: Sydney's Treasures

Perhaps you've seen Sydney carrying around her "treasures". They are all stored in one of several purses, and even a miniture jewelry box which was selected personally by Sydney from a garage sale. Well one night we decided to investigate what the treasures really were, so we checked them out when she was sleeping. Here is what we found:

Assorted Dora "puffy" stickers, bracelets, foam disks from toy gun, Easter egg, rings, train whistle, flower eraser, buckeye, beads, and a flag from our lasagne at the Spaghetti Warehouse.

Zack's race car, blanket from baby doll set, lip balms, Cinderella from birthday cake (with two dresses), 6 cents, super ball, rubber frog, piece of paper with scribbles on it, beads, items from baby doll medical set: empty prescription bottles and medical tray.

Camping slips from our last camping trip, teddy bear with "S", 2 of Zack's cars, lizard toy, 2 feathers, Buzz Lightyear doll, Gummi bear doll, train whistle, tickets, Garfield pencil topper, beads, bead "poodle", bread tie, tag from pajamas, Dora puffy sticker, and another foam disk from the toy gun.

Cedar Point

We took a trip to Cedar Point for the evening. Here is a picture of Zack on a ride, just moments before he noticed that Mommy abandoned him to go take pictures of Sydney and Daddy on the Jr. Gemini!!

We all had a great time. Can't wait to go back next year!

5, 6, 7

That's the way Zack counts... not sure why, but instead of 1, 2, 3 it's always 5, 6, 7! I guess he's already ahead of the game :)