The Noehren's

Those of you that know Grant know that he loves trucks and our visit last year to the Connecticut "Trash Museum" was such a success we decided to go back again this year!  It is actually a recycling plant with windows where you can watch the trucks dump and the machines sort all of the stuff with a small museum attached.  It is honestly so cool!  I'm not sure who liked it more - the kids or the grown ups! Here are two synchronized trucks dumping the paper... And another dumping the non-paper items.  Meet Trash-o-saurus.  If you look in the background of the above picture you can catch a glimpse of Mimi.  I got home and to my horror realized that we don't have a single picture of the kids with Mimi and Papa!  We had a great few days with them and the rest of the family and then had to leave a day early to beat the blizzard that they are still digging out of.  Thanks for a great Christmas!

Most years we've been married we've headed up to Connecticut for Christmas and this year was no different.  I'm blessed with a MIL from Brooklyn and a FIL from Queens so we've headed into New York City for a day of fun many times.  This year though, instead of taking the train from CT, we decided to literally drive straight into downtown Manhattan on our way from WV to CT.  It was AWESOME!!  I feel like I should have a badge saying I drove through times square in my own car!!  What a thrill!! We saw the Rockefeller Tree  We went to the American Girl store.  Haley saved her allowance and bought her Chrissa doll a pair of cute shoes with her own money.  Nevermind the fact they cost as much as shoes for Haley might cost :)  They're a souvenier, right?   We watched the ice skaters below the tree.  And went to the Lego store...which wasn't as cool as we were hoping, and where Grant has a nice big meltdown.  We saw...

Let me just start out by saying that Brian has a deep love for Pizza.  No big surprise, right?  All guys love pizza, don't they?  So, when I first moved to Connecticut before we were married one of the first places Brian wanted to take me to Pepe's Pizzeria in New Haven, CT.  He spoke of the legendary Pepe's with great enthusiasm and fondness the whole drive there.  Little did I know many other people love Pepe's too and there is routinely a hour or two wait on any given night year round.  Lucky for me, it was winter and FREEZING!  About an hour and a half later we finally took our seats, thawed out and got our pizza.  I was not a fan of New York style pizza and couldn't believe people actually wait so long in the cold for pizza of all things.  It was then that I realized that Brian (and the rest of the people in line) must love pizza more than most.  Not long after this trip Brian took me into New York City (stil...

The week before Christmas break was full of ice storms and tons of snow here in Kentucky.  They only ended up having hardly 2 days of school the whole week.  The kids loved it!! Brian wins the award for funnest guy to play in the snow with.  He took them sledding many times, built stuff, and made our sidewalk into a luge.  I ventured out some, but not nearly as much as him!  Snow angels :)