The Noehren's

Today, Brian wandered around up on the hill...capitol hill.  He was asked by the American Physical Therapy Association (his professional organization) to lobby on behalf of research funding at the capitol today.  They flew him and 9 others from around the country in yesterday and briefed them in the ways of lobbying.  Today, he met with both of Kentucky's senator's legislative aids and our represenative from the house of represenatives.  He said it was a really, really cool experience and that there is definately an unique energy on the hill, and that it felt nice to actually voice his concerns as part of a democracy.  Cool stuff!

Lately (as in the last 7 years hahaha) we've been trying to figure out how to best help our sweet daughter with her anger management issues.  Most blow ups tend to revolve around having to do things she doesn't want to do, and not being in charge.  So this weekend when it was time for her to help unload the dishwasher and her anger started to heat up I told her that I had a secret to tell her.  That caught her attention.  I then told her that my secret was that I too hated doing dishes.  She looked at me wide eyed in disbelief and said "You DO????"  I confirmed that yes, I hate dishes - but I still do them. Every. Single. Day.  Ugh.  I told her it was my way of helping the family out - doing something I really don't like.  Suddenly she felt some kindship - we were fellow dish haters - and she happily helped do her job.  Meltdown avoided.  She then even went on to clean the family room and wash the bathroom sinks.  What a g...

Since Haley didn't have school Friday, we planned a fun overnight at Coco Keys (an indoor waterpark) in Cincinnati.  It was sooooo fun!  But before heading to our hotel we did what everyone must do when in Cincninnati and we headed to 1) the Gap clearance center and 2) IKEA.  After buying a few finds at Gap, we headed to IKEA and blissfully shopped for an hour child-free.  Both us and the kids loved the free play zone - a real win/win!  Our good friend Ashlee told us that kids eat free on Fridays and so we all had a fun lunch there too.  Free food, free babysitting...what else will IKEA think of next?  Maybe next time they'll just start giving away furniture.   We ate a unique restaurant called the Red Squirrel for dinner - a random find.  It was actually a lot of fun.  Their menu was all over the place.  The kids ordered eggs/bacon, I got a gyro and Brian got eggplant parmesean.  You gotta love a...

This morning a sneaky little leprechaun left a trail to follow.  The kids found a small stash of treats!  How fun!  The leprechaun even left behind a very, very sticky mustache.  Here's Haley with her new green bows all ready for school.    Happy St. Patties Day!!

And so it begins...my descent into middle age.  Not sure why 35 feels much older than 34, but it does!  Any guesses which family member this lovely card is from?  I know you're jealous of our mad artisitc skills.  I sure do love a good homemade card!  They make me giggle.

The majority of things we like to do as a family are outside, so when we were given a very rainy Saturday with no plans we decided to take matters into our own hands and head underground - where it doesn't really matter what the weather is!  We ventured out to Mammoth Cave and let me tell you - it didn't disappoint!  Who knew there are over 300 miles of cave down there??  Not me.  I thought our 2 hour tour must have covered at least half there was to see and boy was I wrong.  It barely scratched the surface of the 12 miles they give tours of.  We need some people to come visit us so we have a good excuse to go back on the other tours!  Grant insisted we wear our headlamps.  The entrance of the tour we did had the craziest stairs going down, down, down.  It was awesome!  Kentucky is so cool!

I am a giddy little school girl!  We may still have our old prepaid cell phones...but the Noehren family just made a major step forward out of the 1990's and it is AWESOME.  We finally bought the tv/blueray we've (ok, I'VE) wanted for a long time and since it happened to fall close to my birthday I'm claiming it as my birthday present.  We also upgraded to HD cable with a DVR so now I can record shows and let my mind blissfully turn to mush.  Happy Birthday to me!!!  Now that our tax return spending spree is done it's back to regular life.  Can you say movie night??