The Noehren's

The next morning Brian took the kids down to the pool, and they had the place to themselves.  It was a fun pool with a cool dolphin statue in the middle.  We noticed that they had all sorts of activities for kids over the holidays and come to find out they were all FREE to any overnight guest.  So next we hit up the bouncy houses they had set up on the indoor tennis courts.  They also had xbox games (is it sad to admit this was all of our first time ever playing xbox?).  After talking to the ladies in charge we learned that you don't even have to stay with your kids.  You can sign them in and out at will throughout the day...for FREE!  Can you believe it?  Even though we didn't do that this time, how cool would that be to go for a run, or out to eat, or to a show or whatever!!  Very cool is the answer.  They only offer that during holiday times (other times it costs money) but how nice to have that option!  We ate ...

For our gift to the kids this year we planned a quick, but awesome, overnight to French Lick Resort in Indiana.  It is the most random thing ever - we had talked about going tubing or to a waterpark with the kids and then a flyer came in the paper of this town in Indiana that had both a waterpark and a ski resort all in the same little town.  Perfect!  We took a gamble and booked a reservation at the local historic resort and let me tell you - it just might be the beginnings of a family tradition.  We had the BEST time!  It is such a tiny little place, but just our speed.    We drove over Thursday morning and went to the Splash Adventure indoor waterpark.  It was fun!  After 4-5 hours we changed and drove down the road to check into the French Lick Resort.  It reminds me of the Greenbriar in West Virginia - it is an old historic hotel built around a mineral spring.  The only difference is they just spend 500 mil...

This is one of the few Christmas' in over 13 years that we were all by ourselves.  We usually travel to Brian's family, or they come to us - but most everyone headed to Connecticut to be with Brian's grandpa for his 95th birthday on the 27th, and Brian wasn't able to travel this year.    Since December has been super duper busy, we chose to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day just as a family.  Brian worked a half day on Christmas Eve, we had a nice dinner, and our traditional candle light reading of Luke 2 and opening one present.  Once the kids were sent upstairs Brian spent the following 2 hours assembling the Green Machine -  Grant's gift from Mimi and Papa.  It was tricky - but Grant loves it! This year we asked for various items for our future backpacking adventures.  Come to find out going out in the middle of nowhere without anything is actually quite expensive :)  Thank you to those that helped build our s...

Some years breaks from school just meant more work and energy for me but I was honestly so excited for Christmas break this year.  I think we all just needed a big two week break with not much on the calendar.  I realized that for the last year we have travelled on nearly every break from school - which is fun - but not really a "break" for any of us.    I'm not sure why, but fifth grade has been more demanding on Haley than previous grades and by that last week of school there were tears and I could tell my little Haley was just too stressed out - so we were all counting down the days to Christmas break this year!  We made cookies, played car town, slept in (yes - they actually slept in!), watched tv, went shopping, and played lots of games.  Just what the doctor ordered!!  It's been heavenly!!

Even though we just had a Halloween Lab Party, his student's talked Brian into throwing an ugly sweater white elephant party, and I'm glad they did - it was super fun!  I had a hot chocolate bar and enough goodies to put us all into a diabetic coma.  The kids, as usual, were the judges of the ugly sweater contest.  Here are their top 3 choices: It was a fun night and a good way to kick off the holiday season.  We also were able to put our sweaters to good use at another ugly sweater white elephant party we went to a few weeks later.  Score!  I will definitely have to keep my eyes open for more ugly sweaters through the year at goodwill!

This time of year we like to do an extra amount of service, especially things that the kids can be involved in.  We got the idea of sponsoring the Salvation Army kettle from one of Brian's students that did it growing up with her church group.  I looked into it and it is super easy to sponsor a kettle - anyone can do it - so we recruited other family friends to ring for an hour and we were set!    We rang at the Kroger by our house and as a family we rang for 4 hours total that day and had six other families participate too.  It was super cold, but a great experience.  We raised just under $400, which equals about $30/hour throughout the day.  This just might become an annual tradition for our family!