The Great Wolf Lodge

We had a fun weekend! We went to Kansas City and stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge. We picked up the kids about a half hour early from school, and drove 3 1/2 hours to get there around 6. Amber, Ben and Sam were very excited, Keaton had never been there before so he wasn't sure what to expect, but was feeding off of the other kids excitement. We checked into our room and quickly changed into our swim suits and headed for the best indoor water park around! As soon as we went through the doors the kids just took off! Ben, Sam and Amber headed for the water slides, and Keaton took off for the biggest jungle gym he'd ever seen with water spaying everywhere and lots of things to climb and water slides to slide down. I wasn't used to not having a little one to take care of in the kiddie pool, so I went to the lazy river and just relaxed for a while. Then Keaton wanted to go down some of the bigger slides and needed a parent. Bret was Sam so I went with him. The child has no fear! He didn't want to stop. The park closed at 9:00 so we had a great time for a couple of hours and, soaking wet, went up stairs to our room. On the way to the elevators, Keaton turned to me and said "Mom, can we stay here forever???" I think he liked it. I told him we could come back and play tomorrow. He was very happy to here that. Up in the room we dried off and changed into jammies and ordered a movie. The kids picked The Princes and the Frog. It was very late when it was over and didn't take much to get the kids in there beds and for the younger ones to fall asleep.
The next morning we got up bright and early and went down to the restaurant to have a great breakfast, then we did some shopping at the gift shop and let the kids get a souvenir. The water park opened at 9, and Bret wanted to go to the Cabellas that was right next door, so I took the boys to the water park, Amber wanted to do the Magic Quest game that they had there, so we split off to do our activities. I would've rather gone shopping at all the outlet stores they have there, but I new Bret would be happy to go to the Cabellas instead of taking the boys swimming. What I sacrifice for that man! We met up for lunch at Cabellas and did some walking around the store, and also went to the Big Nebraska Furniture Mart that is also right next to the lodge. We had to be out of the hotel by four, and I was tired of the water park, so Bret took the boys one last time, Amber finished her magic quest game and I walked around the different gift shops and got a few things for the kids for birthdays that are coming up.
At 4 we packed everything up and headed to our very dear friends and adopted family, the Buells. Were I took a much needed shower, and then we went to Apple bees for dinner. Back at the Buells we just relaxed and visited, while the kids played down stairs. I love having older children, and that my baby days are over. I can relax and visit so much more!
Sunday morning Bret and I were going to church with the Buells, it was their Stake Conference, so I told the kids they didn't have to come. They were a little to happy about that. I really enjoyed the meeting, and was able to listen to all of it and really enjoy the spirit that was there. I haven't been to such a wonderful church meeting in a long time. Or maybe it was the fact that I wasn't trying to keep my kids quiet or from arguing with each other, and was able to really concentrate and listen with out interruption.
We came back to the Buells and had a nice dinner/lunch with them and visited some more, then packed up and said good bye, and drove the 4 hours home. We had great weather and everything was fine when we pulled into our drive way. I wasn't ready to be home yet though. I could have used a few more days away. But the kids have one more week of school to get through, then we'll have summer to look forward to. We have some great plans and hope to make everything we want to do work, and find time to fit everything in.

I'm a dork and didn't take one picture of our mini vacation. Sorry about that. I was having to much fun and wasn't to excited about bringing my camera into a water park. Amber got a couple with hers thought so I'll have to steel them from her.

Face plant!

This is what happens when you run around the family room pushing a big car and you trip and fall over the car and hit the carpet with your face. He had a bloody nose as well. I took this after I cleaned that up. No sense in showing the gore. He went to school and got to show everyone his rug burn. He wasn't really happy with the attention.

But boys with be boys eh? Just in the last month we've used up an entire box of band-aids. School will be out the 28th of May, and they are all very excited. They are tired of going to bed early because they have school. They would rather play outside till dark. Try explaining to your 4 year old about the time change and the sun being up later in the spring and summer months. They just know the sun is still up! So why am I going to bed!

Amber is 16!

What a weekend! Mothers day, Bret's call weekend, soccer games out of town and Amber's 16th birthday. Sunday we just had a party with our family, which was nice after all the business and people of Saturday. Bret was gone all day in the ER so not much of a mothers day for me. I still had to do everything I always have to do on any other Sunday.
Amber opened her presents from us on Sunday when Bret came home for about an hour. She loved her new body pillow. She also got some new bedding and a bunch of new Cd's and some movies, and books. She got a new digital camera, and a hair dryer, so she'd stop taking mine, and some nice jewelry from her friends.

Ben and Sam were goofing off and wrestling on the couch the whole time she was opening her presents, I guess girl presents aren't worth their attention. They have been quite insane lately.

Saturday was the big party! She invited about 20 people, girls and boys both. We had about 10 girls and 2 boys that could come. Which was fine with me because any more and it wouldn't been a bit to much. The two boys Dallon and Preston were friends from church and live here in Harlan. I think they were loving all the girl attention. Dallon, who just turned 14 last month, but physically could pass for 17, was the center of attention. It didn't hurt that he is cute, and very funny. Preston, who's a year younger than Dallon, and is a bit shy, seemed to come out of his shell a bit. He had a great time playing the games and was laughing with everyone else. Never quite seen him like that before. I didn't take many pictures of the party I didn't want to bother them while they were playing games and eating. You know, being that kind of mother. So I just snapped one of her blowing out the candles.

One of Amber's presents was a pedicure here in town, so we did that at 10 in the morning, Ben had to be picked up by his coach at 11 for two soccer games in Logan and Woodbine. So my pedicure was a short one while Amber got the deluxe. She loved it. So with her pretty toes we came home and decorated the house for the party. She had a Hollywood theme, with a red carpet coming up the stairs to the front door, and lots of silver and gold balloons with Hollywood written on them, and we had glitz and bling all over the living room and dining room. I took my boys over to a friends house, Allyson, so they would be out of the way and picked up the pizza. The guests started coming around 5:00. Annette brought her daughter Kelsey, Tashina, and Shya around 7:00, and stayed till the end. That was fun for me! It's always fun to have my best friend around.

I bought a ton of food, 5 large pizzas, and tons of pop, different kinds of chips and dip,and made a punch for them and had lots of tasty treats for the fondue pot filled with yummy chocolate! Of course we had the cake and ice cream, which I wasn't sure they wanted after eating all the other stuff, but they did. They started out playing Catch Phrase, then Apples to Apples, then opened the presents, then we did the cake thing and then they ate and ate and started the movie Avatar in Bret's Trophy room on the big screen. They stopped it about half way through and all went outside to run around and play games in the dark. Being out in the country it was dark. The highlight of the evening was when Dallon went down the curvy tube slide out on our play set and got a very wet and muddy bottom. The rain we've been having had pooled at the bottom and my boys have been throwing dirt in it. He came in and said he needed to call his mom to bring him some clean pants. They girls loved it. So Allyson came over and brought my little boys home, which I quickly put to bed, and she stayed for little bit, so it was really fun for me too, I had my two good friends here as well to talk to and have fun with. Everyone was gone around 11, which was a good time, I cleaned up a bit, then went to bed. It was fun, a lot of work prior to the party, but worth it. Amber had a great time and so did everyone else. A lot of the girls were saying it was the best party they'd been too. Which made my daughter very happy.