Man trip

Last week, Adam went on a man trip with my dad, brother, brother-in-law, uncle and nephew. They ventured way up north to sportsmans's lodge, in Baudette, MN to go ice fishing for a few days.
Adam sent pictures while he was gone and it looked like everyone was having a good time. He said the fish weren't biting much, but they did catch a few fish. He also said since they were on the meal plan at the lodge, they ate way more than any one person should eat at one sitting.
He came home with a few fish fillets that will be gone in the next seven weeks, five cases of beer and a belly too full to eat for the next day.
I'm sure glad he had a good time. In just waiting for my turn when the girls get to go on a getaway. Sounds like I'll be waiting a while.

*pictures: the river outside the lodge and the trees in Canada. Adam and his first catch. My dad. Paul (bro in law)

the last five months-june

i was looking forward to june. the sun. the trips to the pool and zoo. staying up late. grilling and having summertime beverages. weekend adventures. our summer started out great, but by the end of the month, our summer took a major turn from fun to stressful.

the beginning of the month, i wanted to get the kids pictures taken. and because i'm am 'tight' with my money (in certain areas), i decided to play photographer mommy. with the help of my helpful assistant (my mom), we headed to the neighbors backyard to try and get a few decent pictures. fletcher was a ham. brynlee, not so much. i did end up getting a headache, and few that were frame-able. 

back in april for fletcher's birthday, he received a fishing pole from his pops and nana. ever since, he has really been into fishing. adam took him a few times. they also went to uncle dave's pond and did some fishing. fletcher is very impatient (inherited trait), and not quiet, so there was little catching going on.

on june 23rd, adam played in the alumni football game again. this year, he was joined by his step-brother nate, his friend iffy, and the oldest player on the team, his dad. this years game was not enjoyable at all. after the first three minutes of play, it started pouring. so hard. there was no rain in the forecast, and for the games entirety, it rained. stopping right as the clock ticked to 00:00. i have a lot of pictures of the game, but it didn't really get to watch any of it. albia lost again this year, but it was closer during the whole game. he's already signed up to play next year.

 {fletcher and cousin kate}

after the game weekend, we stayed in albia until monday morning and then left from there for our family getaway to kansas city. we were headed to great wolf lodge for a few days to relax. we did a lot of swimming, arcade game playing and cub club crafting. one afternoon, we escaped to crown center and explored a bit. we went to fritz's, a dinosaur exhibit and the crayola store. 

     

                  

              

and this happened. this was a big decision for us to make. at the time, it was the right thing to do but as time went on, we realized that by moving away from everything we have and the things that were currently happening with our family, that we would stay put and deal with the consequences. at this point, things are going well with the final decision to stay. there may be more to share about this in the next few weeks. 

the past five months-may

i've blogged a bit since may, but not nearly enough to keep updated with all that we did or happened. i will {attempt} to get caught up. no promises this time, but i already have two scheduled, so i'm already making progress. i'll start with May and work my way to the current happenings in our lives.

MAY

fletcher had his last speech session of the 2011-2012 school year. we also found out that ms. diane2 would be leaving us and that we would be getting a new SLP. i did not do well with this info, and actually shed a few tears over the news. 

happy mother's day from the hubby and the kids. adam made me this garden box that i've been wanting for the last three years. 

my sister and i decided to take an eight hour (one way) trip to minnesota for our cousins graduation party, with five kids, 5 years and younger. we got some strange looks, but we had fun and the kids were pretty good, most of the time. 

the kids did a lot of playing. 

and one final thing to note, daycare boy had his last day here on may 17th. it was nice having him, but it's nice to just have my kids to worry about and be able to go and do what i want, when i want. 

great wolf lodge

in june, we went on a little family vacation. adam and i had been planning this for a few months and last minute, i decided that with things going on so close to the travel date, we would scratch st. louis and head to kansas city. there were tons of things on my list, but with adam just having a few days off work, we really just wanted to relax and have fun. i decided that we would go to great wolf lodge for a few days and drive into kansas city one afternoon. 

we arrived around 3:30 that afternoon, just in time for check-in. however, i went in to do a quick task of getting our room keys and i waited in line for over an hour. since we didn't want to go to the water park before eating dinner, we just walked over to cabela's and roamed for a while, before heading to chik-fil-a (judging may begin now, please keep your comments to yourself). after we ate, we went to wal-mart to get some breakfast food for the next morning and then went back to our room to get a good night's sleep so we were ready for the waterpark the next day. 

brynlee is our water baby. she loves water and pretty much has NO FEAR. fletcher, on the other hand, took a bit to convince him he was fine, once he realized he wasn't going to sink to the bottom. we had to do a little bit of tough love to make him realize that, but once he did, we all had a much more enjoyable time in the water. 

he was just tall enough to go on one of the water slides with an adult. the first time with adam, he was holding on pretty tight. once they came down, he was all about going again. adam finally had to hand him over to me so i could take him. brynlee enjoyed the lazy river and the fountains the most. she also wanted to be in the deeper water, where she couldn't touch. 

when we were leaving the waterpark that first morning, little boy wasn't happy. he wanted to stay. he made it very obvious to all those around, what he wanted to do. so against his will, we went to the room and and got ready to drive downtown for some lunch and a little exploring.

our first stop was to get a bite to eat. we went to fritz's railroad restaurant at crown center. little boy is into trains, so i figured this would be a fun place for him. we call and order our food from the booth and then a train comes around the track at the top and delivers what we ordered. such a fun place...and loud! after lunch, we went to the free dinosaur exhibit and the kids played with the hands-on activities. we went to the crayola store and we colored and i enjoyed browsing the shelves. 

after naps, the kids and i went to cub club and fletcher got to color a pillowcase and brynlee got a violet color sheet. we were just coloring away, when a visitor came in the room. we got to meet violet. little boy wasn't sure about her and brynlee just stared, but no tears and we got a decent picture with her. 

when we got back to the room, we decided to go back to the waterpark. we ended up checking out the outside pool, where there were fewer people and brynlee could go on the baby slide. we spend about two hours in the water before going in and getting ready for supper. we wanted to see the great clock tower show and to meet oliver, so we were kind of in a hurry. 

after we met oliver, we went to the northern lights arcade. we all played a few games, before calling it a night. the following morning, we suited up again for a quick dip and then packed our stuff to head for home. it was such a fun time. i wish we would have stayed another day so we could have made it to the zoo or did some other activity. 

thanks for the memories great wolf lodge. until next time...

o! what a city-part 2

on labor day weekend, we loaded the car and headed west to omaha. we hit up the children's museum, a couple of food joints and some big slides. read part 1 here, if you missed it.

on sunday morning we woke up and got ready. we went down for breakfast and then back to the room to get our things for the day and then we were off to the henry doorly zoo. as we were approaching our exit, traffic was backed up and we thought there was an accident or something since it was about a mile off. as we got closer, we could see that it was just traffic heading to the zoo. once we made the turn off of the off ramp, we could see the parking lots were packed. i wasn't sure how much i was going to enjoy the day with that many people around. we got parked, walked a mile to the zoo entrance and waited in line about twenty minutes to get tickets.

once we entered the gates, i could tell that it wasn't going to be as bad as i thought from the sight of all the cars. we decided to go in the wild kingdom pavilion first, so we could use the restrooms before we really got much further into the zoo. while in there, we saw some pretty boring things compared to what we would later see.

at the cat complex we saw a white siberian tiger. it wasn't the happiest cat, kept walking back and forth growling. we saw some more as we entered the building and then there was another mean guy outside. he was making this funny moan/roar.

 

at the bear canyon the polar bear was sleeping when we noticed him, but then he started looking around. i think i snapped a pretty good photo of him. little boy thought he was pretty cool because his mom let him walk instead of being trapped in the stroller. the other bear was cleaning himself...nice tongue, huh? baby girl finally decided to wake up and enjoy the fun.

 down at gorilla valley, we saw this guy. he was just sitting there watching all the people watch him. he looked fake sitting there, until he started turning his head and then got up and walked off. i'm sure he had enough of the people watching.

from there, we went next door to orangutan forest. very boring inside. i think we only saw one and it was sleeping. on the outside however, there were a few playing and swinging around on the robes, showing off for the crowds. little boy thought he needed to show us his monkey climbing skills. i'm not thrilled that my two year old can climb a fence...again, he sure things he's hot stuff because he can. 

 

it was time to eat so we sat and waited as adam got in line to get some food. as iwas sitting there, i probably saw three different groups pull out their coolers with sandwiches and other lunches packed. i had to settle for expensive, fried food because we didn't know you could bring in your own food. next time i'll definitely be packing our lunches. 

we went into the desert dome...B.O.R.I.N.G. no pictures because i couldn't wait to get out of there, and it just so happened to be the only building we went in that there was a line and you had to wait for everyone to move...and there was no turning around as there was only one exit.

the jungle was probably my favorite part. there were a lot of animals in there that we don't see very often, or have ever seen. they were all pretty lazy, but at least they were out so we could see them and we didn't have to search for them.

the last building we went into was the aquarium. there were a lot of different things housed in this building. first up, the puffins. i always thought they were more like a penguin, but they're not. you can't see them very well, but they reminded me of a fatty duck of some sort.

we made our way to see the penguins. there was a line of people that was moving very slowly, so little boy played/posed by the different species on the wall as we waited to see the real deal.

and here they are. there were tons of them and they were active. there were some swimming. some just hanging out, some flapping their wings/arms/flippers (whatever they're called) and some were waddling around, taking in the sites off all the zoo visitors.

the last room to go through was the ocean tunnel. we saw stingrays, sharks, big 'ol fish, starfish and lots of pretty coral. again, the people kept getting in my way to take a good picture, but these are the best i have to share.

{i think brynlee was on her 4th nap at this point}

we wanted to go into the butterfly building, but there was a 'no stroller' policy. i wasn't digging that, with as little and wiggly as brynlee is. plus, with as many people that were there that day, i'm not okay with leaving my belongings unattended for an unknown period of time. since we were halfway down the hill, we decided to continue down and see the giraffes. the choo-choo was right there too and i was hoping little boy wouldn't see it. he did, but didn't make a big fuss about it so we were able to escape without riding it. 

once we made it back up the hill, after a minor rode block due to an emergency vehicle, we exited the grounds and headed to the hotel to rest and figure out what we were going to do for supper. once the kids were inside and strapped, it wasn't long before this was the view when i turned around, and yes, brynlee was asleep AGAIN. 

we ended up going to the old market area and dining at a place called, upstream brewery. it was pretty good. they brew all their beers and it was a hard decision what i was going to drink. there was a sampler shot that we did and adam and i both tried a few before choosing one. i went with the raspberry lager...yum...and adam went with something that i didn't care for. we had a hummus platter for appetizer and then chose jambalaya and the grilled chicken penne pasta. little boy had pizza and brynlee went with pears. no pictures other than my beer, as the two offspring had forgotten how to act in public and there was no way the camera was going to be safe.

back to the hotel to pack and go to bed. we had plans to make a cabela's stop and then head for home in the morning, and that's just what we did, after stopping and getting a little nebraska apparel. 

the end!