Mama Vacay

That's right, I went on vacation BY MYSELF!  It was amazing, something I wondered if I would ever do again now that I'm married and have kids.  I had to keep my guilt at bay and just go with my selfishness on this one, and it was worth it! 

My friend lives in Colorado, and there are actually flights from Milwaukee to Denver for pretty cheap, so when Brendan was gone traveling for a whole week last month, I bought tickets for a weekend away.  I flew out Friday night and came home Monday afternoon.  Three days of being alone, sleeping in and seeing the mountains! 

It was so fun to hang out with my dear old friend.  She doesn't have kids so it was like a glimpse into my old life, where you could sleep in on a weekend if you felt like it.  Where you can go out to eat at 8:30pm on a Friday like it's no big deal!  Where you can go for a drive and jump out any ol' place you want without having to unbuckle and rebuckle kids in the car seats.  It was...AMAZING.  I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but oh how much fun life would be without them for a weekend here or there. 

Now I'm begging Brendan to get a job at NREL, the renewable energy lab in Golden, so we can move out there and be by mountains all the time.  Every time I'm by the mountains I think I must live in them sometime in my life.  Why not now?? Make it happen, B!

Fabric shopping, of course.

Poor sad Ingrid.

MOUNTAINS!

Some rich lady bought this ski resort so her kids could practice for competitions.  Must be nice.



Driving to Boulder

 

And now, I'm home.  Like I said, I love my kids, but damn it was nice to get away. 

Phones Are Great, Just Not For Blogs.

My mother in law asked why I hadn't updated the blog lately and I realized it's because I am never down in the basement on my computer anymore, I'm always doing things on my phone.  Which is great, but I haven't been able to post anything here from my phone.  SO...here we are.  Brendan is off today and the kids are up coloring Bubble Guppie pictures and I snuck away to the computer.

 

So what has been going on lately?  Last weekend I took the kids to my sister's.  We played with cousins and saw Gramma Pam.  We ate at Russ' which is a kid favorite, we thrifted at Bibles for Mexico which is a mama favorite.  It was fun!  The kids were awesome on the four hour drive and Chicago traffic was smooth sailing both ways.

 Other than that, not much has been going on.  Same old life of school, thrifting, sewing, and playing.

Ooh, wait, no, we got new appliances, thats's fun!  We had ordered a stove from Home Depot and when they delivered it, it was damaged.  Two weeks later we still didn't have a new one, and then it was a hassle to get my money back, it was just such a pain in the ass.  Finally we ended up going to Sears Outlet where they have all the scratch and dent ones, where we found our new stove AND ended up getting a refrigerator because they're such low prices, why not?  So we still ended up with dents in our stove, but we got it for way cheaper.  Ha!

 And...we got a new vacuum.  Life is good.

Christmas Getaway

First of all, IT SNOWED!!  I was thinking it probably would never snow around here, we always seem to be just out of the range of wherever it is snowing...But it snowed the other day, and Ingrid was so excited!  We had to go out and play in it while Otis slept.

When Otis woke up, he wanted to join in the fun, so we made a snowman.  I have no idea why Otis is pouting here, though!

Anyway, the snow was the perfect backdrop for our Christmas getaway.  Brendan had some vacation time left so we got a suite at a hotel about an hour north of here.  It was awesome!  They have a waterpark so we got to go swimming and the kids went down little water slides.  The place was all decked out for the holidays,  it was gorgeous!

 Our room had a little bunk house for the kids, with bunk beds and a boat-shaped bed.  They loved it!  I loved the fireplace!  We had such a good time, it was really relaxing and fun.  We went to the local children's museum one day and had the place to ourselves.  It was super fun, so much to explore and play with!  Ingrid loved the grocery store and the doctor's office, which always makes me laugh.  "Come play store with me, Mama."  Uh, no thanks, I actually have to do real grocery shopping every damn week--it's not that fun.  They had a cool net thing to walk out over the whole first floor.  Ingrid was a scaredy cat but Otis ran full speed onto it!

 We stayed for two nights and it was perfect.  Just enough time to go swimming, eat out a couple times, and best of all, the last night we were there, guess who showed up??

Ingrid was beyond excited.  The cool thing was they had a group of carolers on the balcony singing holiday songs for awhile before Santa showed up.  We just sat in the lobby dancing to music, then went up to put pjs on and when we came back down, there he was!  Otis was more into Mrs. Claus, the little flirt!

We had a great time, this is definitely going to have to become one of our holiday traditions!

 

Night Driving

Last weekend we went to Michigan to celebrate my neice's tenth birthday.  It was a crazy time of night driving, as we left on a Friday night and came home on a Sunday  night.  Instead of sleeping peacefully, the kids were up most of the four hour drive and went kind of bonkers from sitting in the car too long.  Blah.

But the trip was fun, they love to see their cousins.  I like to see my mom and sister.  It was gorgeous out and we got to spend lots of time outside. 

We even went to Tunnel Park, which is a lovely park on Lake Michigan that has a big huge sand dune.  And going right through the dune is a tunnel, hence the name.  I have memories from when I was little running through the tunnel screaming at the top of my lungs to hear it echo!  It was fun to see my kids do that, too!

 Our sleep was all off and everyone took amazing naps!  Otis in the stroller after a walk with Grandma, and Brendan and Ingrid passed out on the couch.  All that fresh air and chasing balls with cousins really wears you out.

 

Summer Fun at Gramma's

Last weekend the kids and I traveled to Michigan to visit my mom.  We were supposed to take the ferry, but got a call at 4:30am saying the waves were too big and the ride had been canceled.  I was pretty bummed, as Ingrid had been begging to go on the boat for a long time, and I would much rather have puked for two hours on a bumpy boat than driven the almost 7 hours it ended up taking us...But it was not meant to be, so we packed up the car and took a road trip instead.  And honestly, the kids are so good in the car, it wasn't that bad.

We got to my mom's in the afternoon and the kids were free to roam and run and not be in a car.  The next morning we started out with a breakfast picnic.

Followed by running in the grass.

The weekend was full of fun things.  We visited the horses in the field and at the stables.

 We took a paddleboat ride.

 We played a lot at the little beach.  Ingrid and her cousin played "gardening" for hours, and also "making chocolate milk" both of which were basically making mud. 

 And no trip to Miss Wendy's is done without a trip to Tiny Town.  This place is amazing.  It's two little kid sized cabins filled with kid sized furniture and dishes.  Ingrid LOVES it there, and Otis had his first chance to play there as well.  He seemed to like it but the kid sized dishes are vintage china dishes, so after breaking a cup, it was a small plastic cup for him!

 It was a perfect weekend, the only thing better would have been if Brendan could've come with us. 

Chicago

Yesterday I took the kids to Chicago to visit friends.  Actually, they're in Oak Park, which is amazing, seriously!  The park we went to was gorgeous, as it should be with the tax rate there...All sorts of Frank Lloyd Wright houses there, it's like rows and rows of the most beautiful houses you've ever seen.  I'll have to go back sans children someday and walk around. 

My kids could've cared less about the houses, they just wanted to get out of the damn car.  And once we were out, they got to run around, play with baby puppy Shirley, and pester big kid Keagan.  Ingrid has a bit of a crush on Keagan, so she kept bothering him, much to his dismay. 

It was the sweatiest, stickiest day, but we managed to have a good time and it was great catching up with one of my oldest and dearest friends!  But really, next time will be without kids so we can have an actual conversation that does not include "Stop hitting!  Use your words!  Put the dog down, she does not want to be held by her neck!"

Year In Pictures

Ahhh, the end of another year.  Let's see what's happened in 365 days, shall we?