Holiday World

Yesterday we went to Holiday World Amusement Park in Santa Claus, Indiana.  If you are anywhere near this park I would highly recommend spending a day there.  It is family-owned, extremely clean, friendly and lots of fun.  They have two parks with the regular amusement rides as well as a water-park.  My favorite ride the entire day was on the water-park side and was called "Mammoth".  

The other great thing about yesterday was that it was not crowded.  Most schools have started and so there were little to no lines on rides.  Well, except for "Mammoth".  The kids were able to get on rides and ride and ride and ride.  Amazing day.

In the picture, my kids are the two with their hands up the highest.

Road Trips

And this is what goes on in the car on road trips?  I thought they were reading ..... I should check photo stream more often.

Some Summer Fun

You Only Live Once

 For Spring Break we had a fabulous time at the beach.  My kids had never been to the beach before.  They had never experienced the sand, the blue water, the endless sky, the waves,

or the birds.

They got to do a YOLO board (You Only Live Once).  I got to do the YOLO board too, but ironically there were no pictures.

This is my nephew who had terrific balance and concentration and enjoyed making waves.   I didn't even stand up or make waves.

My son and my nephew

 One of my girls.

Fortunately for my sister, Margaret, I did get pictures of her on the board.  

 Actually I managed to get several.   I'll just share a couple this time.  

My other girl

Some of us (my son) managed just to relax or fall in.  But my camera didn't capture the fall.  Yep, it was cold, and we did laugh.  

How about another year ......

Not sure I even remember how to even blog again it's been so long.  

We did our annual (several times) trip to our favorite spot this summer.  This time, because Andrew was being an excellent camp counselor he wasn't able to be there.

I'm always sad when the summer is over and I know we have to wait nine or ten looonnnngggg months to get back.  But it means that that now it's soccer season:

It's almost basketball season:

(My sister, Margaret, took this picture.)

And birthday season starts with Joe.

Seriously, it's only Joe's birthday.  Apparently R thinks it might be his birthday too.

Andrew is a freshman at college so he can't be here either. (When did I he get that old?)  

So we made sure he was included in the fun.  See him in the phone at the bottom of the picture.  Thanks to the iphone we can facetime.

Maybe I can get back to this again.  Let's all hold our collective breaths .......

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!  

My kids woke us up this morning.  Early.  Too early.  They were so excited for Christmas.

I finally pulled my camera out from hiding and took pictures today.  I hope all week I can do that.  Shoot, I hope all year I can do better than I did this year.

These are just a few peeks into our day today.

Above:  Last year

Below:  This year

Every year Christmas Day we take a picture in the same spot just to see the difference from year to year.

She has another pink ball, but it's been decided that this one is reserved for indoor use only.  It's just way too pretty to mess up outside.

We'll just let him think he is .....

K just happy to finally be Christmas.

In our house, we LOVE Tim Tebow.

Andrew wanted a hammock for Christmas.  He is trying it out. 

A tradition carried over from my family is Christmas Breakfast.  We have an egg casserole and a special bread, both of which were completely devoured.  It's a good think I doubled the recipe so we can have some tomorrow morning too.

Really?

Bet you didn't do school like this.   I know I sure didn't.  But it gets the job done and there's no reason NOT to do it this way.