WINTER BLUES

We have been busy chasing away the Winter Blues at our house the last couple of weeks. The other weekend we escaped winter and had a chance to get away with Ben. We met up with Ryan's college roomate Brady, his wife Kim and their 2 year old and went to the Wisconsin Dells for a night. If you haven't been to the Dells recently it has grown over the years. We stayed at the Wilderness Resort. It was like kids Las Vegas! The indoor water parks, wave pool, slides , lazy rivers and kid water toys were never ending. I think we only made it to 3 of 5 different indoor water parks. I can't imagine what the resort would be like in the summer! I would highly recommend staying at the Wilderness. Our lodging included our water passes and we rented a 2 bedroom condo with a full kitchen and living room area. It was great for adult time after the boys went to bed...although we were so tired from all the water fun we weren't up late. How the time has changed from our La Crosse days!

Two shots of different water park areas throughout the resort--a kids paradise!

Ben and Drew, only a few months apart, became fast friends

It was very entertaining watching them play together and copy each other. When one went running, the other followed; when one fell, the other fell. When one of them wanted to go down the dark, steep family water slide the other did also. That is correct, after 10 minutes of 'kid stuff', Ben spied the really big water slide with the huge tube and decided he HAD to go up 10 flight of stairs and wait 30 minutes in line to go down his first ever water slide. In hindsight this probably was not a good idea (in all fairness I did have two cocktails at lunch so my judgement might have been off, but hey it was vacation after all!) This ride could end the weekend of fun that we had planned and terrify the boys forever of water slides. Ryan and Kim, the more responsible parents, were skeptical--Brady was all for it as was I. Ben and Drew were not to be swayed. Once it was our turn, the worker told us that the boys 'counted' as bodies so we had to split up. Kim and I went first followed by the boys. I wish I could say I enjoyed the ride down but it was pitch dark and very fast. I was worried the whole time about the boys coming next and about how upset Ryan was going to be at me for saying Ben would be fine. Needless to say, the boys were fine...however they did not say a word down the slide and were not in a rush to go again...we than made our way back to the 'kiddie area'.

Dads and sons having fun on the kiddie slides. I wish I could say Kim and I were in the hot tub relaxing but 2 little boys managed to keep 4 adults on their toes.

Thanks Brady, Kim and Drew for a fun weekend! We look forward to doing it again sometime soon!

Last weekend Grandpa and Grandma G. came for a visit. It was great to see them. They enjoyed watching Ben at swimming lessons and were impressed with Ben's ever growing vocabulary. We are learning on our end that we need to really start paying attention to what we say! Ben had a lot of fun playing with Grandpa and Grandma G. and going out to eat. He really loves it when Grandma comes to visit because she always brings treats with her. He is still asking for her cookies every 10 minutes...too bad I've eaten most of them. Thanks for making the long drive to come and visit!

We did receive some sad news in our family this weekend. My Grandpa Fox passed away on Saturday. We have been expecting this for awhile but it is still very sad and he will be missed.