Neese Park

It was unseasonably warm on New Year's Eve.  We worked on the backyard to get it cleaned up better.

All of the pets were outside with us, loving the warm temps as much as we were enjoying them!

Then we decided to take the kids to Kidstock park to play, but it was locked up and closed.  So we drove a little farther and went to Neese Park.  Even though it was so warm earlier in the day, the temps were dropping.  I was glad I wore my scarf.

 When we got to Neese park, we found that they had really done a fantastic job renovating the park with a winding boardwalk through the trees and new playground equipment.  Owen had fun running all around the boardwalk.

Chloe is forever our little monkey and had fun climbing on the rock climbing wall.

Owen had brought his soccer ball and kicked it back and forth with Todd for awhile before he started kicking it with other kids at the park.

Chloe had crazy hair while swinging.

She was swinging high up in the sky!

So high, she thought her feet touched the clouds.

 She liked being an upside down girl, too.

And then suddenly, our daylight was gone and temps had dropped back to the low 50s.  It was a fun afternoon at the park and we vowed to go back again soon.

Remote Controls

Owen got a new remote control toy from Luke for Christmas and wanted to take it out for a spin.

He had fun with that, but found it drove faster on the street and not on the dried out grass.

Then he switched over to flying his new remote control airplane that he bought with his own Christmas money.

That was a fun toy to watch vroom down the street before it took off!

None of us have ever played with an airborne remote control toy before and it was almost magical to watch take off and fly through the air.

We were out for less than 30 minutes before the wheels had falled off the airplane (multiple times) and we decided between the wind and temps in the 40s that we really needed to go home and drink some hot chocolate.

Dave and Busters

Todd has many game cards to Dave & Busters stored away from previous work trips to Denver.  We decided to take the kids to D&B with Uncle Martin and Luke on this evening.

The kids wanted to split up to choose their own games, so I followed along behind Chloe and was intrigued by the games that caught her attention.

She was mainly focused on the games which would spit out dozens of tickets.

Everyone watch out!  This child is dangerous at the ski ball lanes!

She wanted to play on the driving games, but got frustrated with them because they 'made' her drive into walls and off of cliffs.

This was a fun jumping game where the lights ran in circles around the Jumpin Jackpot.  The feet could not be on the pad below when the lights circled to the bottom.  I think this was her favorite game because she played it probably ten times and got dozens upon dozens of tickets each time.

After all of the game cards were used up, we went to D&B's restaurant to eat an early dinner.  Chloe needed to love on her Uncle Martin while we were waiting on our food to come.

Chloe needed to love on Luke, too.  These two kids are just crazy about each other.

The kids liked the dessert because there were marshmallows, strawberries, graham crackers and brownies to dunk in melted chocolate fondue. 

YUM! 

Dinner Out with the Grandmas

The roads were better the day after Christmas, so we decided to skip eating leftovers and drove to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.

Chloe had to bring her new camera to take pictures of everyone at the table AND our food.  :)

She was fascinated with looking at the LCD screen to see all of the pictures she had already taken.

How did we get this sweet picture of Owen kissing Grandma Vicki and not catch one of Chloe doing the same?

It was nice getting out of the house and not having to cook for the evening.

Day After Christmas Fun

The day after Christmas was a relaxed day.  The kids played with their new toys.  We played Parcheesi together for the first time.

Chloe liked Parcheesi better than her brother, who abandoned us half way through and then came back to tell us how we should each be moving our pieces to block the others.  :)

Later, we took Dylan on a walk up to the tennis courts to run around.

We stopped at the bottom of our street so the kids could climb up on top of a ginormous snow ball people had made the day before.

The kids were excited to get up to the courts as small snow flurries fell on us.

Owen is all about cartwheels lately.

I had so much fun taking pictures of Todd and the kids running with Dylan.  So many big smiles.

I think even Dylan was smiling.

The guys took a break to sit down and rest.

Chloe loved on Dylan.

Owen danced around like a siller.

And as it started to snow harder, Chloe tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

Even Dylan got worn out and needed to take a rest.  He didn't get much of a rest as the snow fell harder and harder, which helped us decide that it might be time to go back home.

Someone was friendly and left a message on the hill below the tennis courts for us.  :)

I liked watching Chloe holding her Daddy's hand as we walked home.

Quiet Christmas Evening

As the snow continued to fall and weather predictions of bad roads with ice came through, our family decided to head home.  It was the quietest and most empty our house has ever been on Christmas evening.  We video chatted with Papa Wenzel and Grandma Sharon (THANK YOU for braving your nasty Minnesota roads to find free wi-fi in front of the local coffee shop).  Since they couldn't be here in person, video chatting and seeing their faces (and Jude's!) was really the next best thing.  :)

What was supposed to be a very large dinner with barely enough room for all the food on the dining room table ended up being a very quiet dinner with just the four of us and Grandma Vicki.  It was still snowing hard when we headed up to bed.

Here is the view from our bedroom door.  The snow was beautiful.

I'm not sure if the kids realized there were fewer presents than previous years.  We tried to keep the focus on the importance of being with family.  And the true meaning of Christmas was discussed several times as we talked about the birth of Jesus on this day so many hundreds of years ago.

Merry Christmas to all.  And to all, a good night!