It's been a long time

I know, I know. It has been forever since I've blogged. And it has almost been so long I don't even know where to start. So what have we been doing?

Well, in April we went to the homeschool conference and picked up some awesome new art curriculum (more about that in another post), spent a weekend in the cities and rode the rides at the Mall of America, I worked a bunch of overtime, and I quit blogging. I didn't quit intentionally; it just sort of happened. Well, really, life happened and it got pushed to the wayside.

For several years now, instead of showering our kids with presents for their birthdays, we have taken them somewhere to do something special with the rest of the family. Part of the reason that we started doing this is that I don't like having lots of stuff around. It just creates more stuff to clean and the kids generally lose interest in the new toy after a couple of weeks anyway. It just seems like such a waste of money. Plus I want to help shape children that value time spent with family over "stuff."

Ellie and Kara's birthdays are only 5 days apart in November and we usually spend a night in a hotel with a water park. For several years we went to the Holiday Inn in Owatonna, but this past fall, since the older girls were outgrowing that water park, we went to the Dells.

Darin and Natalie's birthdays are about a month apart in the spring so we celebrate theirs together as well. For the past couple of years we have stayed in a hotel and then ridden the rides at the amusement park at the Mall of America. We all had a blast. It is especially fun riding the roller coaster with Ellie, listening to her hyperventilate and watching her knuckles turn white. Sick sense of humor, I know. But she was willing to ride it more than once as long as she was with me.

Here are some of the pictures of us:



Darin and Natalie had a blast on this ride. It whips you around the ends and elicits loads of giggles from the kids that ride it.






We happened to be there a couple of weeks before Easter and they had an Easter-cookie decorating station. Free snack for the kids!!





Both of the kids loved this ride too. And the people who were watching got an absolute kick out of watching Natalie. She was giggling uncontrollably and unlike her fellow riders, she let her legs flop up and down along with the ride.





Here are Natalie and Darin on the bumper cars. Natalie thought it was pretty funny when she'd run into Darin.


Here are the girls on one of their favorite rides. Last year when I made Ellie ride this with me, she had the same hyperventilating response that she did this year on the roller coaster. But she liked riding it anyway because it made me laugh.