The weekend

There has been a whole lot of this going on this weekend......

by Mike, the boys, and my dad. They are on Clear Lake in Waseca and had some luck yesterday. Dad got a TV in the fish house this year so they are pretty excited.

And some of this........

Which was very good, and I am glad I saw it on the big screen. Hoping to try and get to Leap Year today with my mom while the boys are out doing the aforementioned.

and this............

Connor started this weekend and Noah's been at it for over a month. Connor's biggest complaint is that you don't play games until 3rd grade. That is TWO years from now. No one likes to just practice. I don't blame him for being annoyed. At least his friend Sam is on his team.

We bought tickets to this.......

Seeing as Adam Young is from Owatonna and the kids love his music, we thought we needed to take advantage of this opportunity. How many more times in the kids' life will we be able to take them to a concert they will BOTH enjoy, that doesn't make their parents go insane while watching/listening to it, that costs only $18 for pretty great seats? It's not until May so that's a long time from now.

Very little of this is going on...........

Which could become disasterous. And we do not have this nice of a washing machine. I wish ours would die so we could get one this nice. I couldn't even find a picture of our washing machine because it's that old. Maybe if I had a nice machine like this I would ENJOY doing laundry.

Or maybe not.

I also had a short visit for a glass of wine from my friend Justin and (in the same night) a drop in visit from our friends Jeff and Jeri, a small shopping trip with my mom, and dinner out!

All in all a good weekend. Now, if I could just rewind to Friday....Monday is coming way too quickly.


Enjoy Vanilla Twilight from Owl City. Apparently this will be his next single that is released on radio.

The Bowling Budachs

Man, we have been enjoying our vacation from school. Why can't it last a month? I am certainly not one of those moms that needs a job to feel fulfilled...no sir. If only that money tree in the backyard would start sprouting some coinage.

On New Year's day we ventured up to Lakeville to go to Brunswick Zone. They have bowling, laser tag, arcade games, and a restaurant so we thought the boys would love it. My parents joined us for the trek north and my sister that lives in Lakeville joined us with her two boys (and one boy's girlfriend) for the fun.

The older kids started with laser tag. Connor was a little nervous about it and decided to pass. He remembered from our laser tag expeience at Grand Slam that it gets pretty dark, they pipe in smoke so it's hard to see, and they sometimes play eerie music. Noah, Mike, Mitch, and Matthew ventured in for a duel. I so wished I could have taken pictures inside there. Would have been fun.

While they were playing laser tag, Connor tried his hand at a few arcade games.

When the others finished their game, they joined us in the arcade.

Mike and Connor sat in a simulation ride that took you on a rollercoaster-like journey and the chairs shook and rocked as you went. Reminded us of Disney, on a much smaller scale of course.

Both kids tried Guitar Hero. Connor received this for the Wii from Granny and Papa this year.

Connor has a unique way of holding the guitar. He is right handed but there are a few things he does left. Kicking (soccer) is one of those things he predominantly does left-legged and apparently strumming a guitar is another.

Then it was time for bowling. About an hour prior to bowling, we had given the employee all of our names, shoe sizes, and whether anyone needed bumpers to bowl. So, when they called our name, it was all set up and ready to go. We arrived at lane 7 to find our names already entered, our shoes all waiting, and when it was Connor's turn to bowl, bumpers would magically appear and go away before it was the next person's turn. Very impressive.

Mike and Noah waiting patiently.

Dad, me, and Mom

Sarah, Matthew, Lisa, Mitchell, and Connor

Connor

Noah

After bowling, we enjoyed a yummy supper at their restaurant. They had an nice huge fireplace in there and TVs in all the booths that you could turn to any channel you wanted. It was quite impressive.

All in all a great day!

I am enjoying my last Sunday before school starts back up. I got all 120 projects graded, house is back in it's normal form, and I am ready to enjoy a nice afternoon watching the Vikings game. Maybe even read my book under my heated throw....since it's -18 degress without the wind chill today!

Still waiting patiently for Suncountry or Southwest to lower their flight prices to Ft Myers. Or how about offering more than one flight? Would that be so hard? Or how about more than one flight...how about one THAT DOESN'T have an arrival time of 1:00AM. Is that asking too much? I swear this horribly cold weather is causing my bones to ache. I need to be in Florida in March. Someone help!

Happy January to all!

LB

I've Been

Been spending lots of time with.......

While cozied up with.......

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with both of our families. A few quotes heard throughout the week that will clue you in to what's been happening around here:

• "I am so glad you're a teacher mom, so we don't have to go to a daycare over break!" (said on the way to McDonalds for lunch)

• "Whoa, Oh! Livin' on a Prayer!" (both boys got Ipods for Christmas. Lots of LOUD singing going on at all times of the day.)

• "Mom, what's the name of the song that goes, -insert any line from any random song here-?" (Kids desperately filling their Ipods with music)

"I love my DS!" (Connor is thrilled with his present...we knew he would be!)

• "When are you going to tell dad where to hang our Twins lighted signs in our rooms?" (said dad tried to hang those without the decorator's my guidance. As if.....)

• "Boy those chipmunks can sure sing!"

• ****crickets chirping*****

(the sound heard while the kids were putting together their Lego sets Christmas day.....heavenly peace and quiet!)

• "Sniff, SNIFF, SSNNNIIFFF........" (Connor while battling a bout of what we think is allergies)

• "Blow out the boogs! Blow out the boogs! Blow harder!" (Me encouraging Connor to blow out instead of snuffing in)

• "Yeah, but I never spend this much on a purse." (me talking to my purse-loving friend who is convincing me to buy the cute purse. She won and I love it!)

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Anniversary, Shots, and Snow Day

First, Happy Anniversary to myself and boyslife2! On the 4th it had been a year since I started this. A big thank you goes out to Stacey for convincing me that it's easy and not time consuming. She is absolutely right. I get asked all the time, "How do you have time to update all the time?" Honestly, this blog takes me 20 minutes at the most, most of the time 10. Easy Peasy.

We had our first official snow day of the year on Wednesday. We had upwards of 10 inches of snow, 40 mph winds, and plows that decided they didn't want to clear the streets. Nice combination, as you can imagine.

Check out the drifts on the front door! Way on top too!

Normally, a snow day would mean Mike and I going to work and my mom watching the boys. I was up at 5:15 checking the weather and found out that school was in fact cancelled. I started to get ready, ate some breakfast, and planned to call my mom to make sure she was up around 6:30.

Quickly the phone began to ring. My principal had started the crisis calling tree to let everyone know that we couldn't get into our parking lot and to not try to come in....."until later". Until later? What exactly does that mean? Kind of vague, don't you think?

"Later" to you might mean a totally different thing than what "later" means to me. But, I proceeded to put some coffee on, find my slippers, and go downstairs to watch some Tivo-ed Regis and Kelly and The View. I had heard Bryant Gumbel announced his lung cancer and wanted to check that out.

As the morning carried on, the phone continued to ring. Many of my co-workers had tried to get into the parking lot of our building only to get stuck. I decided to wait it out another hour or so.

Around 10:00 Mike decided to leave for work. I wasn't real happy about it. The highway he takes is horrible on a good day, let alone when there are white-out conditions. He refused to take a vacation day though since he gets so few, and so off he went. He called later to say he had made it. I got to spend the rest of the day stressed about him returning from work in the dark. Oh goody.

Finally one last call from a co-worker informed me that there was no way to get to our building, and even if we could, all the doors were iced shut (apparently found out by our janitor who had trecked the mile from the road to check the situation out). It was then the call was made that we were not going to be able to report today.

The kids and I decided to enjoy the afternoon and rent a movie off of pay-per-view and eat lunch off TV trays. We do this occasionally on rainy days in the summer and it's always a lot of fun. This time we rented Monsters Vs. Aliens and cozied up under blankets and let the snow fall!!

Yes, mismatched pajamas were required.

Unfortunately, I had made appointments for the kids to get their H1N1 shots and the appointment was at 3:00 this afternoon. Darn it! I really did not want to leave the house! But, I needed to get this crossed off my list, so I decided not to reschedule. My parents picked us up in their truck and hauled us all the way out to the clinic, which might as well be in TX for how far you have to drive to get to it.


Both boys snuffed that puppy up and off we went. Connor has to get another one in 30 days (which I don't get. It's not like he gets less of a dose. She said it's because he's under 7 and it's his first dose. I still don't get it. Why does he get double the dose, but Noah doesn't even though it's the first one Noah has ever received as well? Because Noah is 10? Is that why? Who knows. Probably won't matter because they will probably run out within the next 30 days anyway).


Hope you are staying warm!
LB