Anniversary

When Knight and I were picking a date to get married we just picked a random date. Now, 15 years and 4 kids later things are a tad more complicated than that. When I realized our 15th anniversary was coming up, it crossed my mind I would like to do something special. Something a little more than our standard dinner out. So I had mentioned I would like to go away for a night or weekend to celebrate. He said it sounded good to him so I started looking at the calendar for weekends that would work. We had a couple weekends in August that looked promising. Then I became aware that he wanted to do it either the weekend before our anniversary or the weekend after (our actual anniversary is on Wednesday). So I decided to surprise him. I changed some appointments, figured out what the kids would do, and then told him we were free to leave the next day if he got done early. He did get done early, I found a hotel room, and off we went to Duluth (our favorite vacation spot). All in all, a nice relaxing time. Here's some of what we did...

The view from our room...

We spent the evening on the beach...

Watched the sunrise...

Knight ate from Crabby Bills...

Vacation... Episode 3

From the Creation Museum we headed to Chicago to see Shedd Aquarium. It was great with lots of different habitats and wildlife, both in and out of the water.

The kids each had their favorites. Sharks, Sawfish, Guitar Fish, Stingrays, and the huge sea turtle.

The aquarium was horribly busy the day we were there and we were fighting huge crowds. Since we got a membership, we hope to go back when hopefully it won't be so busy.

Then from there we headed to our last stop of our vacation. The Chula Vista water park in Wisconsin Dells. The kids spent the time burning off all the energy they stored up from all the driving. They had a good time running the lazy river, going down the water slides, and playing on the play area. The water was a little cold for Knight and I so we spent most of the time sitting in the chairs watching everyone play.

We then made our way back home. It is nice to be back home and finding our way back to our normal routine. The first major vacation with the kids went very well, with very little fighting, lots of fun and laughter. We hope to be able to take another one someday. Someday, not anytime soon!

Vacation... Episode 2... The Creation Museum

The Creation Museum opened only a year and a half ago. This was built as a state of the art museum built to talk about science from a biblical perspective. It did just that.

We checked out the planitarium, where they bring you far into space to look at other stars in the universe. We learned about blue stars, yellow stars, nebulas, and the order they have found in the universe. Watching that, you really feel how little our planet is, and how amazing it is that God cares for each of us, and knows us.

They also have a walk through history. This was one of the neatest parts. They have different scenes from the Bible along with scientific facts about those scenes from the Bible. There are dinosaurs, Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, Methusala, Moses, etc. They also showed how taking God out of most of society has changed it. Very interesting. It took a lot of time to go through it all.

Anyone who knows Rara knows her sense of humor. She is such a funny kid. Because the focus was on creation verses evolution, she asked me to take her picture next to "grampa" for the evolutionists! Funny!

They had a beautiful gardens that you could walk. On the day we were there it was around 70 degrees, sunny, and grassy. What a treat! It had a petting zoo, bridges (including some rope bridges the kids loved!) and dinosaurs. In the summer time, I am sure it has beautiful flowers for all to see, but still it was great to see some foliage and be able to enjoy the outdoors.

In the evening they also had a walk from "Jeruselem" to "Bethlehem". We had to pay our taxes to the Romans (a coin they provided) in Jeruselem, and then some townsfolk pointed us on our way to Bethlehem. Along the way there were fellow travelers either wishing us well, or telling us about a couple that came by hoping to find a room for the night. Then some shephards stopped us and told us that angels visited them about a baby, the Messiah, born to us. He told us where we could find the babe. When we got there, the couple was there, holding the babe next to a manger. (A live nativity)

The last thing I'll talk about was the show. Every day they offer a show or a lecture of some sort. The day we were there happened to be Buddy Davis. The kids had heard of him from some videos they'd seen, but I didn't know I had heard of him too. (For those of us who worked with the kids at church, he's the one who wrote Billions of Dead Things along with some other great songs). He put on a great show and the kids are enjoying a lot of his music.

It was a great time, and a blessed day. I have lots more pictures, but I haven't finished talking about the vacation yet.

Stay tuned!

Vacation... Episode 1... getting there

We are hoping you are all having a great start to 2009. As for us we are recouping from our vacation.

There is so much to say about our vacation, that I figured I would have to break it down into smaller episodes.


We have been planning to do this vacation for a long time. In fact we tried to go over a year ago, but things happen and we went to Duluth for a couple days instead. Planning this vacation was fun, and the kids were SO excited.

We picked up the rental van on Christmas eve. We wanted to be comfortable on our drive and not worry about our high mileage vehicles breaking down. We decided to leave straight from my dad's on Christmas day so we tried to drop the dog off at the dog sitters.

Yes, I said tried.


We brought her over to the house and then she proceeded to wiggle out of the collar and run away.



When it was 5 degrees.


Anyhoo, we ended up getting her situated, and headed down to my dad's house. We had a great time visiting with my family and then we headed out. The weather held out for a couple hours and we made it to Wisconsin Dells for the night.


In the morning we got on the road first thing. We made decent time getting to Chicago around 11am. We figured we would make it through the city and stop for lunch around 12:30 just on the other side of Gary, Indiana. And we would have too, if it wasn't for the traffic jam.


We hit the traffic jam with only 10 miles to go before we were out of the city. Before that J-Bird was wanting to move to the city. 10 miles and 2 hours later he decided we needed to stay away from anywhere that could have that type of a traffic jam.

We definitely prefer the traffic jams in our neck of the woods. You know..."You know you're from Wisconsin when your idea of a traffic jam is 10 cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway."


We made it to Indianapolis only a couple house late, with only 1 kid holding a sick bucket, and only one trip to the Indianapolis Airport because of a wrong turn. Still, the hotel was great and when we woke up in the morning it was 59 degrees with grass around us.

From there we headed off to Cincinnati. The trip was beautiful, with the sun shining, no traces of snow anywhere to be seen. We didn't hit any wrong turns and wound up getting to the museum around 10.











Which leads me to tomorrows post... Episode 2... the Creation Museum

From the vacation hotel

I'm sitting in Indianapolis. It was 48 degrees today. I can't tell you what I think of the state of Indiana because we didn't see any of it. It was covered in fog all day from the melting snow. So if you are thinking of me, wondering how I'm doing...

I'm thinking about sunbathing tomorrow.

Don't you wish you came with us???

More about our trip when we get back!

Vacation plans

We are planning our first family vacation where we are driving more than 3 hours away. The kids are excited and my days have been filled with trying to figure out what all needs to be done for the various Christmas parties, plays, concerts, and get togethers to be excited about a vacation.

Our first major destination will be the Creation Museum. This is a place that Knight has been wanting to go to since it opened. From there we will head to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and spend a day there. Then we are going to try out a new (to us) water park in Wisconsin Dells, Chula Vista.

I don't know what the kids are looking forward to more, Christmas or vacation. Either way, I hope that they enjoy the plans we have made for them. And I hope I can return to my house sane after spending that much time on the road.

Update...

Knight has been working very hard lately. Very long days (12-16 hour days). On Friday I talked to him and knew he was really beat down. He was worn out to the core. I knew he needed to get away so I started to look for places that I could take him. Our first choice for a get a way was booked full so that was out.

Then I remembered that we had not ever let the kids play at the park inside MOA. So off I went to set it up, not telling Knight. A friend offered to take Allie. I found that the cities were pretty quiet since people were leaving town for the weekend. (well, quiet comparatively to when we have been there before. It always is a jarring reminder of "oh yeah. I forgot what a big city really is like)

So I talked to Knight Saturday morning while we were both working and told him we were leaving town, staying a couple of nights. He, not being the control freak I am, just said ok. Didn't need to know where we were staying and what we were doing. I told the kids that they needed to get the house done while I was working in the morning.

Work got done, and we were off. All the kids knew was that we were not staying in WI. They figured out pretty quickly we were going to the cities. They played some travel games I printed off and had fun. We got to the hotel and let the kids play in the pool the first night.

They still were trying to guess what we had planned the next day and had their hopes up for the children's museum. We got to the mall and they were excited to find out we were going to buy them wrist bands for the park. We played ALL day and at the end of it everyone was wore out.

We came home yesterday and I crashed. I woke up last night to J-Bird telling us he had thrown up. I am thankful his sickness held off until we were back home to reality.

The last picture I have is for Cindy who has always wanted to go to the Mall of America. They were having a tap show in the middle of the mall. Just thought I'd share a picture of part of the mall. :-)

We're Back!

We just got back from our mini-vacation to Duluth, MN. We love this city. And this year was even better because there is a new waterpark that they have put in since we last vacationed there a couple years ago.

But if your not familiar with Duluth let me tell you, this is a perfect place for a relaxing vacation. They have beautiful buildings (I love brick buildings and they seem to build with brick and stone everywhere

There is also the lake, light houses,and the lift bridge. Nothing will give you instant peace like going to a huge body of water and listening to the waves.

There are tons of free things to do in the summer. You can play at the lake, go to the rose garden, Engar Tower Park that overlooks the whole city, window shop the various shops. You can spend days there and only pay for food and lodging.

This city is on a hill. The view from up by Engar Park is spectacular.