Fun in the Water

Despite the cool temperatures outside, we managed to have a warm, splash-filled three days at Timber Ridge Lodge. Henry had a thing for the lazy river. 

The waterslides alone gave us all a workout, between the stairs and the speed. 

See those slides behind us? We came down the green one.

I had forgotten how fast the green tube slide goes, and I was genuinely shrieking the first time we plunged down. 

Somehow Greg and Nick don't look scared at all after coming down. 

Grandma Toni didn't do any of the big slides, though she did try the little white one with Henry, just once. That was enough for her--never again, she said. 

 Last year at Spring Break, neither boy could swim, at least not much. This year, both of the boys are decent swimmers, so they were less intimidated by the water in the big pool. See? Here's Henry mid-jump.

Henry giggled and slide down this slide countless times.

Nick was more independent this year, and he made friends who were over 48", so that he didn't have to go down the waterslides with an adult. Going down the slides with daddy and mommy was fun, but he preferred hanging with his new friends.

That's it for another spring break trip!

A Surprise?

Last year, for spring break, we surprised the boys with a two night getaway to Timber Ridge Lodge, a waterpark hotel in Lake Geneva. The kids had no clue until we drove there, and they loved it. This year, we decided to repeat the trip. We deliberated about making it a surprise, and figured at least Nick would figure it out. Nope.

Here we are at the Brat Stop in Kenosha. They were still blissfully ignorant of where we were going at that point. Greg and I both had Cheddar Brats, by the way, and they were really delicious.

Henry and Nick totally bought our tale that we were taking Grandma Toni for lunch and then to a park for her birthday. "This seems like a long drive for hot dogs," Nick commented. But even Nick didn't figure it out until we were in the parking lot of Timber Ridge. "Why are we here?" he said.

We actually didn't lie--Timber Ridge is a park. A waterpark, that is. In addition to the waterpark, you can also swim in the bathtub in our hotel suite--if you're under eight years old, that is.

Oh, and we certainly did celebrate Grandma Toni's birthday!

This year, the boys picked out a necklace and an adult coloring book and markers for Grandma. They all colored together in our hotel room.

More tomorrow about the water park. I still can't believe they were surprised again, when we went exactly one year later, to the exact same hotel we'd gone to previously. Something tells me, though, that I won't be fooling these two again.

Easter 2015

We had quite the busy Easter yesterday. This morning, I found this very same chocolate bunny, sans ears, lurking in our freezer. I think Henry had an early morning snack.

Nick was really excited to get this Harry Potter Coloring Book.

Though the temperatures were chilly, we did get in an Easter Egg hunt before the rain started. I think Henry ate from two main food groups yesterday: the Peeps group and the chocolate group.

The egg hunt was over more quickly this year, too. I suppose they're getting better at figuring out the hiding places.

Some of the eggs had cold, hard cash inside. Henry really, really liked the money. In fact, he counted to twelve (correctly) for the first time today while counting money. Perhaps he'll be an accountant some day. (Or not. He wanted to spend all his money on the game machines at the Brat Stop today.)

Nick played us "Ode to Joy" about seventeen times. He's quite persistant on that nice big piano.

Henry played the piano too, although we couldn't quite recognize the tune he was trying to pick out.

Despite the rainy weather, it turned out to be a pretty good Easter.

Happy Easter!

Easter Eggs and an Instructional Video

I bought three dozen eggs today, thinking that would be enough. Seeing as my sons and I somehow ate eight hard-boiled eggs in one evening, perhaps I should've gone with four dozen. Ahh, well.

Nick and Henry thought that the best part was watching the little tablets dissolve in the vinegar. Our colors worked pretty well this year, and we added some stickers in addition to the usual white crayon designs.

Henry was quite into the whole coloring process, though I had to keep stopping him from dumping all the colors together.

He has tried that with Play Doh, and only gets an ugly brown. But he wanted to try it with our egg dying colors, just to see if the result would be the same.



The boys probably would've been happy to color four or five dozen eggs. They were sad when we were all done. Nick had some interesting questions about fertilized vs. unfertilized chicken eggs. He wanted to know why there was no baby chickens inside the eggs. Let's just say that was quite the interesting conversation.

Henry's been really into these "how-to" videos on YouTube. He likes the ones where they show you how to make "jellies," basically gelatin molds of various things. Henry decided he was going to do his own "how-to" movie about how to decorate eggs. Here's what he came up with. https://youtu.be/TqEX8IyP4Pc



Henry says he wants to come out with a whole bunch of these "how-to videos." After all, in his nearly five years he has learned a lot.