Little Family Getaway

Last spring we bought a gift certificate at our school auction for a night at the Ramada Plaza hotel here in town.  We figured this weekend when the kids had off school for a couple days would be a good time to use it, so we went last night. 

We checked in and then ate an early dinner at Old Chicago, which is connected to the hotel.  The kids were very excited to get to the pool and try out the giant waterslide!  We spent several hours there last night and had a great time swimming and going down the slide.  It was hard to get a good picture of the waterslide, but here are a few in the pool:

Before we headed up to bed, we tried out a couple games in the arcade.

Miriam looks a little too comfortable holding this gun...

We all slept pretty well, and since the hotel didn't have breakfast included, we drove up the street to good old Russ' for breakfast.  Then we went back and enjoyed another hour and a half in the pool before we had to head home to get ready for Peter's soccer game. 

It was fun to watch the kids get braver as time went on.  We started last night with everyone only wanting to go down with mom or dad.  By the end of this morning, Peter and Esther were going down by themselves and not even wanting to be caught at the bottom.  Miriam also went down by herself with her life jacket on. 

It was a fun little getaway and a good chance to have some family time together!

Pumpkins!

On Tuesday, Peter and Miriam and I went to Orchard Hill Farm with Renee, Ty and Cassie.  I forgot my camera, but we had a great time and it was a gorgeous day.  We did the corn maze, checked out the animals, had donuts and cider, and went on a wagon ride to pick little pumpkins.  It was a very fun morning!

This afternoon the kids had fun decorating their pumpkins.  Each kid wanted to have a "working" picture, a "silly" picture, and a "smiling" picture, so here they are:

White Pine Trail

The kids have a couple days off school this week, so today we headed up to the White Pine Trail with my parents for some bike riding.  Esther had a sleepover at their house last night, so she and Grandpa drove up to Belmont and rode the tag-along from there to Rockford.  Grandma, Peter, Miriam and I drove to Rockford and met them there.  Miriam hopped on the tag-along with Grandpa, and Peter, Esther and I joined them on our bikes to ride a few miles out and back on the trail while Grandma relaxed. 

When we got back we had Corner Bar hog dogs for lunch.  Then Esther rode back to Belmont with Grandpa.  The rest of us walked out on the dam for a few minutes, and then drove to meet them in Belmont.

Checking out a cool spider web!

Finally, Peter rode the last stretch with Grandpa on the tag-along from Belmont down to Riverside Park, where we met them with both vehicles.  At the end of the day, Esther rode 13 miles, Peter rode 10, and Miriam rode 4.  They were very tired tonight!
On the way home, Peter rode with Grandpa and they took a little detour to Van's Pastry Shoppe:

Thanks for a fun day, Grandpa and Grandma!

Little Biker

Miriam is really getting into the biking!  After her big step of learning to ride without training wheels yesterday, she got to take her first ride around Reed's Lake on the tag-along today with Grandpa!

Grandpa said she did great, and they even made it up the Hall Street hill.  After their ride, they had a picnic with Grandma.  What a fun way to celebrate Grandma's birthday and a beautiful fall day!  At this rate, she's going to be riding RAGBRAI with Grandpa next year...

No more...

No more cribs, no more pacifiers, no more naps, no more diapers... no more training wheels!  Yes, Miriam the overachiever has done it again.  True to her personality (I can do ANYTHING my brother and sister can do even though I'm younger), she learned to ride without training wheels today.  Yesterday we were at her friend Mary Kate's house and she wanted to ride Mary Kate's princess bike.  Since it doesn't have training wheels, I was pushing her around on it and decided to kind of let go to see if she could do it.  She pretty much did, and that made up her mind.  As soon as we went outside today she told me to get Daddy's tools and take her training wheels off.  After a few tries, she was doing this...

Robinette's

Today I was able to go on a field trip with Peter's class to Robinette's.  It was a beautiful fall morning and we had a great time going on a wagon ride through the orchard, picking apples, seeing how cider is made, walking into the huge refrigerator, and eating donuts and drinking cider.  We had Mrs. Robinette herself as our tour guide, which was really cool!

Getting instructions from Mrs. Robinette

Wagon ride!

Picking apples

Checking out some of the machinery

Putting an apple into the cider mill

Seeing how cider is made

Donuts and cider!



Happy Birthday Grandma W!

We celebrated my mom's birthday a couple days early today since Karen and Juan came into town for the weekend.  We had a yummy dinner (mostly prepared by Casey) and spent quite a while at the park this afternoon. 

Here are the kids giving Grandma their cards:

The kids also got to open gifts that Juan and Karen got for them when they were in Hawaii on their honeymoon.  Esther and Miriam got cute hair clips that change colors in the sun, and Peter got a cool t-shirt!

Happy Birthday Grandma/Mom!  We love you very much, and are so thankful for all that you do for us!

ArtPrize

This afternoon we took the kids downtown to see some of the ArtPrize exhibits.  Karen and Juan are here this weekend, so they went with us too.  It was crazy busy, but we still got to see quite a few things before the kiddos got tuckered out and tired of walking.  It was a beautiful day for walking around, and we enjoyed seeing some of the neat things that people have created.

The kids were especially excited to see the piece that they helped create as part of their art classes at school.  The artist, Dale Wayne, used plastic bottles to create beautiful flowering trees.  The kids each got to paint one flower in art class.  It was fun to see how the project looks and it is really pretty!