To the Rescue in Columbus!

Kenny's sister Val lives in Columbus with her husband Paul and their two kids Robbie and Izzy. We found out during our staycation that their Nanny unexpectedly quit so at the first chance we could me and the girls packed up and headed down there to help out. We hadn't had a chance to hang out with them this summer so it was a great excuse! Me and the four kids had a few good adventures during the day (although the rain did NOT cooperate!). We mostly just let the kids play though and enjoy each other's company, with a little bit of the park and of course ice cream mixed in! I think the highlight for the kids was baking, decorating and (mostly) eating cupcakes for Val's birthday, which we were happy to celebrate while we were down there. I drove home after three days wiped out, but happy to have had a chance to see the Cooks!

Trip to the Waterpark!

As part of our week "staycation" we thought it would be fun to take the kids for a couple nights to a waterpark hotel. We've been wanting to take them to one for a while, and thought this would be a perfect opportunity. So the Zehnders hotel waterpark in Frankenmuth it was! It was a perfect little getaway. It was only a little over an hour away, only a little bit of packing and a BLAST for everyone! The hotel was really, really cute - the whole thing was decorated in a elf/fairy theme - which the girls thought was adorable. There were lots of mushrooms, flowers, frogs and little fairy houses - too cute!

Alexa loved the waterpark from the moment we stepped foot in it! There was plenty to do and she pretty much loved all of it. She was a little timid to try out the waterslides, but once she did she was hooked. There was one slide that you could go down on your bummy and she tried that one out first. She worked herself up to the blue slide that you needed an inner tube to ride down - which was really dark in parts and pretty fast, but she decided she liked it despite that! It took the most coercing to get her go down the green slide called the "perilous plunge" but Kenny convinced her and once she went down it we couldn't get her off of it! The picture above is hard to see, but it is of the two of them coming out of it and the end - their faces were too funny!

Soooo...Elyse talked a big game when we saw the waterpark through the windows, but it took her a little while to warm up once we got in there. She was all concerned about the loud noise, getting sprayed and really the whole thing in general! Gotta love her :) Luckily, by the next time we went back in she had decided it wasn't so bad, and soon enough she was really enjoying herself! Elyse's favorite part was the little swings in the toddler area. We eventually convinced her to try out the little slide for the smaller kiddos, and she was also hooked once she realized how much fun it was. Her excited little face coming down it never got old!

One of the coolest parts of the waterpark was this big huge bucket that dumped water out every so often. The bucket was at the very top of the waterpark and it slowly filled up. When it was getting close to filled, a bell would start ringing - which warned you to either get out of the way (or get in the way if you were feeling brave!!!). After much anticipation, it spilled over and drenched the whole area below it. Me and Lex thought it was pretty fun to stand under it every once in a while and get drenched - which you can see happening in this picture!

In addition to the waterpark, we fit in a little time for a trip to Bronner's where the kids picked out a Christmas ornament, some fun in the arcade, and of course, ice cream! Seeing as it was a Miller family rule when Kenny was growing up that ice cream be eaten every day on vacation, it only seemed right that we also adopt the rule! It really was a wonderful trip for us. The kids had a great time and we had a wonderful time watching them have so much fun! The kids already want to know when we will do it again, and hopefully it won't be too long before we do :)

A Lost Tooth!

Lexi has been SO concerned about her teeth falling out since her friends teeth started falling out a year ago. We kept reassuring her that it was one thing she did NOT need to worry about! Everyone's teeth fall out eventually, she just had to be patient! She was pretty excited when she could tell they were starting to get loose a couple of months ago. When an adult tooth started growing in behind her loosest tooth we knew it wasn't going to be long. Well tonight it was incredibly loose but she didn't want to pull on it so I told her if she went upstairs to brush them it would probably fall out, and sure enough it did. She was SO excited :)

She said she wanted to write the tooth fairy a note, so I let her go back downstairs to write one. When I came down, I found her writing this note, which I thought was so incredibly sweet. She was working so hard to make it legible with her poor little hand in her cast. I couldn't help but smile! What a sweetheart.

Kenny's mom made these little pillows for the kids and their friends when they were little, and she held on to a few. Not long ago when we were visiting them, she passed this one on to Lexi to put her tooth in for the tooth fairy. Lexi was thrilled to be able to get it out and tuck her tooth in the little heart pocket.

Lex put the little tooth pillow in between her pillows on the edge, so the tooth fairy wouldn't have to work TOO hard! Sure enough the tooth fairy visited and was nice enough to let Lexi keep her tooth as requested. She also left $1...what a nice tooth fairy! The girls were pretty excited this morning that a real fairy had visited their house :)What a fun milestone for all of us!!!

Fourth of July

We had a great Fourth of July weekend. Kenny had Friday off and we were home until Saturday after nap when we headed down to Kenny's parents house in Ohio for a nice cookout and fireworks. The kids were excited to wear their new Fourth of July shirts - handpicked by Mom with a little activist flair to them - a little Peace and Love for the Fourth of July :)

We are normally pretty strict about bedtime but figured we shouldn't ruin all the kids' fun so we let them stay up! The only reason I felt a little bad was because they normally are a little crabby the day after they stay up late and we were leaving them the next day at Grandma's for a couple of days - real nice to get the kids crabby and ditch them!!! But Grandma said she didn't mind so it was decided!

We went one town over where there were fireworks being held outside a High School football stadium. There was a big huge open field, and plenty of room. We weren't quite brave enough to head into the crowds in Toledo, so we were happy to see some good fireworks without all the congestion. We actually had a lot of fun waiting for the fireworks to start. Poppa was in a troublemaker mood and kept picking on people (which of course Lexi thought was a ton of fun as you can see from the picture!). There were races and snuggles and some good family time! Both kids really liked the fireworks, although Elyse needed her ears covered the WHOLE time they were going on. The highlight of the fireworks for both of them was the one that went off in the shape of a smiley face! Overall it was a great Fourth of July and it made me happy that the kiddos had a good day! :)

Gavin's Wedding

Gavin is a good friend of Kenny's from UofM and we were thrilled for him when we found out he was getting married. We knew the trip to Tennessee for the wedding was going to be an adventure - but we were up for it!!! It was well worth the trip and truly one of the most spectacular weddings I have ever been to.

We started our trip down to Tennessee on Thursday and stopped at Kenny's sister's house in Columbus for the night so we would have a little bit of a jumpstart on Friday. We were glad that the trip could include a short but fun chance to hang out with Val, Paul and the kids! Since it was Easter weekend, Val made sure the kiddos got to decorate Easter eggs, which was very nice since we hadn't had time before we left town. We got going bright and early Friday morning for the rest of the trip down. With just a few stops, we were right on track to get to Chatanooga in time for the Friday night dinner, until it started torentially downpouring and then we came to a complete stop on 75. We were stopped for over an hour and by that point everyone was out of their cars, and in true Southern style had made good friends with all the people out of their cars around them! It was pretty entertaining!!! We finally started going again and it turned out a tree had fallen across the highway. It wasn't until we saw the news the next day that we realized we had been in the farthest outskirts of a tornado! Yikes! We were a little bit late but made it in plenty of time to enjoy the festivities.

Gavin's fiancee Amee's family is from India, so we were excited to experience a wedding like we had never been to before. It was more amazing then I ever could have anticipated! It was truly a two day wedding extravaganza! Friday evening there was dinner and incredible dancing. They had everyone join in on a traditional Indian dance that involved some simple dance moves done with everyone in a circle. The girls thought it was a BLAST! I was SO tired but they didn't want to stop so me and Kenny had to start switching back and forth taking them around! The dancing was spectacular and the clothes were even more amazing. Lexi was very jealous that she didn't have a fancy, beaded outfit to wear too :)

Saturday morning was the actual wedding. It began with Gavin's friends and family meeting outside of the hotel (which was across the street from the Convention Center/wedding location). Gavin was ushered into a horse drawn carriage and the crowd was directed in front of it. Then they turned on loud Indian dance music and we literally danced Gavin's carriage from the hotel to the Convention Center. It involved several stops where the men gathered together and showed off their dance moves, which is what the picture on the right is. The girls thought it was a ton of fun, especially when we pulled up to the Convention Center and Amee's family and friends were lining the street clapping and cheering for us! The groomsmen lifted Gavin out of the carriage and carried him on their shoulders into the building where the ceremony began. The ceremony was filled with beautiful Indian traditions but also incorporated several different traditions from other cultures. Amee's wedding dress was SPECTACULAR and the decorations were amazing. It really was incredible to watch. The girls did a great job making it through the long ceremony and through the luncheon afterwards.

But the fun did not end there!!! After an afternoon break (aka NAP TIME!) we were invited back to the convention center for drinks and appetizers, followed by dinner and the reception. There was so much eating, drinking, celebrating and speech-giving that dinner didn't even begin until close to 9pm! Luckily the girls were so fascinated by all of the festivities that they were very well behaved. Dinner was traditional Indian food and was delicious! Even though it was late, we felt compelled to stay for some of the dancing since it was what the girls had been looking forward to the whole weekend! They were happy to go out and start the dancing even while everyone else was finishing up dinner!!! But the real fun started when eveyone else came out onto the dance floor. It was a great party - the girls were exhausted or we would have stayed even longer!!! One really great part of the weekend was enjoying some time with Kenny's best friend and roommate from college and his family. They live in Seattle so we very rarely get to see them so it was a treat to spend a weekend with them.

That Sunday was Easter and a very long ride home. The Easter Bunny was nice enough to leave little baskets in their carseats in the car which delighted the girls. We left at 9am and got home at 9pm but miraculously the girls were wonderful in the car. We were all happy to be home but greatly enjoyed the two days of an amazing celebration!

Sleepover...Finally!!!

For whatever reason Elyse got in her little head that she really, really wanted to have a sleepover and of course her overnight guest of choice was Anna! She asked me and Lori frequently (perhaps incessantly) when Anna was going to sleep over. Thankfully Lori and Sean were nice enough to let us borrow Anna after the Princess Night so Elyse could finally have her sleepover. The girls were so excited and very cute. Alexa and Anna are much earlier wakers and might have gotten Elyse up a little too early so we had some grumpiness the next day, but overall it was a success and Elyse was very happy!

Princess Night

This is the second year in a row we've gone to the Princess and Superhero Night in Farmington. The girls really enjoyed it last year, so we were really excited to go again this year. Kenny wasn't able to come with us this time, so we brought Lori and Anna along with us instead!!! The girls got all dressed up before we had to leave. As per usual, Elyse decided to do things in her own unique little style, but - you know, the world needs all kinds of princesses, right?!

Farmington does a really good job putting on the Princess Night. There is a GREAT dj who does a lot of fun things with the kids. Lexi even got in the middle of the circle at one point and showed off her princess dance moves! Both of them got their nails painted and their faces painted. The highlight of the night for Elyse was definitely the big bouncy thing. It was definitely a night fit for little princesses and I was glad they had such a great time! Hopefully we'll get to do it again next year :)