Tag: Good times

I have a lot of fun

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All by myself

Last month I went to Florida for my good friend Rachel’s 40th birthday girls’ trip. By myself. It was pretty awesome.

I was gone for 5 days, and nobody came with me. Zero children. Zero traveling partners. A couple of the girls flew on the same flight, but then the rest of us all just met down there. We went to Anna Maria Island, so most of us flew into Sarasota then took an Uber to the island.

It was the first time I’ve traveled alone since any of the kids were born. Actually, I think it’s the first time I’ve traveled alone since I lived out east. Almost 16 years ago. Crazy.

It was really fun. There were 10 of us in the house we rented, which was right on a little lagoon. It had its own private pool, which was all I was looking forward to. It was a shared townhouse, but we never heard the family on the other side at all. They had their own pool, too, and it was on the opposite side of the house from ours.

We stayed just blocks from the beach, so we walked over there each night to watch the sunset and grab a cocktail. Unfortunately there was really only one beachfront restaurant near us, but we found some other fun places for dinners. We grabbed coffee and breakfast each morning at a little local place, then we either walked to other close-by sandwich or burrito shops for lunches or just snacked by the pool.

I got some sun. I got some sleep. I made new friends. I read 1 entire book! And, surprisingly, I missed everyone back here terribly. I couldn’t help but think the whole time how perfect the place we stayed would be for a family vacation with Ryan and the kids, because it really was.

I couldn’t believe I actually made a solo vacation work! It was a great time with some fantastic people, and I’m so glad I went. It’ll probably happen again in about 20 years. 😀

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That’s a wrap!

We are in the final hours of 2018, and it has truly been a magnificent year. Some of you might be thinking, how in the world is that possible?? You have 5 kids!! But that’s just it. They make my life magical and give me the most important purpose there is. I’m their Mama.

Let’s review, shall we?

  • We had twins.
  • I’m not usually one to brag, but I think I’m doing a pretty great job with 5 kids.
  • I figured out the logistics of getting us all to/from school all year, whether it was walking, driving, or carpooling.
  • Summer vacation was awesome with everyone home. Lots of playing with friends on the block (kids and parents!), walks and runs, library visits, collecting sea glass.
  • We learned what a vacation as a family of 7 is when we went up to Iron River this summer. It’s doable, and it was fun!
  • We got to watch a Brewers playoff game from a suite. It’s kinda nice when your cousin is the manager. 😉
  • We bought a second house.
  • The twins went on their first flight out to Tucson to meet their great-grandparents, which was so very, very important. The logistics of that one were a little torturous, but the family time spent together was priceless and worth every single second.
  • We took another family vacation up north to Eagle River. It gets easier and better every time.
  • We’ve been enjoying our first holiday season with 5 children. That does not sound normal to me – we have 5 children. Maybe someday it will, but still not yet. Both of my parents are 1 of 4 children, and I always thought man, that’s a lot of kids. Ha, silly me. The universe heard that and remembered it.
  • Ryan got a big and extremely well-deserved promotion at work.
  • I finished my sea turtles tattoo for the kids. Very important, I know!
  • We watched all our children grow every day, and my heart gets more and more full by the second with all of them. It was a year full of firsts for the twins, and it’s so amazing to get to experience all these baby firsts over again in double. Each day is something new and wondrous for them.

And now here we are, the very end of 2018. I think the sign of a good year isn’t completely dependent upon what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve done, where you’ve gone, but how you feel at the end of it. And just like the title of one of my favorite Christmas movies, it’s a wonderful life. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, our family is complete, and we are heading into the new year on a high note.

Cheers, 2018, and thank you so much for everything you gave us. Here we come, 2019, all 7 of us!

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Merry and bright

This was a great Christmas. It was the twins’ first Christmas, and I realized that they are the first out of all our children to spend their first Christmas here at home. For all the others’ first Christmases, we were down at my mom’s house. As much as I love spending the Christmas holiday down there when everyone is back, being at home and not having to go anywhere or really do anything at all is very, very nice. Especially now that there are so many of us!

On Christmas Eve, the big 3 got everything ready for Santa and the reindeer – cookies, egg nog, a carrot, and reindeer food in the front yard. Then Della read us The Night Before Christmas, a tradition that we started last year. Lana was able to read some, too, this year. She’s been working on that little book for the past month to try to be able to read it for us on Christmas Eve, so I know she was very happy and proud to be able to do her part.

When I woke up on Christmas morning, I saw there was a weather alert on my phone – snow had supposedly started overnight, which was not in the forecast at all. In fact, on the late news on Christmas Eve, they even said we were going to have a brown Christmas. I honestly felt like a kid when I peeked out the window and saw a white Christmas! I couldn’t believe it. It was the perfect way to start the day.

I made sure to get up early when the twins did so I didn’t miss a second of the kids’ excitement, and it was awesome from the start. They all got a nice little haul from Santa this year, and Daddy even got each of the big 3 a good book. The babies watched the unwrapping madness from their jumpers so they didn’t get trampled or do any trampling (Avit, ahem), and all they wanted was to get in their highchairs for some Cheerios. They were both too big to wear the little Baby’s 1st Christmas hats that we had, but they did wear matching Santa bibs for all the meals. That counts, right?

Then the day was spent playing with the new goods, watching Christmas movies, generally relaxing, then hosting Ryan’s parents for Christmas dinner. It was a wonderful day, and I hope all the Christmases out there were just as great.

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Gobble gobble

I took the kids to Peoria with my mom for Thanksgiving this year, and it was a most excellent visit. We got to spend time with both sides of my family, which is always so much fun. The kids got to see relatives they know well and those they only see a couple times a year, and they loved playing with them all again.

Ryan didn’t have as many days off as the girls so he couldn’t join us again, but hopefully he can make it next year.

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday, but now with kids, I can’t help but feel the Christmas spirit get stronger again every year. And this Thanksgiving celebration, full of laughs and the love of family, was the perfect way to kick off this most magical season of the year.

 




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Up Nort’, again

We spent most of last week up in Eagle River, in northeastern Wisconsin about 4 hours from home, and it was another great family vacation. One of our friend’s parents own a condo up there, and the resort ran a friends and family deal on renting out units for the whole week for a steal. So they invited us a few months ago, we had condos right next to each other, and we had a blast.

The kids loved the indoor swimming pool; playing with their new Squinkies; exploring the resort grounds with Ryan; watching movies; roasting s’mores; playing in the snow on our last full day there; watching all the animals out our patio door; and doing tons of coloring, drawing, and writing.

The twins ended up doing great in a new place after the first night, which was a no-sleep nightmare. The resort provided 2 pack n plays, so they were able to still have their own beds. We barricaded them in the living room during the days, and they spent their time playing with toys and exploring a new floor.

I enjoyed playing in the pool with the big 3, getting a snowy run in, working on this blog and pictures, reading, and relaxing. Ryan was our resident town explorer, making sure the fridge and liquor cabinet were well stocked and finding a good place for all 7 of us to go out for pizza one night.

I normally envision “up north” as a place for summer vacations, but this late fall getaway was really fun. Hopefully it can become more than a one-time trip!

 




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Up Nort’

A couple weeks ago we took our first vacation as a family of 7, and it ended up being a lot of fun. We drove up to northern Wisconsin, rented a little cabin for a couple days, and tested the waters of big-family cabin life.

We went to a little place called Delta Lodge in Iron River, WI, which is all the way near the northern border of the state, up by Bayfield and Ashland on Lake Superior. It had 12 cabins on a small inland lake, and we were in cabin #4 – 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, kitchen, living room, and screened-in porch. We shared a dock and campfire pit with the cabin next door, and we got to use a rowboat and kayaks for the whole stay.

We split up the drive north, spending our first vacation night with my aunt and uncle in Eau Claire. That in itself was a great time, because we hadn’t been there in years. It made for a wonderful visit, and the kids had a blast exploring all their land on a couple nice long walks.

We only spent 2 full days at the cabin, after getting there around 3:00 p.m. on the first day and leaving at 10:00 a.m. on the fourth day, but Ryan and I agreed that it was plenty for this first trip. We really just wanted to get a feel of how things would go with this crew at a cabin, and we wanted to check out someplace new since we haven’t done this before. We won’t be going to Canada this summer, so I really wanted the kids to get some swimming and lake time in somewhere. This was perfect.

Ryan took them on row boat rides, Della learned how to kayak, the girls swam like water bugs with me, Morrison loved playing on the dock, they constantly fed hot dog and hamburger buns to the bluegill who lived under our dock, we made s’mores over the campfire, we played games after dinner in the cabin, we celebrated the summer solstice, the twins broke in their new playpen as their bed, and we figured out what we do and don’t want to do the same next year.

There had been some really severe thunderstorms in the area right before we arrived, and by the time we drove home, Lake Superior was still so churned up that the water looked red from all the iron in the soil up there. It was crazy.; it looked like we were on Mars.

It was a great time, and we’re already looking forward to finding another fun spot for next summer.