Winter Break Vacation

Our winter vacation time finally arrived. I decided that it wouldn't hurt Evie much to miss 2 days of school. She has a pretty good grasp on letters, colors, and math, so she won't be too far behind. Her biggest worry was that she would forget her friends' names before she came back to school.

So we loaded up the car with our swimsuits and bags of junk food and set out for the Wisconsin Dells. On our way up, we stopped to visit our friends, Pat, Rebecca, Peter and Jameson in Mt. Horeb, WI. They used to live in MN with us and we did lots of bike riding before all the kids were born. Their town is known for troll statues. Just walking distance from their house, we saw three! It was wonderful to be outside breathing the fresh Wisconsin air (smells like Wisconsin). Evie needed to be reminded that she wasn't wearing snow boots because she was everywhere. Our own little grumpy troll, Annalise, did not like the trolls, cold, or snow. Click on this picture to see her expression.


Peter and Jameson are just 5 months younger than Evie. They had fun showing us another troll. And in true kindergartener fashion, they found that this troll had a booger.

Annalise refused to get up next to the troll, so here she is with her own booger. Aunt Becky, we think we will send Annalise with you because since we moved to IN, she does not like the snow or cold. She cried and whined this whole 4 block trip into the downtown.

Do you know what is wonderful about WI? You can buy beer on Sunday in Walmart! We stocked up on all the beers that we can't buy in IN. Plus some cheese curds and some spreadable cheese product. I really let my standards go because I also caved in and bought fruit flavored yogart, brown and serve sausages, Pringles, and the creme de la creme of the week, little chocolate donuts. I really let my hair down and now my stomach is paying for it. We'll probably have lentils tonight to reset our bodies.

Jim enjoys a very delicous New Glarus Spotted Cow. Wonderfully refreshing.

And, as always, the kids jump on the hotel room beds. They had to be careful in here because if they jumped too close to the bunk, they clunked their heads.

Annalise also jumped on the bed. Both kids got a chance to sleep up in the top bunk. We also used the Dells strategy of wearing the kids down to the point of exhaustion so they slept pretty well. They actually slept in until 9 am the second morning--that's a first for those kids.

We applied their all access wrist bands and told them to get ready for some fun!

These two are so excited about hitting the waterparks!

Annalise channels Natalie when it comes to putting her shoes on her feet.

The next morning, the girls got up and had a deluxe pancake breakfast. After breakfast, we had some school time so Evie wouldn't get so far behind. Actually, we were just waiting for the waterparks to open, but getting some practice writing in never hurt.

Jim took charge in the kitchen. We were lucky enough to have brand new pots and pans to use, but a lot of pancakes were sacraficed in the seasoning process. Plus, there were no scrubbies. Manual labor for Jim. Hopefully he didn't hurt his mouse finger.

And we made it down to the water park! First stop was the lazy river which suited Annalise just fine.

Evie and Laura also had fun getting reacquainted during several laps.

We took a break for lunch, but the grown ups were too busy visiting for the kids' taste. They were excited to get some more playing in!

We cleaned up our lunch and Annalise read all the letters on this trash can. Then she read the words (her interpretation) "Don't get your hand stuck in here"

We moved over to the wild water dome with the giant wave pool and Evie channels LaBron James.

She did stop moving long enough for us to take a picture. In this dome, there is a family waterslide that Annalise went on with us. I figured she wouldn't like it because as it started, she put her head down into my lap. Then at the end, she said"That was fun, let's go again!"

Post waterpark and pre dinner, the kids chilled out by watching some PBS kids on the bed. What a treat (and a treat for the parents too since we had happy hour and ate some spreadable cheese on
Triscuts).

Annalise and I shared a cuddle after dinner. We are looking tired, but not done for the day yet!

What is the Dells without some sort of celebration? We are smack in the middle of Laura and Evie's birthdays so we celebrated them both with a little gift exchange and some ice cream treats

They both liked their gifts.

Then we went down to the big indoor playstructure. Annalise played with the "floating" balls.

I was even feeling adventurous enough to climb in. I normally don't do these things because I hate climbing through those tubes like at the Mc Donald's Playland, but this was mostly nets so I was ok. Annalise needed help getting in some spots. I"m not going to lie, it was pretty fun to crawl around in.

But what goes up must come down. Annalise wanted to go down this spiral red slide. I sucked it up and tried it. It was fast, twisty and I built up a lot of static cling in there. By the time I hit the bottom, I was dizzy and done with the play structure. Probably didn't help that I had one of those great New Glarus beers before we went to the play structure.

Ice cream and dinner didn't slow Evie down. She and Laura ran around until they were drenched in sweat. Gross.

And when we got back to the room, she was so exhausted that she passed out on the bar stools.

The next morning, I was awoken by the most unique sound. A sound I haven't heard since moving to Indiana. The sound of a plow scraping across asphalt. Music to my ears. Especially since this particular plow didn't have a back up beeper.

We packed up our stuff and headed back to the waterpark for a little more fun before we had to go home. Annalise gives Jim a "tow" across the wave pool.

Evie and Laura claim their tube for the waves

Annalise is still lazy, but had a lot more fun than we thought she would. She wasn't too afraid of stuff and wanted to do whatever the big girls did. She even wanted to go down the family waterslide with Evie, Laura, and Laura's Dad, Mike, instead of me and Jim. What is happening to my BFF??

All three girls head out to catch some waves.

And the three big girls. Nate, Laura's brother didn't hit the water that day. He was too busy making girlfriends to get to other peoples' stashes of Pringles.

Me and Michele. We had a great time catching up. Thanks to our husbands for taking time off work and watching the kiddos so we could enjoy our Margaritas and chat.

Unfortunately, all good vacations come to an end. You know it's a successful vacation when it ends with a tantrum. Annalise was so worn out that she couldn't even make up her mind which bathroom stall to use before we left. It was tough. We threw her in the car and gave them a movie and some lunch. Vacation wasn't over yet and we still had some stops to make.

The Cheese Chalet! What used to be something we drove past every time we drove south was now our destination! I walked inside and asked the lady if she had fresh curds and she said "you betcha". Aunt Becky, these are your people. They miss you.

Inside, Jim found a sommersausage shaped like a football. I told him to get it for the superbowl this weekend, but he didn't. So if the Colts loose, it's because we didn't eat this football.

Evie Milked the cow.

And Annalise found a baby cow to love. We weren't sure it it's name is Buttermilk or if it has a momma named Cheeseburger.

Evie has lost all of her Northern instinct. We had to school her on how to click your feet together before getting in the car. Although, she doesn't care how much snow she drags in. She doesn't get the chance to clean it up.

The rest of our drive home was pretty boring. We ate our way through the rest of the Twizzlers and some cheese curds. Jim talked me into trying White Castle for dinner. It was the first and last time I will ever eat there. After a weekend of junk food indulgence, my stomach really hurt by the time we got home.

And in a related story, about 16 hours before we left for the Dells, we discovered that a mouse had taken residence in our pantry. This particular mouse climbed up the wire shelving that is mounted on the inside of the door and got into food that was 5 feet off the ground. So, we had to do a lot of cleaning and a trip to Menards to buy traps.

The good news is that when we got home, he checked into a mouse hotel and didn't check out. Jim put traps in the basement before we left and caught another one. And the third trap was missing. He tore apart the basement looking for it, but the mouse must have drug it somewhere we can't see. Hopefully it doesn't smell too bad when it dies. Anyway, two and half mice were trapped. I returned to Menards this morning for more glue traps and we haven't caught any more mice. Hopefully that's the end of them. I would love to borrow a kitty or two for the next week just to make sure.