Happy birthday!

It was sweet 16 this year.  I am not sure boys usually have the sweet 16 reference, but he is a pretty sweet kid, so it works for me.  It was the last day of school before break and he had a lot of tests, so maybe not the most celebratory day.  But we tried to add a little joy.  He didn't have a party yet, but may have a sleepover at a later time when friends are not so busy.

Grandma got to watch him open his gift from her.  some airpods.  He has enjoyed cancelling me out with the sound cancelling feature!

He got an updated phone as a main gift, so just a few other gifts from mom and dad.

Dinner was take out from Freddie's.  We watched some Mr. Beast videos together during dinner.  Then he played some video games with friends for the rest of the evening.

We did sing for him and make him blow out his candles--all 16!  I am so thankful for this kind, funny, smart young man.  Happy Birthday!

 

Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving was a nice time to be with family again after being gone last year.  We gathered at my mom's house first.  We went up on Wednesday and arrived late in the afternoon. Fiona joined Teresa later in the evening for the first of two sleepovers.

I was up early on Thursday to help prepare the turkey for roasting.  I now have a very strong opinion that the neck and bag of innards should not be placed in the turkey--no one wants them!  That was not my favorite part of the day!  Mom and got the turkey and peeled potatoes and got a lot of the prep work done before my brothers arrived.  Once everyone arrived, we all worked together to get the feast ready.  It was great food and good time together.  

Some highlights were Merlin, Dan's puppy getting to visit.  (We will forgive him for peeing on a backpack after 5 minutes in the house.) The annual football game even in the cold.  Getting to talk with my brothers and their wives, and Krista's mom.  And I think that French silk pies are becoming the new trend for Thanksgiving!

On Friday morning, my mom, Troy, Teresa, Fiona and I went shopping.  We went to a few stores and none of them were very busy.  I bought a gift for a friend and Troy got some new clothes.  After shopping we helped my mom set up her tree.  We eventually made our way to Susie's with a stop at Best Buy for a TV Timothy bought for his room.

At Susie's we enjoyed time with Trish and Vyrn and their family.  We watched Christmas movies, played games and tried our hand at Christmas trivia.  It was more good food and time to catch up with family. 

We went to the Mall of America on Saturday afternoon, just for something to do.  The boys played pokemon go and the girls just window shopped.  We left on Sunday morning for home.  Of course it had to snow!  Thankfully it was light flurries that cleared when we got to Iowa.  Thankful for another great Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!

I realized almost a month later that I had still not posted Halloween pictures.  So here is Halloween 2023...

We carved pumpkins and I made the kids actually help with the actually cutting.  I was nice to everyone and scooped out all the guts!  Troy had picked up an extra pumpkin, so he carved one too.  

Teresa's was a Taylor Swift Version 1989. Troy did the Raven. And TImothy did a simple of a music artist he likes.

It was a pretty cold night, but the all bundled up and braved the cold.  Teresa and her crew were Care Bears.

I am not sure exactly what Timothy's crew was, but I think they were warm!

And no Halloween is complete without a little candy sorting and trading!

 

We celebrated Troy's birthday over the whole weekend! But I did not get many pictures to document the fun.  On his birthday he had to work, but he did get lunch out.  We had some friends over for dinner and dessert.  It was a lovely night and we were able to be out on the deck.  Troy grilled chicken and veggies and we had an extra buttery cookie cake (by my mistake) and an apple pie for dessert.

On Saturday, Troy played music with the band that he put together.  He had a great afternoon doing that.  We had pizza and movie night in the evening.  Troy finally had a chance to finish opening his birthday gifts with the kids.

On Sunday, Troy and I had a late dinner together with some of his favorites..fish, cheese and olive oil.  It was a good weekend, and a good way to celebrate a special guy!

 

Pokemone Go NYC

Last spring, TImothy asked if he could go to NYC for Pokemon.  We weren't so sure.  And Troy had a schedule conflict.  But in the end, we said yes and made it work.  Probably one of the best yeses we have said as parents!  Troy and Timothy have had a wonderful weekend.

The had an early start on Saturday to fly out of Chicago, but made it to NYC by afternoon.  After dropping their stuff at the hotel (which is right in the heart of Chinatown), they enjoyed the city at night.  They went to Bryant Park and Times Square and joined in with lots of others doing raids and playing POGO.

The took an evening boat ride out to see the statue of liberty.

The next day was their official Pokemon Go day at Randall Island.  Troy switched to the yellow team to join Timothy (and the rest of us!) and their adventures began.  The park had some cool decorations--see the volcano!  The caught pokemon, traded pokemon and befriended lots of new people.  Even Troy was amazed at how fun the experience was.  

After an afternoon break at the hotel, the headed to Manhatten again for some more Pokemon Go.  The ended up in Times Square and enjoyed all its various entertainment.

Timothy even got in on a little action and made friends with some pretty cool looking birds!

They were pretty tired after a night in Times Square, so the took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in the next day.  They even slept past breakfast at 10am--late for Troy!!  The spent the day exploring NYC.  They did a hop on hop off bust tour and used that to catch some pokemon throughout the city.  Timothy caught some pretty great stuff over the few days there.

In the evening, they went to see Wicked on Broadway.  They said it was a pretty great show.  It was another late night, but this time followed by an early morning and a 6 am flight home.  A great weekend for both of them.  Timothy is set to go again next year!!

 

Birthday party

We finally got to celebrate Teresa's birthday with friends!  It was a Taylor swift theme--sort of--with a few other games thrown in.  We started with a scavenger hunt that had the girls running all around the neighborhood.The saran wrap game was also fun.  A few girls really got into it!

Teresa made a couple of kahoots to play.  One was about her and one was about Taylor Swift and seals.

The girls practiced being seals by keeping balloons up with their noses.

And of course there was some gift opening.  This was the year of the mug and blanket!

The girls all dressed in a Taylor Swift Era. We had Lover, Evermore, Red, Reputation represented.  I went with Debut!

The birthday girl ready to blow out her candles!  Her cake was a chocolate with oreo filling decorated in all ten eras.  It was quite an undertaking to frost, but turned out pretty fun in the end!  It was a fun night for the birthday girl!

 

New England part 2

After 6 Flags, we were headed to Cape Cod.  On our way there, we made a stop in Newport, Rhode Island.  That is the town with all the fancy mansions.  We saw a few while driving.  We hoped to do a little walk and see more, but there was construction and it was hot.  We walked a little, but then got on the road.  The traffic to the cape was bad and that scratched the coffee stop Troy had hoped for in Newport too.

The traffic was bad. The drive was slow.  But our stop in Harwich for Seal watching was well worh it.  We got a little tour of the port in the boat and then rode out to Monomoy Bay to see seals.  The boat was not huge, so it was pretty fun to go fast.  We saw lots of seals popping up to see us in the bay.  And perhaps the real highlight was the ride back at high speeds over choppy waters.  Sitting in the front of the boat gave us some fun bounces!

We made our way out to the very tip of Cape Cod--Provincetown.  We stayed at Blue Sea Motor Inn.  It was walking distance from the beach.  The beach was very seaweedy, so we didn't swim there, but we did visit it.

On Teresa's birthday we went on a whale watching cruise.  It was a long (and chilly) ride, but well worth the sights we saw.  We saw three kinds of whales and several of them were right beside the boat.  We even saw calf!  After the cruise we explored the shops in Provincetown.

In the late after noon we went to a state park beach.  The kind attendent let us enter for free.  The water was very cold, so we mostly waded and walked along the beach.  Teresa hunted for sea glass.

To celebrate Teresa's birthday, she picked a place for dinner and we had ice cream at Twisted Pizza and Ice cream.  We eneded the night watching the sunset on the beach.  A beautiful sight!

We spent a little time at the beach before heading to Boston.  Our Boston hotel was very nice and across the street from the ocean.  We spent a bit of the afternoon on this beach too.

Teresa actually found some sea glass here.  The water was still cold, but the beach was less rocky and easier on the feet.

Timothy found lots of little crabs in the water and enjoyed interacting with them.

On our day in Boston we went on the Freedom trail.  We did our own tour rather than joing a group.  We checked out the Mary Dyer statue right away.

We saw lots of historic sights including the site of the Boston Massacre, the old North Church and a few old cemetaries.  We did a little shopping on the tour too.  And while walking back to Boston Commons, we stopped in an Italian bakery.  We picked out an Oreo cake to share.

After some pizza for dinner we went out on the beach one more time for a last ice cream treat.  We also ended the night with one last swim.  This hotel had a warm pool too!

We had a great trip!  So many memories and experiences.  Lots of ice cream!  So thankful we can enjoy this family time togther!

New England vacation part 1

 We headed out east again this summer visiting 6 more states and Canada.  This year we flew instead of driving.  That was nice, but we still had to drive 3 hours to the airport, so we were up early! We had to drop Troy's car off at the shop on our way out of town, that delayed us a little, but we still made it to our gate with a bit of time to spare.  We had time to get water and buy muffins before boarding.

Waiting to board the plane and begin our adventure!

We flew into Boston, got a rental car and drove up to New Hampshire.  It was later afternoon by the time we got to our hotel.  After settling in a little, we drove to nearby Kittery, Maine for dinner.  We ate at Badger Island Pizza.  (Many of our dinner stops were hole in the wall, local places!)  It was good pizza. Troy and I liked the decor!  Troy and I picked up groceries after dinner and walked around the store multiple times looking for peanuts.  The were by the produce!?  We ended the night with some swimming.

The next day was supposed to be a 7 hour drive up to Quebec.  We thought we needed a special card from the rental car company to get into Canada.  That took us on a wild goose chase and Avis was not helpful.  We eventaually gave up and just went to Canada.  We were asked nothing about our car or insurance entering Canada! Wasted a couple hours--Ugh! We made a stop in New Hampshire to see where the Old Man of the Mountain used to be.  The rock actually crumbled off in 2003.  We couldn't really tell where it used to be, but we took our state family picture anyway.

We drove and finally made our way to Quebec!  Our hotel was really nice and had a lovely view of our pool. (Our favorite pool of the whole trip!)We found parking and settled into our room.  Then it was off to the snack shop for Poutine! (Fries with cheese curds and gravy).  Timothy and I were excited to try the poutine, but we didn't actually like the gravy much.  Troy loved it!  (He had some even better greek poutine a few nights later.) Teresa stayed away from all poutine!

 

Our first day in Quebec we went for a walking tour of the old city.  It is a very interesting place with it's old city walls and ramparts still standing. There is a lot of history in the city--old streets and buildings, combined with tourist shops and stores.

The boardwalk overlooking Quebec and the St. Lawrence river.

In the afternoon we went to Montmorency Falls. It is just a short drive out of the city.  We rode up to the top in a cable car. We were able to walk across the falls on a bridge.  But the real highlight was the ziplining that Troy, Timothy and Teresa did.

Troy and Timothy went first.  After watching for a bit, Teresa decided that she wanted to try too.  Timothy was more than happy to go again with her. They said it was an amazing experience!

Our second day in Quebec had us touring the Citadel.  It was built by the French originally to defend against the Americans.  It was never attacked, but was always ready.  It serves as current residence for Canadian Armed Forces.  We got to see the ceremonial band play--the played some fun songs like Avengers and Bon Jovi!  The tour was interesting.  We drove to a toy store after the tour and then headed to the hotel for pool time.

This ppol was a favorite because it was as warm as a hot tub!!  and the pool area was very pretty and outdoors.  We got some good swim time in Quebec!

After swimming, we ventured to a cat cafe.  This was a find by Troy after hearing Teresa wanted to go to such a place.  There just happened to be one walking distance.  We visited the many cats and had some drinks and shared a piece of cake.  Then we shopped on the main street in the old city.  Teresa found a shirt and Timothy found a 3d Pokemon poster.

We dined at a crepe restuarant for dinner.  The kids both got sweet crepes and Troy and I had savory.  Our booth was right by a window open to the street.  We felt like we were an add for the cafe as people walked by and checked out our dinners!

We told the kids the drive out of Quebec would not be extra long like the drive in.  Wrong again!  Troy hit something on the freeway and it caused a tire explosion.  We had to get a tow truck to help with the spare.  And Troy called many places to see if there was a replacement tire.  Many places only spoke a little English.  It was stressful, but we got our new tire, donuts to celebrate and made our way out of Canada.  It was pouring rain for much of the trip, so a long drive indeed.

We were supposed to get an evening at 6 flags, but we got rained out.  So we made the most of our one day.  It was very hot and oddly buggy.  Timothy got to go on quite a few rides.  Troy and Teresa rode a few, and I rode one!  

We also had access to the waterpark.  That was a nice afternoon break on a hot day.  Timothy went on a few slides and the lazy river and wave pool.  Teresa liked the lazy river best.

We took a break away from the park from dinner.  On our way back to the park, we stopped at the Dairy Cream for ice cream.  I thought it had some of the best ice cream on the trip.  The night at 6 Flags got very buggy.  Teresa and I managed 1 ride and then hid from the bugs in a store.  There were fireworks, but becuase the bugs were so bad, we only watched them as we walked to our car.