Home for the Holidays, Part I

Home for this entry equals Heidi's childhood home in Wausau, WI.

We were in Wausau this year for Thanksgiving and for an early Christmas (this time we gave the weekend before Christmas a spin).

Thanksgiving
Scot and I signed up to run Wausau's 2nd annual Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning. So, that meant we packed up on Wed and shuffled off across the border so we'd be ready for our early morning run the next day. There were about 1000 runners, the weather was decent, the route was nice...all in all, it was a fun time! Best of all, I finished with a 5K PR of 28:29. I've only run 3 5Ks, but hey, I keep shaving off minutes so I'll take it. My goal was to finish in under 29 minutes. Poor Scot was a trooper to even have run at all, considering he spent part of Wednesday night in front of the toilet. He seemed to have picked up the bug that Reese had a few days prior. By race time, though, he was feeling OK. And then the bug transferred to me on Friday. Ah, fun holiday weekend!

Before

After

Thanksgiving itself was nice - we got to enjoy a Packers win, tons of great food, and family!

I love this Packeriffic picture!

Christmas
So, yes...3 weeks later we were in the truck again, loaded with presents and enough gear to make it look like we planned on staying for weeks. We pulled Ava out of school at noon on Friday the 16th, picked up Reese from daycare, and headed east. That night, Grandma & Granpa babysat the girls while we enjoyed a dinner out with JoAnn, Greg & Gus. It turned out to be a celebration of sorts, as 13 year old Gus bowled a 300 (!) just that afternoon. Because it was during practice, he doesn't get the official accolades from the Bowling Association, but nonetheless it was AWESOME and I suspect there will be more 300 games in his future!

We played it pretty low key on Saturday morning. Grandma, Grandpa, Ava and I took a family trip to Fleet Farm to get Ava some new ice skates and snowpants. We took the girls out on the rink when we got home - Ava picked it up again just like riding a bike (well, she can't ride a bike yet without training wheels, but hey, she can ice skate). Reese wasn't feeling the ice rink love, so she mostly sat on the ice when I wasn't breaking my back trying to push her around.

In the afternoon, the gang came over and we did our usual snack-feasting, present-opening, and lasagna-eating. We really had such a nice time hanging out with everyone! As usual, the visit was over too quickly and we were back on the road on Sunday.

We took LOTS of pictures over the weekend because Scot & I splurged on 2 new Christmas cameras - a new point & shoot and a Canon SLR. It's been a lot of fun experimenting with the SLR and we're looking forward to taking a series of 3 classes in January/February.

It looks like I'll have to resize them before I upload though...I'll do that another day.

She's Six!

Goodness...Ava turned six over a month ago already. Here goes!

Her birthday was on a Thursday & coincidentally fell on the one day a month I volunteer in Ava's classroom. So, it was fun to spend some time with her in class and then stick around to eat lunch with her too. One is made to feel like a local celebrity amongst a gaggle of 6 year old girls - pretty fun! That night, we played it pretty low key. She got to open her presents and I'm pretty sure we had spaghetti and cake.

Two days later, we had not one, but two parties for her! The first was her "friend" party during the day at Lookout Ridge, an indoor play area in Woodbury. In addition to our local standby friends' kids, I gave Ava the go ahead to invite 6 friends from school. It didn't take her too long to finalize a list...Mya, Lindsey, Clarke, Lauren, Cora & Henry O. She's told us she's in love with Henry O. numerous times, so it wasn't too surprising that he made the list. Thankfully, for Henry O., we also knew Alexander & Bennett would be coming, so he wouldn't be the ONLY boy. Keira and Anna rounded out the guest list. And all of the kids she invited were able to come, so she was thrilled. It was so fun to see her SO happy, she loved playing with all of her friends outside of school. It all went well. They played hard and stopped to catch their breath twice, once to eat cake, once to open presents. And I also learned that kindergarten is apparently the magic age where, as a parent, you don't need to stay at the parties your kids get invited to. None of the parents of her school friends stayed. So, now I'm just waiting and hoping for Ava to get reciprocal invites so we can get some 2 hour blocks of free babysitting. Ha.

After that party, we had family over to the house for pizza, cake & ice cream. Ava had just as much fun with all of her admiring family members as she did with her friends. All in all, it was a great couple of days. And once again, I am left to ask, "Where did my baby go?"