Fun with Fam PART 5

GARDEN OF THE GODS

Poor Benjo was throwing up all day. He is such a trooper.

MANITOU SPRINGS

The kids were off to the horse races.

Here they are with their arcade treasures. 400,652 tickets got them some candy and a plastic spider.

Fun with Fam PART 4

Olympic Training Center

Introducing our future olympic athletes!

I took this picture for the Barbers. I have been to many of their national gymnastic meets and that was the first time I heard about the OTC. I am lucky to have such talented friends.

Weekend Trip to ATL, GA

We have been so lucky to have family close to us, ok seven hours away and of course Cheyns parents 10 hours away. It makes for lots of trips and lots of visitors. Sadly for us, my sister and her family are going to be moving to the intermountain west. So that short trip is about to get longer.

We made a quick trip down to Atlanta to visit them over the weekend. We also got to see our friends Julie and Ruby. We played Beatles rock band, card games, guitar and ukulele. We also got to watch Elizabeth play basketball and we got to eat out. We love each of our nephews and nieces and they are just great kids, wonderful in their own way. Justin and Wendy are super cool too. I think Wendy is fulfilling that part of her that really wishes I was a girl and that she had a sister. When I went to sleep Saturday night, Wendy and Cheyney were still chatting away.

Here is to family. We love you Justin and Wendy and we love all of the rest of you no matter what state or country you are in. We also love our friends who visit this blog. We do not love the Anonymous people who post comments and links about enlargement or antiviruses. You people I don't really care for.

Thrills from the four little Hills

Benjo after eating some hot salsa

It was so great to have Wendy, Justin, and kids come up for a visit. The kids did tons of fun things while here like Marbles kids' museum, Frankie's fun house, a scavenger hunt, Cook Out's milk shakes and much more. When asked what was their favorite part, they said, "going to the gym." (which is our apartment gym with one treadmill, elliptical machine, and stationary bike). It doesn't take much to make them happy. Ryan's highlight was introducing the kids to Ghostbusters. They made it easy to have 8 people in our little apartment. My favorite is how Wendy picked out a place for Benjamin to sleep... yep, pack-n-play in my closet. We are so glad that they came. It was so nice of them to make the long drive, even with Justin recovering from jet lag from India.

Thanksgiving at the Hills

We spent Thanksgiving with the Hills and Thompsons down in Newnan, Ga near Atlanta. It's great to be around family during the holidays. The Webb's and Harpers are on our good list for Christmas, so we'll get to spend more time in Georgia with friends and family in late December. All these Georgians are pulling us towards Georgia and making it seem like the place to be, though were happy in NC (for now). We went Ice skating in downtown Atlanta. The night before we made ginger bread mobile homes, on display here.





I was not as diligent as a I should have been photographing the Thanksgiving dinner and everybody. Here is a sweet compilation video the Hills made that video and pictures from the thanksgiving festivities near the end.

Holiday Visitors

We had the Hill Family up from Atlanta over the long weekend. Our quiet little two room apartment became party central with 4 kids and 4 adults. The kids were great and it was fun to be around family.

I'm starting to see that everyone has to do four things when they come to visit us in Raleigh:

1.Eat at Cookout
Cheap good food. Shakes, hushpuppies, and Cheerwhine for all. Name one other fast food restaurant where you can get a combo meal with a chicken sandwich, corn dog and chicken nuggets for sides, and a shake? One meal for five bucks with at least 1500 calories. I usually feel full/bloated after. All of us were fed for 31 bucks (Thanks Justin)!

2.Go to the Museum of Natural Sciences
A free science museum downtown with lots of live animals. Dinosaur statues, whale skeletons, and a butterfly room (with a sloth) are highlights. There was a kid's discovery zone that even had "guess which animal poops like this" games (plastic replicas). I think we all were entertained.

3. Walk around the Lake near our Apartment.
A must is a walk on the trail around the lake where you can feed the ducks. We also figured out that feeding the seagulls can be fun (except for Emilie). We ended up going there 3 times!

4.Play games with us.
Wendy and Justin introduced "Ticket to Ride" game to us which we recommend. It's a bit like Risk. Really fun. We also played cards. The games were fun, though they got a little heated last night. As far as I know, Wendy is still married to her husband and identifies us as family (we hope). I think she's moved on from yesterday's game night emotions.


Two other fun thing we did were:
1. visited our friends Tom and Carmen and showed the kids their pet Rabbit:

2. A science experiment with Mentos and diet cola. A group of us tried this at Church back in LA and it only got four feet high. With the right equipment and strategy, Alexander got it 20 feet high:


We love our visitors.