Passing the Time at Lowes

A few weeks ago we headed to Lowes for the Kids Workshop only to find a huge line to get into the craft room...Ugh. Apparently there was some huge mix up in registration causing the back up.  Thank goodness we were in a home improvement store to keep the kiddos occupied.  They didn't even ask "how much longer" during the whole half hour we waited.

Unfortunately the craft room was PACKED by the time we got up there, so we just took our craft home to build later...sorry, no action shots.  But here we are a week later at Home Depot's kids workshop, building bird houses!  We love building anything free!

Christmas Break

We had a pretty rainy Christmas break from school so we had lots of indoor time. Thank goodness for new toys to help pass the time. Legos were the hit. It took Timo a day or two to really understand the fullness of all Legos could do...now he is obsessed.  He literally spent hours at a time just building all sorts of cars, buildings, animals, anything all all.  I can see why Legos is such an empire now, it's addictive  you have to keep getting more and more so you can build bigger and better things!

A little creativity...marble ramps and Cameron drew a bunch of "roads" for her motorcycle.

Timo continued to perfect his military strategy with all his soldiers, cowboys and Indians.

Silly string!  A little stocking stuffer for them.  It was really fun but ran out really fast!

And the kids were enjoying their Star Wars pancakes from Daddy's Christmas gift...the gift that keeps on giving!

It was nice to have the Christmas/New Year break and have some solid family time of no schedules....but I was certainly glad when school was back in!

Future Worship Leader

One of Cameron's most treasured Christmas gift is her guitar.  She asked for a "rock star" guitar but I told her she had to start with something smaller first and she has been so happy with this little one...it's just her size.  She loves to sit and sing worship songs (like our church worship band members) and I think we have a future worship leader on our hands.  Amy, Sarah and Carmen...take note.  Now all we need are lessons...


MVI 9197 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Christmas from NC

When we got home from Tahoe we had some packages waiting for us from Uncle Kevin and Aunt Angie! Cameron was over the moon about her Cinderella dress. Even though she hasn't seen the movie, we've read the story and this is her first real princess dress. She immediately ran to her "trunk" and pulled out her shoes, crown and wand to accessorize.

And Uncle Kevin stocked Timo up on model airplanes!  Can you see how excited Timo is when he opened the package??

Thank you Kevin, Angie, Kaylee and Kenzie for our Christmas presents...they are perfect!!

Tahoe--Last Day

Our last day of vacation we tried to squeeze in as much fun as possible! The hotel had a "Bear Hide and Seek" each morning where they hide a stuffed bear somewhere in the living room for the children to find. Once you find him, you snap a picture with our phone camera, take it to the front desk and claim a prize. Well, we had been so lazy every morning, we got down too late to participate. Cameron made sure we were up and ready the last morning...she so wanted to find that teddy bear! It took quite a bit of searching, and a hint or two from other parents, but we finally found him. (we then played it forward and gave hints to other parents after us) The children picked out their little treasures, an angle puppy and Santa dog.

We went through the 10min process of getting all geared up to go out in the snow one more time.  We didn't have much time, just enough to stomp around a little more and take a family photo...

Young and I started the daunting task of packing while Timo and Cameron occupied themselves with Timo's new army soldiers...

It was sad to leave but we needed to get back to reality.  I honestly felt like we had escaped from reality for almost four days.  Prior to our trip I had made all these plans/activities for us including a museum trip, driving to Reno, maybe a drive around Lake Tahoe, but in the end, we did absolutely nothing but relax and have some amazing family time. We checked out of the hotel and drove to the town of Truckee to eat lunch and saw all brown, yucky snow...not the kind of snow we had been around the past few days.  But Truckee was a cute little town, we had a fantastic greasy hot lunch at a cute diner (did I mention how cold it was outside??) and we on our way home.  The drive back was much faster...3 1/2 hours.  I think we lucked out on our snowy vacation.  Tahoe hasn't received that much snow in the weeks following our trip.

Tahoe--Day 3

Our last full day in Tahoe was probably the best.  It wasn't snowing.  It was sunny, albeit cold, but sunny weather to get outside for a full day of play.  The Ritz resort is nestled in the mountains just above Northstar Village and is right on the ski slopes.  Most guests at the hotel were skiing, making it very tempting to put the kids in ski school and hit the slopes...but alas, we weren't really prepared to go skiing so it will have to wait another year.  We just headed out for another day of playing in the snow.  I taught Timo how to eat snow.  He loved it.

We did a little hiking up the ski trails...pretty steep hills and then the kids tried to run and slide down on their bellies.  Cameron kept calling herself a penguin!  We didn't really have room in our car for sleds but we might have to make room for next year...great sledding hills.

Cameron was ready to go in a take a break while Timo and Daddy went on a hike in the beautiful hills.  Timo wrote his name in the snow...

Cameron and I went in for some hot chocolate and craft time...picture frames!  The Ritz did such a good job having lots of activities for the kids.  Each day there was craft time with a hot chocolate bar (cocoa, whip cream, chocolate chips, etc), s'mores in the afternoons, movie nights and a hide and seek game every morning.  There was plenty to keep us busy.

After craft time, Young took the kids back out while I was able to spend some time in the spa.  I just relaxed in the hot tub, steam room and sipped tea in the relaxation room.  What a great husband I have!

When I reappeared to reality, there was a huge snow fort built outside the hotel with lots of kids running around! Young and the twins started building this fort and as time went on, more and more kids came over to join in the effort.  Timo, our social butterfly, had made lots of new friends by the end.

Guess who was right on time for 4pm s'mores!  We didn't miss the afternoon s'more...I felt like it was the hotel's job to keep us all hyped up on sugar the whole weekend!

We hoped on the Gondola to head back down to Northstar for some supper and ice skating but once we got down there we realized how cold it was...around 10 degrees.  So we gobbled down bowls of hot ramen noodles and wanted to get back to our warm hotel room.  And look what treat we had waiting for us from the hotel...like we need more marshmallows...

I wanted to return the favor to Young and offed him a few hours to go relax while I took the kids to movie night at the hotel.  We enjoyed popcorn and lemonade while watching Polar Express and Young took an dip in the outdoor heated swimming pool.  Having just been on the Polar Express, the kids were super excited to see the movie for the first time.  It did had a few "stressful' parts that Timo had a hard time with but he was a brave boy and made it through.

We finished our final night in Tahoe with a quick and very cold walk in the moonlight...it was a full moon!  The hotel was so pretty all lite up at night...