Christmas 2016

Christmas was lovely this year. I've done a great job of not writing about much of anything this year and now I must do a recap. I left you off with Greta being sick, which led to her not being able to go see Santa at the library. She was bummed, we were bummed but we still had one kid wanting to go. So Wesley and I went and had a jolly good time seeing the senior elf himself and Mrs. Claus too.

Then we celebrated Sean's birthday by going out to eat with my parents and opening presents. Sean had a nice birthday.

We did our traditional sugar cookie decorating the day before Christmas. The kids sure enjoy this!

We celebrated Christmas with my parents at home this year. Santa came and left some goodies for each kid. Wesley was very much into science kits and got his very first pocket knife and Greta loves her Shopkins. I received an Echo Dot which I'm thoroughly enjoying! Alexa tells me the weather and lets me listen to NPR programs that I have missed (love that Moth Radio Hour), love it!

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sick Greta

Poor Greta caught some bug and started having a fever on Saturday. It's now Wednesday and she's been home from school for three days. She's got a sore throat, fever and can't talk. Doctor checked her out yesterday and said it's probably just a virus. She's watched every Christmas movie on Netflix and decided to take a break from TV and play with my camera. She likes taking selfies apparently (which isn't easy to do with a traditional camera). These are my favorite.

The child's hair will need some serious help before heading back to school. Hehe. She did manage to take this gem of a picture of Winston. The dog is super difficult to photograph, he's always in motion....she did great.

Back to the doctor tomorrow to see if she has strep throat. Poor kid.

KC Trip

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Kansas City to celebrate my sister's 40th birthday. She wanted to celebrate it in the Embassy Suites hotel in the same manner that my father celebrated his 40th birthday there some 25 years ago. We were there for three nights and the kids sure enjoyed playing with their cousins, swimming and playing games.

We went and walked around Union Station on Thanksgiving morning knowing that everyone would be home cooking. It was deserted which was nice.

This is Wesley's "How you doin'?" look.

I love these boys looking into a little window filled with a festive Lego scene.

All made out of Lego's!

We hopped in the streetcar out in front of Union Station and made the loop. What a nice piece of free public transportation.

One of the stops takes you right to a Chinese grocery store and, on impulse, we decided to go see what it consisted of.

So in we ventured to the Chinatown Food Market. The smell as you enter was, umm, interesting? Memorable might be the word. Obviously everything was labeled in Chinese so it was a guess as to what its contents were. The live seafood room was so sad I couldn't even go in. Large aquariums with schools of catfish and other live fish all awaiting their fate. We did get a few items to try. Ginger candy was fabulous as were the strawberry cracker cookies.  All in all a good experience.

We went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving and had a nice traditional meal without all the cooking and clean up. Then on Friday we tried our hand at bowling. I hadn't bowled since college so I wasn't surprised when I sucked at it. Too bad it's not as easy as the bowling on the Wii. I was hopeful.The kids had a nice time bowling too. My kids had never been and Wesley really thought it was great. Greta gave it a try and decided it wasn't for her. I'm sure if we go locally as a family she'll warm up to it.