Last Saturday, we were supposed to have big storms. Robb and I had been talking about it along with the news and everyone else. The boys started asking questions about tornadoes and I felt bad that we were making them nervous. Their soccer games got rained out and I felt like we sat at home all day waiting for the storms to hit. We did get A Lot of rain but luckily that was about it. The kids went out to play in the standing water in our yard. Caleb went slip n sliding while the other kids stomped around in puddles.

Later that night we had movie night and Caleb decided he wanted to just sleep in the basement. I was worried that he would wake up scared so Robb slept down there with him. We all ended up downstairs later when the sirens went off at 11:30pm. I ended up carrying Abby, Bryce and Penny to the basement. It ended up just being some wind and rain. We were lucky! Our families in Norfolk were not as lucky, they had flooding, hail and wind damage. Hopefully this isn't the start of an eventful tornado season!

Easter

We had a great Easter weekend. Even though we just got back from vacation on Wednesday, we didn't want to miss out on seeing our families for Easter. So back to Norfolk we headed. We had Easter at my moms on Saturday. We had wonderful food and nice weather for an Easter egg hunt. The kids had fun playing with cousin Draven.
On Sunday we went to church in the morning and well... lets just say things could have gone better. Our kids are never very good in Norfolk when we go to church. I don't know if its the addition of a few fun cousins to chat with or the fact that grandma and grandpa are there so they don't think they can get in trouble. Needless to say it was a stressful service for me but a very nice service by Pastor Steve none the less. Then we headed back to eat at Lutz's. It was fun to see Grandma Hansen and Robb's Aunt Karen was there visiting also. We had a great meal and then headed outside for a little kite flying and egg hunting. The weather was very windy so it was fun to see the kids attempt to fly their kites from the Easter bunny.
Abby and I took a little nap and then we headed to my dads for Easter supper.
The kids had a blast playing on the acreage. Grandma Cindy had a surprise to show Abby. They had baby kitties the day before so Abby got to see brand new kitties. She was SO excited! She thought it was funny that they didn't even have their eyes open yet. Its a good thing Caleb is allergic to cats otherwise I think Abby would have adopted one of the Easter kitties.
We had a great meal and got to spend the evening outside riding the golf cart, playing with kitties, hunting eggs and hitting golf balls into the field.
Even though we were exhausted we had a fun Easter. We were very thankful that we got to spend it together as a family.
Happy Easter from Bryce, Caleb and Abby

Grandma and the crew

Bryce and Caleb trying to get an egg that uncle Mitch put way up in the tree.

Abby egg hunting

Family picture

The kids and Big kids flying kites

Abby and the Grandma's supervising the kite flying

Abby and Brook egg hunting

Bryce and Caleb trying to find the egg that had money in it.

Bryce

Caleb

Abby with her bunny ears that (soon to be) Aunt Courtney gave her

The whole group (HaHa Draven, my camera is faster than you. He hates pictures)

Abby and the baby kitties

Ski Vacation

Robb and I got to take our annual Vacation without the kids to Colorado. We went the weekend before Easter. This is a lot later in the year than we usually go, not to mention this year has been very unseasonably warm for March. It was nice not having to worry about driving there in a blizzard but the ski conditions weren't great either.
On Friday, we drove all day and got to Colorado around 5. We had to hit up my favorite outlet malls before heading over to our friends house. Robb was quite the shopping trooper as I drug him to store after store. I got a lot of great deals and some really cute clothes and shoes for the whole family. After Robb was done shopping for the night we headed to our friends Mark and Emily's house. It is always nice to see them!
In the morning we headed to the mountain to do some skiing and snowboarding. By the time we picked up my rental equipment and got all our gear together we ended up getting a late start, but we still had fun. I have never skied when it was so nice out. We wore sunglasses instead of goggles, no gloves and we could have done it without coats. Some of the spring breakers even thought it was nice enough to ski in bikinis. It was beautiful out but the ski conditions weren't so good. There were a lot of patches of dirt and rock and the snow they did have was pretty slushy. It took me a while to get used to skiing in it and it involved more falls than I have had in all the years combined of skiing. Oh well at least the slush made for a soft landing.
The next day was about the same conditions but we got an earlier start and had a great day on the mountain.
Day 3 of skiing was not as good. It finally got cold out and we got a little snow but mainly all it did was freeze the slush that we had been skiing on for 2 days. Now the nice soft ground was hard as a rock! Emily and I gave it a good try even though we were tired and sore to start with but after each taking a pretty good tumble in the first couple of runs we called it quits for the day. The boys of course were still going strong so we let them finish out the day while we shopped in Breckenridge.
It was a great vacation and we had a great time seeing friends we don't see often enough. I really missed the kids but I must admit it was really nice to have a break too. We got to do a lot of shopping, ate at some really fun places and it was nice to eat my meal while it was hot and to have adult conversation. This year was probably the last year of our Colorado Vacation. Next year we are planning on taking the kiddos and teaching them to love the mountains as much as we do. It makes me a little sad to be giving up our couples vacation but it will be fun as a Colorado Trip too. Now maybe I can talk Robb into taking me somewhere tropical for a Vacation!