Devils Lake Winter Hike

This weekend we took advantage of the warmer temps and the sun being out and went for a winter hike through Devils Lake State park.  The park is amazing full of trails and a huge lake.  It was so nice to be able to be outside and not be freezing and enjoy the fresh air!

Where we parked our car it was about a quarter mile of a walk to where the trail began.  Claire I think took three steps and asked to be on Andy's shoulders....

Drew luckily found a hiking stick that someone left in the parking lot.  However, he made it about twenty steps and needed to rest.... Andy and I both agreed... we didn't even know if we would be able to make it out of the parking lot.

At last we made it to the trails!  Both kiddos magically had tons of energy and we were off!

Claire also found a hiking stick and loved it

We hiked for over an hour (which was actually hard as the snow was deep!)  The views were beautiful of the lake and the kiddos did amazing.

Girls Weekend

This past weekend I had a weekend away with amazing college girlfriends.  We met up in our old stomping ground Cedar Falls for one night.  It was so much fun to catch up and to sleep in past 6am!!  Love these gals!

Badger Basketball

On Sunday afternoon we took the kiddos to their first Badger basketball game (as well as our first time!)  Our house is right outside a bus stop that will take us straight to the stadium.  The kiddos love riding the bus and it's a win-win as we don't have to deal with parking or traffic.

We had a wonderful time and look forward to our next game!

Claire and her baby waiting for the bus

Enjoying the relaxing bus ride

Outside the Kohl Center 

Drew and Claire did and amazing job at the game and actually watched it!!!  We were even on the 

jumbo tron!!

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The kiddos loved running into Bucky Badger

Ice Skating

This past week we took advantage of the nice weather and took the kiddos ice skating for the first time.  We went with some friends of ours and brought all the hockey gear!  

This was Drew and Claire first time ice skating and we were telling them that they might have to use the "walkers"  to learn how to skate when they first get onto the ice.  Well.... they proved us wrong and did not need them AT ALL!!!  They went off like they've bee doing this their entire life and we were amazed!!

We had a great time with great friends

Drew and his buddy Rowe enjoyed passing the puck 

Fearless Claire jumped right in and was ready for home hockey as well!

A Perfect Holiday!

This year we spent Christmas with Andy's family in MN.  We were so excited to go back as all of his brothers were home with their families and it's been way to long since we've all been together!

Madison was in the news to be hit by a large snow storm a few days before we were suppose to start our seven hour drive to MN, so we decided to to leave early.  Which was a great decision as as Madison was hit with 20 inches!!! 

As soon as we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's it was total spoiling!!  It started with fresh nail  polish for Claire with in five seconds of being there!

So this is Claire "helping" make the crust for our homemade Christmas Eve pizza!  The best part was Mary Lou (Andy's mom) and I just let her have at the flour and she had a blast in it!!

The cookies are ready for Santa and the kiddos are beyond excited!

Andy in his Christmas jammies Christmas morning

One of our daily activities in MN was ice fishing.  Let me be more specific...one of the boys daily activities was ice fishing!  

Andy's parents have a great set up for it owning two ice houses, so it's pretty comfortable!

(The boys walking out to the ice house on the frozen lake in the photo above)

One of the fishing houses has bunk beds in it and a heater!

The first morning out we caught 20+ fish!!!  

Andy's twin brother Aaron 

Andy could not ask for a better fishing buddy. Drew would fish ALL DAY.  He wakes up at 5 am with the big boys for the early bite and is usually dressed and standing at the door before them ready to go!

Drew caught this one!!!

There front yard is a perfect sledding hill!

Claire looking at the large hill she now has to walk up

Right behind his parents house is about 40 acres of woods!  We would take the four wheeler out and pull the kiddos on sleds

Something kind of sad, however beyond exciting was meeting our niece and Drew and Claire's cousin for the first time!!!  Parker was born while we were living in Spain and is just a year behind Claire.  The two of them were in heaven with each other.  I love the military life, however this is for sure the hardest part!!

Trouble....

To top off our perfect vacation Drew lost his first tooth!!!

Our holiday couldn't have been better

Gingerbread House Making

We were in Home Depot the other weekend and saw a Gingerbread kit and thought it would be fun.  The kiddos loved it and we got a good laugh out of it!

 

Helping with the frosting to make glue to help hold the house up

Then Andy thought he better look at the directions as something wasn't going right with the house and it wasn't standing up....

With a little more frosting and lot's of candy the house was coming right along!

Um.... the house became really heavy and Andy said it was "missing" peaces out of the box. 

(Or maybe it was assembled wrong...)

This is how the house was suppose to look..

And this is how ours turned out!

Snow Day!!!!

Last week we had our first accumulation of snow!  Drew and Claire woke up and went running to their windows to look and I think we were outside in less than an hour!

Andy had school unfortunately, however we took advantage of the fresh white powder and had a blast.

This snow was a little extra special for us as it was the "first" for many for Drew and Claire.  We would travel to other places in Europe during the winter months, however it would NEVER snow in accumulation!!!!! 

Some of our firsts were:

Building a snowman

Claire sledding for the first time

Teaching Drew and Claire what snow was safe and not safe to eat

Claire first snow angel

 

Living on the ocean and in tropical conditions most of our career, it's nice to be back with ALL of the seasons.

 

 

Eating snow

Drew was like Buddy off of the Elf and was a machine with making snow balls!!

Mean while Claire took the power wheel for a spin in the snow and LOVED it!

Snow angel...check...

FIRST snowman the kiddos have EVER built!

Claire's FIRST time going sledding!!!!  Drew was so good with her and helper talk her through going down the hill.  Once she did it once, she was hooked!!

 

We tried making a train!!