Happy (SURPRISE) Birthday, Becky!

We celebrated Becky's 30th Birthday today! We planned a surprise party at Mr. B's in downtown Royal Oak. Becky was very surprised and had no idea of the party we had planned for her! I hope you had a great 30th birthday Becky! See some pictures here!

Wisconsin Dells Vacation!

Andy and I have been wanting to take a small vacation with the boys this summer, but couldn't figure out where to take a both boys and enjoy ourselves as well. I found this place called Wisconsin Dells, which is called the water park capital of the world. Jacob has always loved swimming and playing in the water and since we started taking Sam to the beach this summer it looks as though he is going to follow his brother with his love of the water. The only drawback was the drive---8 hours! But, we decided to go for it. We left at about 2:00 Thursday afternoon and had a pretty smooth drive. Sam did much better than we expected and we made it to our resort at about 11:00. We stayed at Chula Vista Resort, which was a beautiful place. It had it's own indoor and outdoor water park, plenty of restaurants, golf course (which we didn't use, but looked nice), and our room was perfect for us. The resort was a few miles away from downtown area, but we wanted to get the nature part of the Wisconsin Dells in too.

Friday
We had a nice big breakfast at the buffet in the resort and then got ready for the largest water park in the United States, Noah's Ark Water Park. We had a perfect day of high 80's and lots of sun. Sam and I played a lot at the kiddie areas while Jacob and Andy went down the larger water slides. Jacob's favorite was the Black Anaconda. Sam really like the swing in the water at the kiddie area. We even all got to go on a bigger water slide together, the Congo Bongo. Jacob and Andy really liked the huge wave pool, Sam wasn't so sure of it, so we sat at the front and lets the waves splash us. Jacob and Sam both loved going down the Slidewinders slides. Sam went on Andy's lap and just loved it, he was running back up the steps to go again before Andy could catch up with him! We also all went on Flash Flood, which was very quick and Jacob wasn't so sure of it, but it cooled us all off! After about eight hours of swimming and playing we went back to the resort for some dinner. And you would think that we have had enough water, but nope we headed over to the indoor water park at the resort. Jacob and Sam played in the kiddie area. Sam loved spraying Jacob with the fun sprayers they had. Then Jacob got Sam to go down one of the kiddie slides and it only took a couple times before Sam was racing Jacob to go back up again! Then we all went on the lazy river together before they closed. We all were exhausted from such a fun filled day and the boys were asleep within minutes of getting back to the room.

Saturday
We got up and ready for another fun day. They had a Starbucks at the resort, so we just had a quick breakfast with some coffee and the boy's got some hot chocolate. The weather didn't look so great this day, but we still headed off to another large water park which included an amusement park, Mt. Olympus Theme Park. Andy and Jacob went on some go karts, which they enjoyed. There really wasn't as much for Sam to do and since we thought it was going to rain, we didn't go towards the water park area. Unfortunately it really started raining, so we called it quits and headed to the car. I wish that we could have gotten to the water park area, but hopefully there is always next time. We thought we would check out the downtown area in between the rain. There were lots of your usual t-shirt and souvenir shops. Andy wanted to try out Culvers, which he saw on the Food Network, so we had some lunch there. The boy's got an airbrushed t-shirt and we went into this huge candy store. Then we headed back to the resort and went back to the indoor water park. Sam loved the kiddie water slides and was up and down them more times than I could count. Jacob relaxed in the hot tube for awhile and Andy went down the larger water slides. We all rode the lazy river again and after a few hours we could tell that the boy's were getting tired. We got cleaned up for some pizza for dinner and called it a night.

Sunday
We relaxed in the morning and then got ready to leave. We left the resort at about 11:30, drove for a little while and stopped for a big lunch at Cracker Barrel (Andy's favorite vacation restaurant). Sam did great on the ride home and Jacob read some books and played his handheld Nintendo.

We really had a great time. It wasn't a relaxing vacation, but then we didn't plan it to be. It was great to spend some time all together as a family and just have some fun!

Here are all the pictures. (I really didn't take as many as I thought I would.)

And some videos...
Sam Swinging in the Pool
Jacob, Sam and Andy Water Slide
Sam and Andy Water Slide

Fun with Kelsey & Lucy

Kelsey and Lucy were visiting with Lynda and Ed for a few days this week and so Jacob and Sam got to spend a lot of time with their cousins. Jacob loved having them to play with and Sam just kept them going and going. Here are a couple pictures that Lynda took one day.