Bowling!

We have a nice bowling alley close by and the kids love going! Charlie's ball rolls about 1 mph, but he loves it and Meg is actually pretty good. We've had a lot of fun there.

Christmas photo op

I thought I would show an example of what it is like to take our family Christmas photo every year. Not too much fun!

Aunt Heather

The kids really enjoyed having Aunt Heather stay with us. It was a real treat for them. They couldn't wait to wake her up everyday. Her stay was far too short. She lives too far away! We hope she comes for another visit very soon!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was wonderful this year...my favorite holiday. Heather came to town as did Paul, Melissa and Matt. Melissa works at the famous Bethel Bakery now, so she brought the kids their very own Thanksgiving cake. It was amazing. Of course, the kids don't eat cake (don't ask me why) but they sure felt super special to have their names on a turkey cake. The rest of us enjoyed it very much!
Henry found Papa's belly to be rather comfortable, I'm not sure why???

The Blue Jackets!

When Joe and Marnie's family came to visit Tom's dad was able to get 10 box seat tickets to the Columbus Blue Jackets game! So, Jen and Rob took Calvin, Joe and Marnie took Joey and that left Tom and I and Dad Kiehl plus one more ticket. So, we thought we would take our big boy...Charlie! After getting over his initial fear of the height we were at, the noise, the blimp that kept floating by our heads, oh and the cannon that would shoot off when they scored...Charlie had a blast! Unfortunately the Blue Jackets lost after overtime and a shoot out, but it was still a ton on fun.

It was so fun to have Joe's family here. The kids love playing with their cousins so much. Meg said she wished that all of her cousins lived close by! We all do!

Halloween

What some people don't know, is that in Ohio, we do things a little differently. One example is Halloween and Trick-or-Treat. Most people would assume they are one in the same...but not in the Buckeye State! We like to mix it up a little. Trick-or-Treat is always on the Thursday before Halloween...why you might ask? We're not exactly sure of the answer, it just is. So, Joe & Marnie and the kids were coming to visit on the 30th of October, assuming their kids could Trick-or-Treat with all of us here. But, it wasn't that easy. After some research, we found that a few communities in the Central Ohio area were sticking to the tradition of Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, so we found one close to us so that Joe & Marnie's kids could still get some Trick-or-Treating in this year, and our kids could have double the fun and candy! Unfortunately there were several others thinking the same thing (getting twice the candy) and there were so many kids in this small community (most of which were commuting in like we were) and not enough candy to go around. Most houses were fresh out by the time we got there, so poor Maddie and Holland didn't get the best experience this year. But, we still had a lot of fun!

So, to explain the above picture: Maddie was a Spa Girl, Anson was a bat, Charlie the Great White Shark (not just a regular shark), Holland was Dorothy (ruby slippers and all), Chloe a beautiful witch and our flower fairy Meg. (The caterpillar was sleeping...again!)

More Trick-or-Treat