Great Wolf Lodge

Every time we drive into Kansas City, we drive right past Great Wolf Lodge, a big hotel and indoor water park.  The boys can see the giant slides coming out of the building, so they knew it would be a fun place to stay.  Last Friday, Dan had the day off and so did Zach, so we decided to spend Thursday night there.  Friday also happened to be my birthday and I couldn't think of a better way to turn 35 than to be surrounded by lots of wet children.  Ha!

Dan and Ben LOVED the slides, unsurprisingly.  It was quite a process to climb up the treehouse to slide down the big slides, but Dan and Zach probably made the trek 20 times.  Ben gave up after a couple of times and stuck to the toddler slides.  And that was just fine with me because it meant that I could sit on the side of the pool and watch!

Friday morning we headed to IHOP for breakfast because the boys could eat for free with their GWL wristbands.  Ben tucked into chocolate chip pancakes and Dan enjoyed his funny face pancakes.  Then we hit the pool again for an hour or so before checking out and heading home.  It was a great little stay-cation, our last as a family of four!

(Sorry about the picture quality in the pool area--it was very humid in there and my lens kept fogging!)

Easter Egg Train

When I made the reservations for the Easter Egg Train at Midland Railway in Baldwin City, I had no idea that the ride would be more like the Polar Express.  Rain and snow were in the forecast, but not until later in the evening.  Wrong!  It started snowing as we were driving and just got heavier and heavier the closer we got to the train.  I tried to soften the blow for Dan and Ben in case the train ride and egg hunt were cancelled, but I should have known that train aficionados are hardy folk and they weren't going to cancel just because of a little snow.

My parents drove up from Wichita to join us and the conductor even held the train for them because they were a few minutes late.  We rode the train for 11 miles (about 40 minutes at a slow pace) to a tiny town called Norwood (really just a small station and a few houses) and then did an egg hunt in the snow.  It proved a little more challenging than your average "hide eggs in plain sight in a field" hunt because the eggs were buried in the snow.  I hunted with Ben and Zach hunted with Dan.  The promise of candy kept Ben interested in hunting but Dan gave up after picking up four eggs.  He wanted to get back on the warm train and I don't blame him.

The Easter Bunny also made an appearance on the train so we did the obligatory photo shoot.  On the way back, Dan and Ben plowed through their candy and were quite hyper by the time we returned to the station.  It was still snowing, but we were starving so we headed to an Indian restaurant in Lawrence.  Thanks for the early birthday dinner, Mom and Dad!  Ben ate his body weight in lentils, chickpeas, and garlic chicken, and Dan really enjoyed his strawberry lassi.

We had a great time, making memories on a snowy train ride, but I'm ready to be done with winter for  a while.  A long while, since I doubt we'll see much snow in southern California!

Zach wanted me to mention that the stuff on his shoulder is snow, not dandruff. 

A sprinkle for me!

Even though this is our third baby, I've never really had a traditional baby shower.  So my sister and my aunt were wonderful enough to throw me a little "sprinkle."  Everything was just perfect!  Layne and Aunt Earlyn did a fantastic job with the food and the decorations and the games and everything else!  Layne's new house looked great and I'm glad she got to show it off to people for the first time.

I received some much-needed presents, like a stroller base, a new diaper bag, diapers, adorable gender-neutral clothes, and lots of Amazon gift cards.  Thanks to Granny Rash, this baby will even have a new bath towel, blanket, and stuffed animal that aren't hand-me-downs.

The best presents were from Grandma Randolph--two handmade quilts, one if the baby is a boy and one if the baby is a girl.  She made four quilts each for my sisters and me (guess she really wanted 12 great-grandchildren).  Dan and Ben already have theirs, so these are the last two for me.  Maybe we'll have to have Baby #4 somewhere down the line.  Ha!

We played some fun games, none of which involved smelling chocolate bars in diapers, thank goodness.  My aunt Chris and I won the pop culture baby name quiz, mostly thanks to my amazing ability to remember useless stuff.  And since we don't know the gender of the baby, Layne found a lot of foolproof (to 50% accuracy) methods of determining gender.  I think the final outcome was GIRL, but barely.  So we'll see in just three short weeks....

I also have to mention how delicious all the food was.  Layne really outdid herself with everything, and it was all possible thanks to Aunt's financing. A true team effort made for a really special day!

36 1/2 weeks!

New goggles

Until recently, Dan has resisted wearing goggles in the pool.  But the other day when his swim teacher put them on him, he didn't fight her (of course) and has since become even more of a fish in the water.  I feel like now he is really, actually, swimming and not just treading water with forward motion.  So instead of using lost & found goggles, we bought him some of his very own.  And, of course, whatever Dan needs, Ben just has to have too.  At the time, I didn't realize that I bought dark lens goggles for Ben, but they're pretty hilarious on him, so we kept them.

The first day we bought them was not a swim lesson day, so Dan and Ben broke in their new goggles in the bathtub.  And I think they've worn them in there every day since!

Sledding fun

On Saturday, we hauled out our hand-me-down sleds and found a great hill on the base to have some fun.  Leavenworth is probably one of the hillier towns in Kansas (unlike Wichita, which has pretty much one manmade hill that everyone sleds on) so we had this whole area to ourselves.  Dan and Ben had fun for about 10 trips down the hill and then they got cold and tired.  I'm not quite sure why they were tired since Zach and I carried the sleds and them up the hill each time.  Dan especially does not like being cold.  Maybe that's a product of being born in Hawaii? In this video, Ben does take a bit of a header, but he was fine, so don't worry too much.  If you listen closely, you can hear Dan giggling when Ben eats it at the bottom of the hill!

Snow day!

Yesterday was a snow day!  The snow was supposed to start in the middle of the night on Wednesday night, but it didn't actually begin until about 7:30 Thursday morning.  But it didn't disappoint--I think we got like four inches in the first couple of hours.  Then it snowed off and on all day and we got around 10 inches altogether.  Zach found out on Wednesday that his school was cancelled for Thursday so we were prepared to hunker down and ride out the snow.

Zach was especially excited to build a pillow fort for the boys.  I think he had high expectations that it would entertain them for hours, but they were only interested for about 15 minutes.  But it was really fun for those 15 minutes!  We also made cookies, played outside in the afternoon, and built a really sweet railroad track on the floor.  All in all, it was a great day to just stay inside and relax while the world turned white around us.

(And since we found out that we're moving to San Diego this summer, being stuck inside for one snow day didn't seem so bad!)