Happy 30th Heather!

Monica, me, Heather (L to R)

Last night we went to Heather's 30th birthday party at a local pool hall. We had a great time.

Heather had a lot of family and friends there. Probably around 75 people all in all. It was really a great party - we had a ton of fun. It looked like Heather was having a great time, too!

After a few drinks, the guys were busy trying to decide if this person across the poolhall was a man or a lesbian. lol Then later a girl arrived wearing a "Single" tshirt - another quite comedic episode of the Matt and Dan show. lol

Me and Matt
Here are Monica and Dan. One of the few pictures I have of them where Dan is not making silly faces. :)

Here is Heather with her mom. Her mom had just gotten out of the hospital with a staph infection. We were SO glad to see her up and moving around.

Another Snow day with cousins!

Ally, Anna, Ellen, and Tommy getting ready to celebrate Ellen's birthday with a Princess cake!

Anna and Ellen. Ellen is the one on the right. She turned 5!

Ally and Tommy got another snow day! :) They were so excited to play in the snow, not to mention play with their cousins! They all had a great time! They were together to celebrate Ellen's birthday, so not only did they all get cake, but they got to do their favorite thing - play in the snow!!!A few weeks ago, Ally was sent home with a bag full of goodies from school. Each child was supposed to build a snowman and then send a picture in for the class bulletin board. We made ours at Grandma and Grandpa K's house. We had some of the goodies from her teachers and Grandma had a few extra things to add to it. It was a lot of fun. We had a great time.

Matt made a snow fort for the kids. They loved helping build it and had a great time playing in it. It was such a great day. I know the kids will remember this for a long time!

All 4 kids are in there -it's hard to see them all, but they are there!

VACATION!!!

For those of you who don't know, Matt and I are getting a free cruise from his work! It's actually given by the vendors that his company uses, but the employer chooses a select few to go on the reward trips each year. We were selected to go before Christmas. It is just for me and Matt and it includes airfare and the cruise. Originally we were told we would be alone, but it turns out that another couple is also going on the same cruise we will be on - the owners of the company were offered a trip to Germany and passed on it, so they were rewarded with an extra cabin on the cruise. So technically we aren't along - there is another couple that will be on the cruise too. I don't know them too well, but Matt said they are nice and aren't the clingy type. lol This is a nice vacation for us at this particular time in our lives because we are in our 10th year of marriage. So we were glad to have the cruise to ourselves, but oh well. We're not doing any of the same excursions as they are, so i'm sure we'll get enough time to ourselves.

The trip is in April and it's going to St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Princess Cays. The cruiseline is Princess and the ship is the Caribbean Princess. I hear wonderful things about the line as well as this particular ship.
We are doing an Island ATV tour on St. Maarten. St. Maarten is a very diverse island - half is dutch and half is french. So it should really be interesting to see the differences.
On St. Thomas, we will be going to Turtle Cove for snorkeling. We've loved Snorkeling when we've done it in the past and this particular adventure is supposed to have endangered sea turtles. Pretty cool!

The best part of it all is that all expenses are paid and we get $400 to spend! :) :) I know we'll have to bring extra, but that is just great! At least it covers our automatic tips and shore excursions! The extra money we bring will be for drinks (food is included, but soda and alcohol are not) and souvenieers. How can you go wrong with a trip that is almost completely paid for?!

The hard part will be leaving the kids. They will be in great hands, though. My parents and matt's parents will be helping out while we are gone. I will miss them, but I know that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I know that once the kids start having fun with their grandparents, the week will go by really quickly. I've bought a couple little things for them to have while we are gone. I bought each a game for their Leapsters (bought 'like new' on ebay for a GREAT price!!). I also bought them each a webkinz to keep them company while we are gone. I decided to do a scavenger hunt to lead them to one of their presents. Kind of a fun little project for them. I know we will miss them, but I just keep reminding myself that it's only 7 out of 365 nights.
I have contacted my cell phone carrier. We have international calling on our phone and we had it activated. The bad thing is that it's $5.00 PER MINUTE to use my cell from the ship!! I told my mom that i'm going to have to call them before bed, so i'll probably have to have my mom put the kitchen timer on and let me talk to each child for only 2.5 minutes each night before bed. When we are on St. Thomas, the calls are not extra (just bucket minutes) and St. Maarten and Princess Cays are $1.49/minute. So the only time it's $5.00 is at sea. If we were to call from the ship's phone, it's $9.00 per minute!! YIKES!

Well, that's all about that. Look forward to my pictures when we return! :)

Snow Day!!

Today was a snow day! Yesterday, we were warned that it might snow today, so we ran out and got some warm mittens so the kids would be able to play in the snow today. They were so excited when they woke up and saw all that snow! :)