Fun at the Dells

Well here it is -- time to head home soon. So I thought I'd create a little synopsis of our visit here. Remember, this blog is mostly for myself so I can get better at journaling for my scrapbooking, so I apologize if this is boring to any of my readers!

After arriving on Sunday, we spend some time exploring the layout of the resort, and finding all the necessary spots like waterparks and arcades. For supper, we took the boys for their first Japanese hibachi meal at Ginza of Japan. They very much enjoyed the show, but neither one ate very much. Nathan actually enjoyed the shrimp appetizer the most. Unfortunately, the chicken was the very last thing the chef cooked, so the boys got their meals last and were not interested in eating much by that time. We took their food back to the hotel and had the leftovers for lunch.

Monday morning was our first trip to one of the waterparks, and we choose the one with the lazy river. In the afternoon, I took the boys to see "The Tale of Despereaux" at a neearby movie theater and gave Mark a "break." Supper Monday was one of our Dells favorites -- Moosejaw. They have excellent pizza, and microbrewed beer. Even I had a Raspberry Cream Ale. Yum.

After supper, the boys wanted to go back to a waterpark. Nathan wanted the lazy river again, but Matthew wanted to try the one with the wave pool. So we split up, and I took Matthew to the "Great Wave." BIG mistake. It started out nicely enough, bobbing around on the waves. But I probably went out a little too far, and some rowdy teenagers purposefully bumped into us and knocked us over. Matthew is not into "real" swimming, but I was able to get my feet and scoop him up almost immediately. I was very proud that he wanted to get right back on the tube, and even wanted his own single tube. But we didn't venture far out into the water for the next round of waves, and that turned out to be another mistake. A big one came and knocked him right over again, and because we were so shallow, he got scrapped up on both elbows, one knee, and his back. Poor guy! That was it for the wave pool. Matthew says he will NEVER go back. The waves really were bigger than I expected. You know those moments as a parent where you wish you could turn the clock back and re-do certain things? This was certainly one of those for me. I don't know how I could have protected him in the wave pool any more than I did, but I wish we had gone to the other waterpark. Anyway, one $3 ice cream sandwich from the snack bar later, and he was feeling much better about things!

Tuesday morning, we headed back to the waterpark again (the lazy river one!). Then after lunch, I got to go shopping by myself while Mark and the boys spent time at the indoor play park and arcade. I went to the Tanger outlet mall nearby, and found some deals for the boys at Old Navy and for myself at Eddie Bauer. Then I went to my favorite little souvenier shop that is open in the winter -- Aunt Jenny's -- and got us all new Wisconsin Dells shirts. I had given my old size XXL sweatshirt away and was happy to get a new medium one in pink. Nathan got a sweatshirt also, and Mark and Matthew got T shirts.

After much discussion, we decided to head to Monk's for supper. It was snowing by then, and we wanted to stay close to the resort. The boys had mac & cheese, Mark had a burger, and I had a black bean burger. YUMMY!! The boys meals were served on frisbees, which they got to take home. Then, it was BACK to the waterpark. We never even made it to the 3rd park, because they liked the lazy river so much. But I was very cold. There were fewer people in the waterpark in the evening, and they have a pool and a hot tub that connect to the outside, so the cold air gets in, and I was feeling it. So we didn't last very long, but it was a nice ending to the trip. Back at the room, I gave the boys baths to get the chlorine off and lotioned them up before getting into their pj's.

So this morning, we'll pack up and head home. We have food to eat breakfast in the room, but as part of our dinner discussion last night, I promised Matthew we'd have breakfast at Denny's this morning so he can have an omlet. We ate breakfast and lunch in the room for the past 2 days, so I don't mind buying one breakfast. But first we have to get this room picked up and packed. I swear the boys packed all of their webkinz, as well as other toys, so it looks like a lot of work, but it will go quickly. Mmmmm, I can taste that omlet already!!

At the Dells

We made it to Wisconsin Dells! After a late start yesterday morning and a quick stop in Oshkosh for lunch, we made it to our resort safely. The roads weren't too bad. We are at Glacier Canyon Lodge at the Wilderness Resort. I was worried we'd have to drive to the other building to get to the waterparks, but they've got walkways between the buildings, so it's just a nice long indoor walk to get to wherever we need to go. We wouldn't even have to leave the building for the length of our stay, except we like to get dinner off site, and I like to get to the outlet mall for a little shopping!

I logged in this morning planning to get a little work done, but I cannot access my virtual network for work. It won't be terrible, and I can at least to an e-mail check, but I won't get my daily reports done for the next 3 days. Oh well. Not too much of a loss. At least now I have a little time to update the blog!

Back to the Wilderness. They have 3 indoor waterparks, a dry indoor play area with lots of climbing and balls, and a couple of arcades. Our plan was to start at a waterpark this morning, but they don't open until 10:00, so Mark took the boys to the arcade first. Then we'll try the waterpark with the lazy river. My boys are not into the slides at all, which is a bummer, because I am! But they enjoy floating along the lazy river and bobbing in the wave pools. So we're just looking forward to a nice relaxing couple of days before heading home on Wednesday. I did bring my camera, but will not take it into the water areas, so I'm not sure how many pictures I'll get, but I'll post some in a few days. Until then.......

Poor Nathan

Here's an update on Nathan's health. After my posting yesterday, Nathan woke up from his nap with a 103 degree fever. I managed to get him to eat a little bit (he'd only eat a cookie, and choose one of Auntie Cheri's cut-outs) so I could give him some Motrin. He started to feel a little bit better, but insisted on sleeping in mommy's bed -- which I only let the boys do when they are sick. So with Mark on the couch for the night, I settled in with Nathan. He coughed a lot during the night, but didn't really wake up, and I could hear him wheezing.

The doctor also heard wheezing and could tell his lungs were tight, so he got an Albuterol treatment in the office and a chest X-Ray. No pneumonia, but he felt there could be some bronchitis settling in. So we were sent home with prescriptions for an antibiotic and Xopenex. The Xopenex is similar to Albuterol, but usually the kids don't get as wired as they can with the Xopenex. In the office, he was literally jumping around the office, and even said to me "Mommy, why am I jumping?" It didn't even dawn on me that it was the Albuterol until the doctor said he'd prescribe the Xopenex for that reason. He's had one treatment of the Xopenex this afternoon, and it didn't seem to wire him like the Albuterol did, which is good!

Matthew insisted on going to the store to look for a new Wii game with his Christmas money. That kid just doesn't like the money to stay in his wallet very long! I didn't mind because I wanted a new memory card and a rechargeable battery for my new camera, so we did end up going to Office Max and Best Buy this afternoon. Matthew found a jeep game and a set of controllers with a wheel, tennis racket, bat, etc. He was happy and still had a little money left over, so all is well!

So now it's just a waiting game to see how Nathan is feeling on Sunday. The doctor didn't see a need to stay home if he was feeling up to the trip -- although we'll need to bring the nebulizer with us for his breathing treatments. I'm fine with that, as long as he's feeling up to going. He usually doesn't let anything keep him down for long, and he's not a complainer, so my guess is that unless something drastic happens in the mean-time, we're probably still going to the Dells. I'll keep you posted.....

Christmas Day

Another wonderful day. I did the counting this morning, and figured out that we had 21 people over yesterday (My mom & dad; Jeff, Cheri, Jena, Brittney; Karil, Todd, Kim, Ali, Quest; Janet, Craig, Jessica, Christopher, Alexis, Alicia; Mark & I, Matthew, Nathan). Mom made sure to get family photos of each of their children with their families. I can't wait to get copies -- it's really something special to get the entire family together these days! Especially with many of them in college. Oh, I have to mention that my niece Brittney heads to Brisbane Australia for her next semester of college. You go girl!! She is at this moment working toward becoming a Nurse (RN). I think that's wonderful.

Anyway, on to today. After doing the math, I determined that we again had 21 people, only we swapped part of my family for Mark's this time around. So today we had: My mom & dad; Jeff, Cheri, Jena, Brittney; Janet & Craig; Grandma Doris (Mark's mom); Mark's Uncle Nick & Aunt Gladys; Mark's cousin Bob and his son Mitchell; Mark's sister Karen, husband John, kids Kirsten and Tyler; and our family of 4. Whew! Different menu though. Special thanks and love to Cheri for being my chief helper in the kitchen -- I couldn't have done it without you!

This morning, Mark and I were awakened by 2 little boys exclaiming "there are presents under the tree! Santa was here! Can we open them?" Mind you, this was at exactly 5:00 a.m. I told them to go back to bed and they could open presents at 6:00. Well of course, they never went back to bed, but instead came in our bedroom every 5-10 minutes until I finally dragged myself out of bed at 6:00 to let them open presents as promised. The family received a Wii from Santa. In addition, Matthew got a new MP3 player and an I Dog, and Nathan got an Eye Clopse and Commander Sun for his Planet Heros collection. In addition to many other things. I hope these boys know how lucky they truly are to get all these wonderful toys.

Nathan's cough is getting worse and he's starting to complain of a sore throat, plus he's running a fever. He is at this moment sound asleep on the couch, where he's been for the last 2 hours. Poor thing. I already called Theda Care on call to schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning. When we were in on Monday for the Pink Eye, the doctor heard a very small wheeze but didn't feel it was necessary to expose him to any radiation unless the cough got worse. So here I am fearing pneumonia and/or strep. And we're supposed to go to Wisconsin Dells on Sunday for 3 nights! So I'm getting him checked out, because there is no way I'm taking him to the Dells without knowing for sure what's going on. Poor kid. What a trooper though -- he never compains.

Matthew is having a blast, moving from one new toy to another. He's been ripping CD's onto his new MP3 player, playing Wii, and even playing some Play Station 2 games (which is now hooked up in their bedroom with the Wii in the family room). I know, I know -- they are 2 very lucky little boys! He's been very very good these last 2 days, and I'm glad he's keeping himself entertained while Nathan and Daddy are both napping and I can blog and do whatever I like -- which I think will be a very early bed time for me tonight. Unless of course Nathan wakes up and has a second wind by then. Oh well, I will deal with whatever comes.

We are truly blessed. To everyone reading this blog who helped us celebrate this Christmas, thank you for making it a special one. I was happy to have each and every one of you. May you all have a peace-filled and blessed 2009!!

Christmas Eve

We hosted Christmas for the "Block" family. It was a wonderful day. All the kids and grandkids were there, which made it really special. Poor Nathan had been diagnosed with Pink Eye on Monday, and started up with a cough today, which was getting worse by bedtime. Hopefully he gets a good nights sleep so he's feeling good in the morning. Santa's already been here, and I cannot wait for the boys to see what he brought. Santa came early for me, and left me a new digital camera. Matthew then took over my old camera, and actually took some pretty nice shots before spending the rest of the afternoon making videos of his Webkinz using the video clip mode. Oh well, it kept him busy. Here are some random shots of the day.

Baking Christmas Cookies

Here's how I spent most of the day on Tuesday. I should have been spending more time cleaning, but hadn't gotten any baking done and wanted the boys to decorate cookies. I don't know why I made so darn many cookies!! But it was fun and the boys enjoyed decorating the cut-outs.

Random Layouts

Here are a few random layouts. The subject matter of most of my layouts is usually my boys. But a little over a year ago, I started an album about me and my family. These are 3 out of the only 4 layouts I've gotten done for that album. After starting it, I promised myself to catch up on the boys' albums before proceeding with my own. I don't think that will ever happen.

Nathan's 5th Birthday Portraits

Here are a few shots taken at Sears on November 30. Nathan turned 5 the next day.

Fox River Mall Santa

Here are Matthew and Nathan with Santa. Funny story about this picture. We were at the mall for our appointment at Sears portrait studio for Nathan's birthday shots. We got there early, so decided to see Santa first. There was NO line! I made sure it was okay for the boys to sit on Santa's lap (since they're getting so big), then the lady took 3 pictures. Santa was sneezing on the only one where the boys looked good, so she said since there was nobody in line, we could re-take them, but we'd lose the 3 already taken. I said "go for it!" At that exact moment, their camera/computer set up decided to crash. We stood there for close to 30 minutes while they got tech support on the phone and got the system working again. We re-took the pictures, choose this one, and they gave it to me for FREE! Not one penny! I usually just get a 5 x 7 and the disc so I can print my own, and that is usually around $30 with tax. I told Mark "I'll wait 30 minutes for free pictures any day!"

Giving the Blog thing a try

OK, so here I am giving this blog thing a try (again). My last attempt failed -- I set up a page on the Lutherans on Line site, and never returned. Hopefully, I'll be more successful with this one! My main reason for blogging is to create a sort of journal that I can return to later when I'm scrapboooking. I'm a HORRIBLE journaler -- my pages consist of lots of pictures but not many words. I know it's important to tell the story behind the pictures, so I'm trying to get better at journaling. Plus having this blog will be a nice way to share some of my digital scrapbooking layouts. We'll see. Anyway, if you enjoy my blog, please let me know. Or if you have any ideas or suggestions I could try, I'm always willing to hear new ideas.

About the Marcia & Mark Thompson family. We live in Darboy, Wisconsin. However, Darboy is too small for a post office, so we have an Appleton mailing address, and the boys go to school in the Kimberly district. Our 2 sons are Matthew, 8, and Nathan, 5. Matthew and Nathan are the subjects of most of my scrapbooking pages, but I'm trying to branch out a little and start scrapping my own life. Yea, right. We'll see how much time I have for that! :)