Getting Away

This past weekend was such a blast. The boys were staying at Grandma and Grandpa's for the night and Scott and I were off for a couple of days of alone time. It seemed like ages since we had quiet time just to us.

We headed a couple of hours down the road to the Cities to do a little shopping and catching up. Priceline was good to us and we were able to stay at the Crown Plaza in North Minneapolis. We were within a few miles of Downtown and some great shopping!

The room...

Special pillow scent and sleepy time CD...

Us...

Our first afternoon was great. We spent hours at the book store and then wandered over to National Camera Exchange much to my delight. It is always fun to dream about adding new tools to help with work.

The next day we headed south to IKEA to check out all the hype. The funny thing is we didn't really find anything for the house but we did discover that their food was pretty good. The Scandinavian heritage was showing it's colors for a moment. With our bellies full of delicious meatballs, potatoes, and gravy we head downtown the the Minneapolis Art Museum. This was my favorite spot so far in our trip. I have always wanted to go and walk through and now I was able to do that with my loving hubby.

By this point and time I was starting to think the day couldn't get any better. Well, I was way off the mark with that thought. Scott drove us back to a mall complex near our hotel for a dinner at Buca's and then a movie. The food was amazing and the movie even better. If you get a chance to go out to a movie in the next few weeks we would highly recommend going to see "The Bucket List." We have not laughed and cried so hard at a movie in a long time.

Well, we are now back home and enjoying the memories of our little getaway and looking forward to the next time we can do it again. We have a family tripped planned in the next few weeks to get together with Scott's family and cousins on his mom's side. It is a great tradition we look forward too every year.

Blessings!
Shelly

New Year's Bowling

It is two days later and the muscles are still sore from going bowling. Guess the old saying of "no pain, no gain" come into this one. It has been ages since we all went out and knocked around some pins together as a family. We were joined by Jay and Rochelle and their little cuties. Talk about a FUN time.

Thanks for the laughs guys. We need to do it again soon!

Family Time - Round 2

It has been a week filled with lots of family and friends. Yesterday we got to spend the day celebrating Christmas with the Allex/Krause side of the family. Everyone came over for dinner and then an afternoon playing in the snow. It was a wonderful way to also celebrate my birthday! (Shelly) We had lots of goodies and lots of laughs.

Here's a photo and video from the day:

We have had a great time gathering together with all the extended families this past week. It is sad to see this time come to an end. There has been lots of talk this year of getting together more often. Let's make some plans to get together again soon!

Next Gen Photographer?

Ah...this is what I like to see. It is ten at night and Sean is sitting down and reading "The Missing Manual: Photoshop Elements 5". I don't know what to say, but it was really awesome to see. How do you tell them it is bedtime when they are sitting down with a program manual?


Since we have been homeschooling these are the moments that make it all worth it. The moments when they are learning and preparing for the future and it's fun!

Christmas Joy

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:1-14

May you find the peace and joy of the Christ this Christmas season.

Family Time

Spending time with family and friends is one of our favorite things. Last night we celebrated Christmas with the Wiethoff side of the family. We enjoyed a great meal, good fellowship, and a couple of competitive rounds of bowling on the Wii.

Here are some of the photos from our little get together.


Our family...


Our family chaos...


Gramarazzi!!


Grandma with photo blanket of the grandkids.

Killer Night

Last night was killer! We had the opportunity to attend Scott's Christmas party for work and we had the best time. Over the course of the week we have been receiving envelopes with information on the characters we were to play for the evening.

As you can see I was Sophia and my hot date for the night was Vitto - aka Scott. So off we went to find the killer or to hide the fact that maybe, just maybe one of us did the dirty deed. No one but the actual killer knew that truth. Falling into character was easy. It is taking the heat for those characters, well that is a whole new post.

We spent the first hour or so interrogating each other before having to cast our vote on who did it. I would encourage you to check out the company who helps put these types of events together. Murder Mystery Maniacs They have lots to choose from.

Once our votes were cast we then moved on to a delicious meal and great fellowship for the rest of the evening. Before we headed out for the evening we had the opportunity to check out the rest of the lodge the party was hosted at. It was amazing. It has all the makings for a great getaway.

Thanks for hosting a great party Todd and Amber. It was a great time!

Here is some additional pictures.