Goodbye 2010

Here is a look back at 2010

Merry Christmas

We had a Merry Christmas here in the Bear Household. On Christmas Eve we went to church. Sister loves to wear a dress, so she was all excited to wear a dress to church, the only problem is right now she wants to wear short sleeves shirts all the time. Its a little chilly to be wearing short sleeves. She was quiet the whole time during church. She loves the music. After church we came home and watched Home Alone 2 for probably the fifth time. The kids got out the cookies and milk for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer. We leave the milk in the refrigerator and put the cup of it out right before we go to bed, that way Santa has nice cold milk. Brother was told to not wake Sister up in the morning

He is an early riser and if she is left alone will sleep in. So Sister did not awaken until 9:15. I know it was painful to Brother to have to stay in his room until she got up. Once Sister woke up they came into our room and climbed into bed with us. Then began the chore of waking Papa Bear up. After everyone was up we went downstairs and opened presents.

Gramma and Granddad came over around noon and spent the day with us. It was nice to have family over. We didn't have a white Christmas though, but that was ok.

Bye Bye Baby Gate

It seems like just the other day(this picture was taken April 2008) we were putting the gate up so she couldn't get upstairs

Now we've taken it down because it didn't serve a purpose anymore. Sister could unlock it and open it. There's no need to keep her off the stairs. It's nice to go up/down the stairs without bumping the gate or having to step over the bottom part of the bar. However, I do miss hanging my wet laundry over it like I sometimes did when I was too lazy to go right upstairs put it on hangers in our bathroom doorway.

HO HO HO

So we set off Friday evening to have the Santa picture taken. Sister Bear has seen Santa at the mall a handful of times. However, she wants no part of sitting on his lap. I really wanted them to have a picture with Santa though. Brother tried to coax sister to sit on Santa's lap with him but a firm NO was always her response. So I thought what if Santa stands behind the chair and they sat in the chair. Sister was not so sure about that either. She had an idea. She wanted Santa behind the chair and Brother sitting in the chair and she would stand in front of the chair. A safe buffer. OK.

Well, after waiting, this year only 25 minutes compared to last years 2 hours, it was our turn. I told the photographer that there would be no sitting on the lap. He had Santa step away while Brother sat in the chair. The chair was big enough that I convinced Sister to sit in the chair with Brother. Santa came and stood behind the chair and a picture was quickly taken. No tears, no look of utter fear. After they were done Santa gave them a peppermint Ghirradelli chocolate. Yum!

Going to the Lodge

This past Sunday we headed out of town to Grand Mound, Washington home of the http://www.greatwolf.com/grandmound/waterpark. We spent the day in the water park and stayed Sunday night at the lodge and spent Monday there. Sssshhhh, don't tell Brother Bears school.

The inside of the hotel was decorated for Christmas with several trees, snowflakes and lights hanging from the ceiling. It even snowed in the lobby at night!

Inside the water park it was a balmy 84 degrees. It was a warm December day outside for Washington. It was about 54 and a dark rainy day. The water park can only be used by guests of the hotel which helps limit the crowds. There were 3 big water slides that you had to climb up four flights of stairs to get to. Papa and I took turns going with Brother on those, Sister was not tall enough. Then there was a big wave pool that we spent a lot of time in. Sister wore a life jacket and held on tight to Papa out in the deep end of the wave pool. She was a trooper. Then there was another climbing structure that had to slides that did not require tubes. Sister went down those a few times but each time said she didn't want to do that anymore. There was another area that had stationary ride on toys that shot water out of them and two playground size water slides. They had a pool area with basketball nets in it and a rope course too. Brother and Sister both really like the big bucket that would fill up with water and then tip over and splash everyone in the vicinity.

After dinner and story time in the lobby we did a game called Magi Quest. MagiQuest®
Slaying a dragon? Helping the Pixie restore her magic? It's all part of MagiQuest®, a one-of-a-kind, live-action adventure game. Armed with high-tech wands, your family must solve magical challenges throughout the resort to gain powers (and points) and move to higher levels of the game. This game took us up and down five flights of stairs MANY times. After a few levels of Magi Quest it was time for bed.

Brother and Sister had their own wolf den area in the room. It had bunk beds, their own flat screen television and a mural on the wall of wolf cubs playing in a river. I think that the kids had a good time. Sister was especially pooped, she asked to go to bed.

The next morning we were up and back to the water park for awhile and then to finish off the Magi Quest game before we headed home.