Another Day, Another Adventure!

Today started out bright and early. We even had to set the alarm clock during vacation!!! Again, we did not tell the boys where we would be heading for the day. But as we exited towards the public museum they were on to us! But little did they know that they would be experiencing their first IMAX movie. Wild Ocean was spectacular to see and even kept the 2 year old entertained with the humongous screen and loud music. After the movie ended Jacob told Brian that "that was the best movie I have ever seen!" We will definitely be going again! After the movie we headed into the public museum to see our favorite exhibits, which of course includes the butterfly exhibit.

Jacob was a pro at making friends with the butterflies.

We all took our chance at hoping a butterfly would hop onto our fingers.

Tyler was the man of the hour as four butterflies took hold of his hands!

Haley was quite happy with observing everybody butterflies.

She kept her hands pretty close to herself whenever we tried to give one to her :)

After the museum we headed out for lunch at a surprise restaurant. It's called The Safe-House but it's a secret agent cover restaurant so it goes by a different name on the outside. We figured that our super spy agent 7 year olds would love this! So, here is how you start your adventure...we found the door to the restaurant only to be all squished into a little room, with no door! Then a woman says "Welcome agents, do you know the password?" "Uhhh, no" we answered. Then, we had to prove that we weren't double agents so she said, "I will need you to form a circle and very loudly sing Ring a Round a Rosie." So we did and then a wall slide back and we walked down some stairs to the super spy agent restaurant. Cool stuff and the boys were VERY impressed! As we went to our table a family pointed at us and said "there's the one's that had to do Ring-a-Round A Rosie." Yep, you guessed it...we were on video camera upstairs and down in the restaurant you can watch everyone come in and do the same silly stuff!

After we ordered we went exploring. The kids loved the silly mirror.

This door said it was the "men's room" but Tyler soon found out that was a trick. There was all sorts of fun things like two-way mirror, secret camera, and to top it all off...a secret exit!

After all piling into a little room with a pay phone we put in a quarter to receive the secret exit code. After we punched it in a door slid open to a dark hallway, which all the boys made me go down first!

Here is the dark exit hallway exclusively for super spies!

Down another dark corridor....

And finally to the exit!

We had another fantastic day filled with family laughs.

The Benes Bowlers!

Brian and I wanted to make sure that we didn't just let the boys' Christmas vacation quietly slip by this year. So we have made an extra effort to pull them away from the normal things we do and slide in a few fun family treats here and there. As we were brainstorming what to do on a Tuesday, came the wonderful idea of bowling!!!! By the way, we never tell the kids what we are going to do or where we are going till we are at the place, just to give them alittle extra anticipation! As we pulled up to the bowling building, my now 1st grade readers shouted out "Bowling!!!!!"

Did you know that even a 2 year old can bowl!!! Haley and Tyler liked their new shoes :)
(After we had finished bowling, Jacob commented on how funny his feet smelled.)

Tyler (in grey) and Jacob (in black) were extra excited when they discovered that this wasn't any old bowling alley....this was Rock-n-Roll Bowling! There was dance music playing, no lights on except for the black lights, disco balls, and colored strobe lights. What a FUN time we had!

You can see the colored lights that danced on the floor to the music. So much fun to try and catch them!

Daddy and Haley patiently watched as her ball slowly rolled down the alley to hit the pins.

She was always very excited when she hit the pins. The whole day was about giving "high fives!"

Little did I know that Brian was taking this oh so flattering picture of my backside ;) but, (no pun intended there either) I wanted to say that after bowling a Turkey in the first game, I think I got my moms fantastic bowling form! Thanks Mom! :)

The trip to the bowling alley was only topped off by eating hot dogs and soda while waiting for your next turn to bowl.

Stayed tuned for what comes next! :)

Christmas 2009

Hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning was full of smiles, laughter and "this is what I always wanted" being chanted though the house!

After our morning at our house, we headed to my mom and dads' to be with family and eat lots of food! I think Haley is giving Isabella a hug, not too sure if Isabella likes her hug though. ;)

Look at all these cute kids and nobody wants their picture taken!

Here is the Benes family pickin' up the trash.

The boys received snow boards from Santa and couldn't wait to try them out! Tyler was a natural at finding his balance and working his board.

Jacob just wanted to go fast and have fun!

No snow board for Haley, just a sled, but she now wants a snow board too!

Don't mess with these two on the slopes :)


We even celebrated Brian's birthday yesterday amongst all the Christmas hoopla.
Happy Birthday Brian!!!! Hope your day was wonderful and full of family fun!

3rd Time's The Charm!

Here we are...5 days before Christmas, what better to do then put up our THIRD tree of December 2009! If you read the previous blog entry regarding putting up our 2nd tree, I was really fond of that beautiful tree. Never wanted to see it to come to this.

The whole family has been fighting sinus infections for a long time now. The three kids are on their second round of stronger antibiotics to help kick and clear their sinuses. They each will be on the medicine for 20+ days. Brian and I have been having a sinus cold for a couple weeks now as well. Just this weekend it dawned on us, could we all be allergic to the real tree?!!! Everyone has some seasonal allergies so being allergic to the tree would not surprise us. Brian and I even talked about "toughing" it out till Christmas and keeping up the real tree (that is how much I LOVED my real tree!) But with all the kids coughing and blowing their noses (us too) we decided that we would take down our real tree and put up our artificial tree. Insert heavy sigh.

Tyler, Haley, and Jacob giving me one last smile in front of the tree.

Haley, please look this way!

No, no, please don't fall backwards! I need ONE good picture!

Taking the ornaments off the tree, again.

Tyler is barking orders to captain Haley to open the door!

Jacob was helping till he remarked, "Dad my eyes are itching." Hmmmm. Mystery solved?

Enter...3rd Christmas tree of 2009.

The boys did a great job of putting it together.

Working like a team of experts, which we all are by now, we re-dressed the tree. Haley painfully says "cheese" for me every time I ask :)

Hopefully we have learned something this year...no more real trees. I'll let you know in a couple of days! I also hope that my kids don't expect this every year, having 3 Christmas trees was pretty cool!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree Do-Over

Christmas with the Benes family is always full of laughs and surprises. The weekend after Thanksgiving is when we put our tree up. We have always had an artificial tree due to the kids allergies. This year we decided that we would live on the edge and get a real tree...asthma, allergies or bust! We had planned a big outing of cutting down our own tree at a tree farm. Sleigh rides, hot chocolate, the works! Well, we did not plan on 2 kids having sinus infections, pink eyes, or 1 recovering from sinus infection. Hmmmm. The responsible parents that we are, chose not to do the fun tree farm, in the cold and rain, but instead took a trip down the road to Menards and bought our first "real" tree for $14.99!

Here we are with our "prize" tree! We did not know a spruce from frasier and ended up with this nice soft needled tree. After a couple days, the tree started to lean, spread out weirdly, and all the ornaments started falling off!

This weekend we broke down and decided to do something about it. Out with the old (future swag, wreaths, and firewood!)

And in with the new!

The boys were very big kid helpers.

Ahhh!

Now these are the smiles of a happy family with a happy tree!

The tree has spread out into the whole corner and we couldn't be happier about the beautiful tree! I have decided that this is a female tree whose smell is so fragrant and branches are so far reaching that I want to hug her.

Yes, these children are quite tried of posing for pictures in front of Christmas trees.
We did learn lots of facts about Christmas trees and will be very prepared for our adventure next year!