Just some fun in the snow

Mari is actually pulling them on the sled

Kelly had one last vacation day to burn so he took a Tuesday off and we went to Cabelas and the zoo (of course).  I had $175 gift certificate from my 20 year anniversary at the company I work at-pretty nice huh, I could pick from a lot of places but I wanted some hiking shoes and maybe some camping equipment so picked Cabelas.  It’s quite a store, we got my hiking shoes, hiking socks and 3 sleeping bags for the kids.

There are lots of “stuffed” animal displays, Marian wanted to know how they got those fake animals to look so real, Kelly told her they weren’t fake, “I don’t like this store.”  She thought it was a better idea to go see real animals that weren’t stuffed.

A giant camp chair

Off to the zoo, Kelly lured the baby polar bear over with Mari’s scarf-very cool

I’m fascinated with these orangutans-this is the male, a close up of his face with those unusual flaps on the side

we watched them playing for at least 30 minutes

Ezra got these awesome blocks from my parents for Christmas, they were only $12 at Costco for 300 blocks-they are all the same size and perfectly cut and proportioned, I guess architectural students use them as a learning tool.   Check out the website:  www.citiblocs.com

Here are some of our creations over the past couple weeks. . .

Marian’s airplanes & air traffic control tower

Kelly & I like to build with them too

this one was crazy, standing them end on end-13 stories!

At this point, I’m saying “how is this thing still standing?”, it was actually swaying-it collapsed during the next story

Weekend three of our month of Christmas celebrations, we had Kelly’s work party.  They have had cuts on this but they are very traditional and still do a big family Christmas party, this years theme was “Magic is in the Air” so there was a magic show, puppet show, roaming magicians, and the favorites-bounce houses and arcade games, Santa, some craft things, and a ton of yummy food and desserts.

Ez & Marian are attached by a bungy and trying to make baskets by pulling each other.  It looked so fun that Kelly and I had to try it:)

Learning some tricks

Practicing

Watching a Punch & Judy puppet show

Sharing a shake at the “Malt Shop”

And, that evening we had a “grown-up, fancy” Christmas party to go to so Kelly’s parents took the kids overnight:)  We had a wonderful time having dinner together, going to the party and doing some Christmas shopping.