Thanksgiving in Wisconsin

This year we decided to travel to Wisconsin to visit Johann's brother and his family for Thanksgiving in Milwaukee.
Our sweet friend Annalisa which we met over 5 years ago through Dance Marathon also lives there. We set up a night to meet up with her and go out to dinner. I found a restaurant called The Safe House. It's a spy themed restaurant and I remembered seeing it on a show years ago. Since Ammon is so into spies right now we thought this would be the perfect spot to go to dinner.
The front door to the restaurant is down a very boring looking alley. When you walk into the room there's a desk and a wall with bookshelves. There was also a camera looking down at you. We figured out pretty quickly what that we needed to pull on a certain level on the wall to walk through the bookcase wall and into the actual restaurant.

What I didn't realize was that if you didn't make reservations that you had to wait a long time to get a table. While we were waiting we went on a scavenger hunt of the building. The kids went into the secret phone booth, we found a piece of the Berlin wall, a door leading to a bathroom that was really just a brick wall, spy holes, hidden cameras, moving walls and more.




The food was ok, but nothing to brag about. After we ate we used the last clue on the scavenger hunt and exited through the secret door. To use this exit you go into a very small enclosed hallway and put a quarter into the pay phone. You hear the instructions to push certain numbers on the phone, and then the wall opens to a staircase leading down. We went down and found a hallway leading out to the alleyway behind the restaurant.
The kids Ok all of us thought this restaurant was so much fun!!

Thanksgiving day Johann and Simeon went and played flag football with Jake's ward. The other kids and i went to the park with their cousins. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at home eating and playing.

Friday we went to the Natural History Museum. The favorite spot was the butterfly garden. At first no one was able to get any butterflies to land on them. Rebecca didn't want any to land on her, she was ok with watching them from a distance. The other kids were trying to get them to land on them. Jonas kept getting the same one to land on his shirt. It was either the bright colors or the syrup from breakfast!





After we went to a small indoor waterpark at the hotel that Grandma and Grandpa were staying at. There was a slide and a deep end with a basketball hoop. The boys practice snorkeling with our new snorkeling gear.

Saturday we left and went to Madison to go to a Children's museum a friend had told me about. There was a really neat younger kids area with a huge climbing tree area and a water house. Rebecca really enjoyed playing in the water house.

Upstairs they had lots of areas to build with blocks and a huge art area. The highlights of the day were the gerbil wheel (Corrine and mom got it going fast-it's a great workout), Ammon climbing in the climbing structure, and the window painting in the art area.





We had a fun time on our Thanksgiving weekend away.

Girls on The Run is SO Much Fun

Today was our final run for Girls on The Run. We meet our team at the Tennis Building @ 8:30 this morning. We did some hanging out, then we stretched and walked over as a big group to the starting line.
There were over 250 girls and running buddies in pink GOTR shirts. It truly was a sea of pink at the starting line.
There were so many people at the starting line that we didn't even hear them start the race, we just saw everyone start so we followed.
The run was at the Ashton Cross Country course at the University of Iowa. It's a natural course with grass and dirt. The course was fairly easy with only a few small hills.
We started towards the back of the group, but we started passing others right away. Corrine is such a fast runner but she stayed with me the entire time even though she could have left me in the dust. This run was hard for me because I'd been sick with a cold for the last 10 days and hadn't been able to excerise much the past week and my right ankle was hurting with every step. I kept asking Corrine if she wanted to run faster without me, but she kept saying that she'd stay with me.
We crossed the finish line at 34:23, slower then I was hoping we would get, but still pretty fast for me being sick this week.
Corrine was given a medal as she finished. Once all of our girls finished running, we walked back to the Tennis building for some snacks and pictures.
This was such a fun experience that we are excited to do again this spring. We told the kids that we'll start training as a family in the spring to run a 5K together. I did fun runs/walks as a kid and I remember them being so much fun.

Nani & Papa came to town

Nani and Papa came to visit us this week. I wanted to remember the fun things we did each day, so I went day by day with pictures for that day.

Tuesday-Nani & Papa got here before school got out. Rebecca was shy at first. We looked at pictures of them holding her when she was younger. That really helped her to become comfortable with them faster. The older kids ran home from school. We had a HUGE pot of creamy chicken chowder for dinner and played.

Wednesday-Ammon & Papa went to the library to check out books. Corrine & Grace got all dressed up for their dinner with activity day girls. That night Simeon got his Arrow of Light award.




Thursday-Nani & mom went to craft night at the church. Dad & Papa played Wii with the kids. Johann and I got to go on a date to the grocery store!

Friday-Nani & Papa watched the kids while Johann and I went to 3 parent teacher conferences in the morning. In the afternoon we went to the raptor center at Lake McBride. On the road there Papa spotted a dear. We went on a hike and found 2 deer right next to the trail. We walked down to the lake and found alot of fossils in the rocks. Tonight Johann and Simeon went on a campout with the scouts. We had pizza for dinner. Corrine & Ammon put on a movie night complete with punching tickets, snacks and LOTS of rule, like no laughing or blowing your noses! We watched Tron Legacy. Then they had a sleepover in the boys room.







Saturday we went to the John Deere Pavilion. They were working on the project "Can Do". They had 40,000 lbs of canned food they were making into a life size combine. Half the area was taken up and the other half was busy. We left and went the the John Deere Headquarters. We climbed on a combine and lots of other tractors.





We then went to the Niabi Zoo since it was free. It was getting chilly by then. As we ate lunch we could hear the lion roaring. When we got over to it they were asleep. He lifted his head up and looked around, then layed back down. We saw 2 sheep head butting. We feed the goats and fish. The wolves were really active.




Sunday we went to church. We had Johann's family over for a super yummy Thanksgiving dinner.

Monday-Nani & I went shopping. Papa took Simeon & Corrine to Sycamore mall to walk around and get Dairy Queen ice cream. Corrine & Simeon got small blizzards and they were bigger then Papa's medium sundae! They went to the Dollar store. Simeon told me he saw a container of premixed cinnamon and sugar. When they got home Ammon was having some Wii time and we all watched or played with him.

Tuesday-Nani, Johann and I went to the Nauvoo Temple. Rebecca played with Joel, then came home before the big kids got home. Papa met the big kids at home. Simeon taught Papa how to play "Garbage". We had homemade carmel snack mix and hot cocoa. Pretty Pretty Princess was played by Papa and the girls. Ammon played the knight, princess & ogre game with Papa.

If Papa asked Rebecca "Am I your buddy?" She says "No, I'm YOUR buddy." She said lots of "I love you's."

Arrow of Light

Tonight was such an exciting night for Simeon. He's been working hard the past few months to earn his Webelos badge and then to finish up the last few requirements to earn his Arrow of Light.

He's had everything done for a few weeks except for the one requirement that he couldn't complete until today-and that was to be in the troop for 6 months.

Originally the pack meeting was set for Nov 2nd, but since my parents were coming on the 8th and he needed to wait until the 9th to officially earn the award, we asked if it could be pushed back a week.

The ceremony was really neat. They had Simeon, Johann and myself come up to the cirlce of chairs. Then they had Cameron and his parents come up. Then they asked any men that had received their arrows to come join the circle. Brother Beardsley had Indian drum music playing, and a fire burning in a pit (artificial since we were inside). During the ceremony he had Simeon come up and hold an arrow. Then the others came up and circled around him and held onto the arrow too. Bro Beardsley read some things and they agreed to do them. Then they added the other arrows and talked about more things they agreed to do.

After the ceremony he had Simeon and us go up and he was presented with his Arrow Badge and pinned the mothers pin on me and gave us both hugs.


While Simeon was in the Arrow circle he was standing taller and straighter then I've seen him do before. He had a serious yet excited look on his face.


Both Simeon & Cameron earned thier Arrow of Light Awards tonight.

Later that night Simeon told me that he felt so different and good during the ceremony. Watching him I could tell he felt proud of his accomplishment of earning his Arrow Of Light Award.



In addition to his Arrow of Light badge he also earned his Outdoorsman and Scholar badges and Compass Point Emblem. Now he can work to earn points to go on the badge. Every 4 extra badges that he earns gets him another point. Right now he has 2 extras done towards his 1st point. Now his goal is to earn all the points on the emblem.

Corrine wasn't at the ceremony because she had an Etiquette dinner with Activity Day girls. We let her decide which she wanted to do and she choose her dinner. She had her friend Grace come over after Girls on the Run to get ready. They both painted their nails and did their hair. They both looked so beautiful and had such a great time getting pampered for the night!


We are so proud of Simeon and all the hard work he put into earning this award. Johann sat down at the beginning of the summer with Simeon and he decided what elective requirements he wanted to do in addition to the required items. Then he worked on them with our neighbor Joe, and the other kids to get them done. He put in alot of time to get this earned and we are so proud of him for all his effort!! Seeing him earn this award and seeing how excited he was, was absolutely priceless.

Run for Relief

This morning Corrine ran our 1st official 5K at Lower City Park with Run for Relief. The race was put on by City High's cross country team. All the money raised was given to Joplin Highschool to help rebuild their highschool that was destroyed by a tornado earlier this year.

When we left our house it was sunny and cool and we could see clouds coming. By the time we got to the park it was cloudy and windy and COLD! After we checked in Johann ran home to get warmer clothes and gloves for everyone.

There were around 100 runners in the race. At the starting line there were 2 dogs behind us that made Corrine uncomfortable and she struggled for the 1st quarter mile worried they would come near her.
After the 1st quarter mile she settled down as the dogs got further behind us.


At mile marker 1 we had a pace of 9 minutes and I was working hard, but she was still comfortable. A few City High cross country runners ran by right then and asked her how old she was. She told them and then kept running with them. From them on she ran ahead of me. She was able to keep her pace the entire time.

The final results from the race were:
Corrine #48 29:15.4 Pace 9:26.3
Kari #56 30:05.2 Pace 9:42.3



She was 21st in her age group (18 and younger).
I was 4th in my age group (30-39).

It's so fun to watch Corrine run and to see how much she loves it. She has such a natural talent for running. She's already talking about running cross country in Junior High.

It was such a fun run and it made me want to do more!! I'm so excited that Corrine wanted me to be her running buddy for Girls on the Run. It helped give me that kick I needed to start running again. It's been hard to start running after 13 years of not running, but it's been so worth it!
This race gave the boys the running bug, so we've talked about training as a family this spring to do a 5K together. I remember lots of walks/runs I did as a family when I was a kid. I'm excited to do a walk/run with our whole family!!

So precious

I LOVE these kids!!


What a blessing they are!