Spring Break

We headed to Houston for Spring Break this year.  Garrett unexpectedly got the week off a few months ago (he was originally scheduled to work nights that week), and it turns out that our break matched up with Emma's kids in Houston, so we decided to go for it!  At first we looked into flying, but we really aren't close to any major airports (and we need a major one if we're buying 5 tickets!).  Flying out of Atlanta was affordable, but even then we'd be driving 5.5 hours to the airport, parking for a week, renting a car for a week... it all sounded like a lot of work.  So, we drove.  Yep, we drove 15 hours one way.. and it was totally worth it.  (Correction: *I* drove all 15 hours, each way.  Garrett's back has been bugging him so he had to recline his seat a bit the whole way).  The drive actually wasn't too bad.  We left on a Thursday afternoon around 5pm, and drove straight to Birmingham without stopping (5 hours, but we got there at 9 since we changed time zones).  We stayed in an Embassy Suites, which was so nice because there were two rooms.  And yep we are totally the parents who have their 3 kids sleep on the [huge] pull-out couch in the main room, while we get our own queen beds in the bedroom.  Haha.  They loved it.

The next day we drove the 10 hours to Houston, and actually made really good time.  It said it would take us 10 house, and we made it in exactly 10 hours even with two brief stops (we packed lots of food and snacks so we never had to stop to buy food, just bathroom breaks and gas fill-ups).  The Odyssey is quite comfortable and the kids literally just watched movies the whole time.  I feel kinda bad about it, I probably should have done games and activities but honestly I just wanted some peace and quiet.  I bought some cheap new DVD's at Walmart (they have a lot right now for Easter baskets - Nanny McPhee 1 and 2 for $5 total, the new Cinderella, Babe, An American Tale (and the sequal), and a few others.  We took out one of the captain seats and put in the middle seat so that either Abbie or Ellie could sit next to Henry and keep him fed and entertained.  That worked great and he did wonderfully the whole time.

We got there Friday night and stayed until the following Saturday, 8 nights.  It was SO. FUN. and I'm so glad we did it.  It would have been really easy to just stay home and find things to do around here for the week.  It's hard to do things with 4 kids.  But, we would never do anything if we let that stop us. I'm trying to be a more adventurous mom, and really make some good memories with our kids.  This was a pretty high-impact / low-budget trip so it totally made sense to go for it.  Plus, my dad's health has declined pretty rapidly over the last 9 months or so, so we need to spend time with him while we can (my parents live in Houston during the winter).

Rather than write a huge long post about what we did, here's the video Garrett made.  We hung out at home, went to parks, walked on the path from Emma's house to Molly's house (where my parents also live), ate lots of yummy food, went to the Houston Rodeo, played games, and just had an all around great time.  It was fantastic.

And just a shout-out to Garrett for two things: first, he made this incredible video... over the last few months he's really stepped up his photography game now that he has more time to dedicate to his hobby.  I'll admit, I totally encourage him to buy any photography stuff he wants because then I get to benefit by having these awesome videos, which I cherish.  He recently got a drone, and a mirrorless Sony camera and a nice lens to go with it.  They really helped make this video awesome.  Second, a huge shout-out to him for having an awesome job with (lots of) flexible vacation time.  I love that when he was job hunting, schedule and family time was his number 1 priority.  We've been able to spend so much time together since he started this job and it's been a huge blessing for our family.

Here's the video he made.. enjoy! (I think you can also open it in Youtube if you want to make it bigger)

Texas Christmas

We had always planned to stay in Wisconsin for Christmas.  Garrett had the week off, and we were just going to relax and hang out.  However, after the Thanksgiving break I started thinking that maybe we should plan to go somewhere.... my kids got pretty bored pretty fast and they only had 2 days off for Thanksgiving.  I knew I wouldn't survive 2 weeks of them being home, stuck in the house.  We thought about driving down to TN to see Garrett's parents, but we just couldn't decide what to do.  Technically, it was a "Siebach" year for Christmas, although we have literally never abided by that schedule (we have almost always been a short drive to Garrett's family's house, so we usually just go there).  I hate to travel during the holiays... I don't like flying in general anymore, but the thought of flying during the holidays just made me sick.  However.... my sister Emma kept telling me we should come down to Houston, since my parents were there for a few months, and my sister Molly lives there too.  I told her that it was way too expensive to fly during the holidays, not to mention the hassle.  To prove it, I looked up some flights, totally expecting to tell her that they were $500 and out of the question.  But, they weren't.  They were $140, round trip (out of Chicago, blech, but still).  I knew right away that it was too good to pass up.  For the first time in 8 years, we would be spending Christmas with my family!  

Of course, for that price, the times weren't ideal.  Our flight left at 9:30pm and landed at midnight.  Thankfully it was direct, that makes such a difference.

Flying down there was pretty much as much of a hassle as I expected, though.  The security line was going extremely slowly; we were probably in the line for almost an hour.  People all around us were missing flights.  But of course, the TSA doesn't really care about anything so it didn't matter to them.  Eventually, the security line split into 4 separate lines, and you waited to go up to the security guard at the desk who would check your ID and ticket.  Well, when we finally got near the front of our security line, our security guard just got up and walked away.  After 10 minutes, no one had come back and our line was just stagnant, but meanwhile the other 3 lines around us were moving forward.  No one was even looking at our line or noticing that our guy had left.  It was so annoying!  Finally I convinced the guy in front of us to just go to another line's security guard when he was free, so he totally just ran up there when another person got through (the guy who was next in that line wasn't happy, but they had noticed our guy was gone for a long time so I didn't really care).  When I got to the front of the line, I called out to the security guard of the other line and said that our guy had been gone for 10 minutes.  He looked around stupidly, then got up and shuffled away as if he was looking around for him (now the line beside us was REALLY unhappy, but hey someone had to do something!!).  Finally he came back with another security guard.  This is why I hate flying.  Ugh.  And then, when we got to the gate, we got our seat assignments and NONE of us were sitting together, despite the fact that I had chosen our seats when I booked the tickets.  So that was another minor fiasco, but eventually they got our seats for us and, what do you know, they put us in the front row of the cabin (the seats that are normally extra $$), and we were all together.  So that worked out.  The flight went smoothly, we landed in Houston about 30 minutes early actually, but then we waited for 35 minutes for our luggage to come down the conveyer belt so... 

 But finally, we were there.  It was SO fun to be with my family for Christmas.  And of course it's always fun to play with other kids' toys:

Isn't my sister's house so cute?

Emma has been learning to write calligraphy and I tried my hand at it.  It's a lot harder than it looks!  But it was fun.

We decorated gingerbread houses:

And waited 90 minutes in line for the second best BBQ in America.  It was good!  And waiting in lines isn't bad when you're hanging out with people you love, and it's 80 degrees out!

My parents bought a house about 3 miles away from Emma's house, and they plan to live there for 3-4 months each winter.   Molly and her husband also live there year round so that it doesn't sit empty.  There's a shortcut path (literally over a river and through some woods!) that is only about a mile, so we did that with the kids several time.  We went "caroling" to grandma's house one morning.

Christmas Eve:

Olivia and grandpa:

New pj's

Waiting to come downstairs on Christmas morning:

Santa brought the girls each an American Girl doll.  They were SO excited!  I guess he figured that since they live only a few miles from the American Girl factory, it would be a good gift this year.  I am excited too because now it will be easy to buy them presents for the next couple of years... they just want outfits and accessories for their dolls! ;)  I remember getting my American Girl doll (Felicity) when I was little, and it is one of my favorite memories.  The girls each got the doll that looks like them - blonde and blue eyes.  Abbie's doll's hair is long, Olivia's is should length, and Ellie's doll has "light blonde" hair, so thankfully it's easy to tell them apart still.

Dance party in the living room:

The kids loved the strobe light, too:

Donuts for breakfast.  See JB holding up a dollar bill?  We told the kids that whoever slept in the longest each morning would get a dollar.  It worked like a charm... they started sleeping in until around 8 or so once we implemented that.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but we mostly just hung out.  The kids played on the trampoline a lot, and basically just ran around the house and outside.  We took them to a movie one morning (Charlie Brown Christmas movie), played at playgrounds, watched movies, worked on projects.  I sang in sacrament meeting with my mom and sisters for their Christmas program ("In the Bleak Midwinter").  Garrett went with John to some house projects.  We walked back and forth from my mom's house a bunch of times.

We had SUCH a great time in Texas for Christmas, and I'm so happy we decided to do it despite my reservations and anxieties about flying during the holiday season.  I was really worried that Chicago would get snowed in, or that someone would get sick for our travels, or that a flight would be majorly delayed... but none of that happened and we made some wonderful memories.  

Garrett left the day after Christmas, he was on call the next week and had to get back.  The girls and I stayed until Wednesday, and flew into Madison where Garrett had left me my van the night before since he couldn't pick us up.  We had a 5:30 a.m. flight (!), which meant we had to leave Emma's house at 3 a.m.... not ideal but it actually wasn't too bad.  Huge thanks to Molly and Mom for driving us to the airport!  But hey, no traffic.