A busy week…

We’ve just returned from our family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge, our cousins house in Michigan to celebrate Thanksgiving, and a stop over in Niagara Falls! We’ve been really busy, and are glad to finally be home and sleeping in our own beds for a change! We hope you enjoy all SEVEN blog entries mommy made about our trip! We can’t believe how much went on while we were gone!

Emily’s trip to the ER (Again…) http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/another-trip-to-er.html

First stop: Great Wolf Lodge! http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/first-stop-great-wolf-lodge.html

A trip to the petting zoo with our cousins http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/the-critter-barn.html

Abby’s exciting news http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/the-tooth-fairy-made-stop-at-our-house.html

Our Thanksgiving Celebration http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/thanksgiving-day.html

Early Christmas Celebration http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/an-early-christmas-in-michigan.html

Niagara Falls http://blog.beachfamily.us/2012/11/niagara-falls.html

Enjoy!

**Addendum**: I have to make an honorable mention of the fact that we also got to spend some fun time with Grandpa Hawk and Grandma Nancy, but unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures to prove it Sorry Dad & Nancy… We had a great time with you all anyways- pictures or no pictures!

Niagara Falls

On our way home from our cousins house in Michigan, we decided to stop over for the night in Canada & see Niagara Falls! It was a fun trip, and the falls were SO pretty… we could even see them right from our hotel room!

We made it though the border pretty quickly, and we officially had travelled out of the country!

We headed straight to our hotel to get settled, check out the views, have dinner at the Rainforest Café and play in the arcade! Vacations are AWESOME!

This was the view of the falls from our room window… They were beautiful!

Ben LOVED checking out the falls from our room!

 

That night, we got to see the falls all lit up! Did you know they turn the falls “off” at night? Abby kept getting up throughout the night to check on it… it made for a LONG night!

We had a lot of “hotel fun” in our room too!

Before heading home in the morning, we bundled up and braved the cold to go and see the falls & walk around the town a bit!

Daddy even put a “loonie” (that’s the Canadian dollar) into the telescopes so we could see the falls up close!

It was a pretty cold morning, and Ben was the luckiest because he got to travel around in his cozy warm stroller blanket! He liked being bundled up!

We took a walk down the main street by the falls and saw lots of neat stuff!

 

We were very happy to end our tour of Niagara with a stop at the Hershey Store for some hot chocolate!

Sisters…

 

Goodbye Niagara and Canada! We’re off to New Jersey! Thanks for an AWESOME vacation Mommy & Daddy!

An Early Christmas in Michigan

On Thanksgiving night, the kids got to decorate their own tree for our early Christmas celebration the next morning. We came up with our own decorations and even made a bunch out of some of the fall leaves that were still around! We thought it was beautiful, and it made our early Christmas feel real!

 

On “Christmas morning”, there were tons of gifts under the tree, and we were so excited to give our gifts to our cousins!

Uncle Ryan helped Ben open all of his presents and his favorite was his new “Little Blue Truck” book from Mor-Mor!

Alayna definitely got the prize for the most excited and gracious gift receiver this year! She was especially excited about getting her very own “brown” Baby Alive!

 

 

Mor-Mor LOVED her Shutterfly book from our summer trip together!

Abby wasn’t too sure what her gift from Mor-Mor was…

…until she opened up the Mario game and realized it was her very own Nintendo DS! I don’t know who was more excited… Abby or Daddy!

Emily got her own game system too, and now we can play each other! She LOVES her Lalaloopsy game!

As you can see, everyone enjoyed playing them!

Ben DEFINITELY showed some favoritism this year with Uncle Ryan… he couldn’t get enough of him! All he wanted to do was cuddle with and hug him, and even fussed if someone else tried to take him! They were best buddies!

He even showed off his new standing skills for Uncle Ryan! He can stand for up to 10 seconds on his own now!

Bye buddy… I’ll miss you, but we’ll chat on the phone!