Aruba Arriba!

Nate and Jen took a much needed vacation this last week. Their destination? Aruba! What a wonderful trip. They spent 5 nights on beautiful Palm Beach just letting life's stresses drift away with the surf. We stayed in the Holiday Inn resort, which was a typical middle-aged Holiday Inn hotel, but it had the closest proximity to the ocean of any of the hotels on the strip, and the view from our room was spectacular. A big thanks to Grammy and Grandpa Q, and Mike and Katie for taking such great care of our kids while we were away.

 Enjoying some time on the beach

 Jen with the setting sun in the palm of hear hand

 There were a lot of restaurant choices near our hotel.  This was at a little sushi place and was a sushi sampler. We liked the food so much that we came back to this place twice.



 Here is the view from our hotel room

This was a pretty typical picture of me for the week.  

 Enjoying the warm weather.

At the little grille on the end of Pelican Pier, directly out from our hotel.  You're literally a foot away from the edge of the pier (no railings).  They had a wonderful grilled mahi mahi sandwich.  

We took a snorkeling trip on this pirate ship with the "Jolly Pirates".  This was a lot of fun. We snorkeled over a huge sunken US battle ship from WWII, as well as some off-shore coral.

Easter 2012

Nate coordinated a large data center network maintenance activity at work, which was scheduled for implementation on Easter Sunday once again.  This is pretty typical, as Easter is the only day that Target stores are closed (except for Thanksgiving and X-mas, but those days are during peak retail season, so the IT teams aren't able to make any changes).  So, while Nate put in about 22 hours at work on Easter Sunday (with an extremely successful maintenance), Jen and the kids went to the farm. 

The kids helped out with some chores, had an Easter egg hunt with their cousins, and searched for their baskets on Easter morning. 

Cisco the cat had kittens a couple weeks ago. 

 Daniel picking up eggs and putting them in a pail.  Someone dresses him in that green and gold stuff when Nate's not around.  Please note, Nate does not condone this. :)

One of the chickens was laying her eggs up on top of the coup.  Daniel had to crawl up there for Grandma to get the eggs.  Good thing he was there!

Daniel is 5!!!

Where did those last five years go?  Daniel turned five this year on April 1st.  It was a special birthday because it fell on Palm Sunday again; the last time his birthday fell on Palm Sunday was the day he was born, 5 years ago.  He has such a unique, fun, and wonderful personality.  He is incredibly smart, and physically talented, and the sky is the limit for this one.  We're so proud of him, and while we don't want to rush through these fun years, we can't wait to see what God has in store for him.
Like most years, we had numerous birthday parties.  The first one was with the Fedies at the Water park of America near the MOA in Bloomington.  Daniel wanted nothing more than to go to a water park.  Following some pool time, we all headed back to our hotel room for some pizza, cupcakes, and presents.

Daniel and his cousin Will having fun in the kiddie area

Opening presents in the hotel

Our family stayed at the adjacent Radisson hotel.  The kids had their own little room with bunk beds

They both insisted on sleeping on top, and even with the openings packed with pillows and blankets, it was

an all but sleepless night for mom and dad.  The slightest noise from that room had dad running to make sure they weren't falling out..  

 

On the morning of April1, he woke up to a flock of flamingos in the front yard again... the neighborhood sure loves it when we do this.

Daniel trying out his new skateboard and pads from John and Amy

The day of his actual birthday, we rented a giant bounce house and put it up in the back yard for the 'neighborhood kids party'.  This was party number 2

Daniel got lots of fun stuff from his neighborhood friends

Party nunber 3 consisted of Nate's family coming up.  Daniel wanted a Pirate party, and Jen hand crafted this incredible pirate ship birthday cake.  It truly was a sight. 

Jen even made Daniel a "Jake" outfit from Jake and the Neverland Pirates cartoon that he loves.

And, here's Daniel almost giving Jen a heart attack by pretending to slice the cake with his sword before anyone got a chnace to see it... fortunately, he was just kidding.

 Daniel and his cousins.  Brooklyn wasn't in the mood for pictures today; It was pretty cute. 

Nate and Kate

X-mas 2011

Some quick pictures from some of the family x-mas celebrations...

Daniel's new Twins stocking hat

All the cousins

Andie opening her new Cinderella book

Daniel and Nate got matching warm facemasks for going ice fishing

The kids all excited to start opening presents

Andie only half-awake, but still super excited

Our wonderful family.

December Events

Jen Hoffe and Brooklyn were up for one of Jen's purse parties one weekend, and we were able to find a night when we could all meet downtown for the Hollidazzle parade on Nicollet Mall. The kids thought it was pretty neat to go to a parade at night with the floats all lit up, and it was super exciting to see Santa riding on a great big float at the end.

Daniel found a great spot to stand right in front of the downtown Target store, and I just had to take this picture. It looks like it belongs in the weekly ad for boy's winter clothing :)


After the parade was over, we (and the rest of the thousands of people at the parade) went to the Macy's 8th floor holiday scene thing. This year's theme was "A day in the life of an elf." There was a VERY long wait to get in, but the kids did great and were very patient.

And it was worth it!!! They were in compete awe.



The next week or so, Jen felt it was ginger bread cookie making time. She and the kids made what seemed to be a million cookies or so, but they sure had fun doing it. (and boy were they good)

The decorating was the best part!

Nate took Daniel for a special treat this December. Daniel had no idea where they were going, we got downtown and when he saw the Metrodome he said "are we going to a vikings game?"... "nope, better" I replied. It wasn't until we walked inside and peeked into the lower bowl of the dome and he saw all the MONSTER TRUCKS did he figure out what he was in for! That's right, Monster Jam at the Dome!!! It was the first real Monster Truck experience for either of us, and boy was it cool.

and LOUD!!!!!

Finally, Santa visited the kids' daycare again this year, so we got to go in and visit him as well as do some x-mas crafts in their classrooms. Andie insisted on picking out her own clothes..

Backlog - November

Catching up a bit here... my apologies to our faithful Blog followers (Helen). This November was pretty normal. No major injuries, surgeries, or catastrophes to speak of. Nate and Jen didn't do any deer hunting this year, which is the first time in 7 or 8 years now for Nate, but we got to spend a lot of good quality time with both sides of our families. We had one Thanksgiving celebration at the Fedie farm, where Daniel and his cousin Will spent quite a bit of time 'farming' which included a few chores like feeding the chickens and the goats, watching grandpa feed the steers some corn, and going on a few tractor rides.

Andie also got her share of farm-girl work in.

After the labor of the day was over, she was pampered with a french braid from Auntie Amy

After a day at the farm, it was off to Milwaukee to celebrate thanksgiving with Nate's side, and to also celebrate Emmett's 1st birthday. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins, and Andie loved sharing bath time with Brooklyn.

The typical 'first birthday cake all over the face' picture

Daniel is really taking to the role of being the oldest of the cousins. He can act so mature when he's playing with the younger ones. Sometimes he'll even begin to moderate when 'sharing' spats erupt amongst the others. It's really neat to see.

After we left Milwaukee and arrived home, Jen wasted no time in gathering the Christmas decorations, and up went the tree. The kids did most of the decorating this year which explains why most of the decorations are at their eye level, but it was the most beautifully decorated tree I've ever seen!