A Visit with the Hacking's Part 1

We decided that our last hooray of our holiday's should be a trip to visit Seth's sister Lani and her family. Lani and Tyler have 5 kids now, Ty, Shayla, Garrett, Grant and Miya. Miya is still a tiny baby, and she is so beautiful. We were so glad we could go because the next time we'll get to see her, she'll be crawling around and all grown up.

Tyler is the new Bishop in his ward, and he has to travel sometimes for his job, so we didn't get many pictures of him, but this is evidence that he was there. We went on a double date to see the movie "Blind Side" on Sat. night which we really liked.

Birthday breakfast in bed.



Happy 7th Birthday Shayla!


We took a trip downtown to Minneapolis to go to the Mill City Museum.

It was a very cool experience; a very kid friendly museum.







This Washburn A. Mill later became part of General Mills which is still headquartered in Minneapolis.



There was a great view of St. Paul and the St. Anthony Falls, (although they don't fall very much.)



Garrett said "I'm plugging his nose!"

We got to go on a huge elevator and learn all about the Mill. It turns out that flour dust is extremely explosive, and that the mill blew up one time killing 18 people instantly and it shot the building 150 into the air!


The Saint Paul Cathedral













Grant and Garrett playing with

A visit with the Hacking's Part 2

On our last day in Wisconsin, Lani took us to Willow River State Park. We walked over to see the dam. Shayla and Garrett were being pretty silly, and it was so cute how they held hands the whole way. Ty is quite an explorer and walked all over the frozen river. Grant didn't seem very happy to be out in such cold weather, and he was lucky enough to have Uncle Seth carry him the






After our winter excursion, we went to Culver's! What a great restaurant. Of course we had fried cheese curds, and custard. (Yes Jacob (Wagner), we do have custard in America). Miya was sound asleep in that picture, she is such a good baby, and so cute!



This is a shot of Wii boxing. Everyone was crazy over the Wii! The kids wanted to play all day and night. They sure have a lot of energy, especially for boxing!






Grant sure cheered up when we got to Culver's. He is such a cheeser. He's got those puppy dog eyes that could make you do anything he wants. And his cute little voice is irresistible. The quote of our trip is Grant saying over and over, as he shoots you with his finger "You're awesome, BOOM!"




We had a wonderful trip, and are so glad we got to visit the Hacking's. We don't get to see them enough! So it's wonderful when we get the opportunity. Thanks Lani and Tyler for everything! We love you guys!

Free Snow Cone

Seth and I went to see our favorite comedian, Brian Regan, with Seth's sister Angie and her husband, Jeff. We were so glad we went. It was a treat! The theatre was very cool, and the comedy was more than hilarious (and appropriate too)!

The show was in Mansfield, OH, halfway between Cleveland and Columbus. We went to this wonderful Greek restaurant that I would definitely recommend. The food was authentic, delicious and well priced! We are going to go there often on our drives back from Columbus.

We all laughed so hard the entire show. I couldn't breathe at times, it was so funny! I was a little concerned about that, but every once in a while I sucked in some air, so I survived. We have been quoting the show for weeks. Almost all the material was new, so it was fun to hear Brian Regan's new stuff. Thanks for setting it up Angie! We had a wonderful time!

'Carry me back to ole Virginny'

Seth had a weird schedule with time off for the holidays, and he got 5 days at the beginning of December. I just about killed myself to do it (thankfully, I didn't), but I typed about 65 pages for my finals in two weeks so I could finish my classes early and banked 25 hours overtime so I could finish work a week early. Why did I do this? So we could go on vacation!!!! Hooray! We we got to spend 5 lovely days in Massanutten Resort in McGaheysville, Virginia through our time share. (We decided last year that we wanted family vacations to be important to us, and for them to happen every other year. So we got our time share, and are so happy with it.) We didn't know what kind of place we would be staying in, but this is what we saw when we opened the door.

I mostly just laughed and ran around the whole place. It was so wonderful!


This was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept on.

Here's one of the bath tubs.

Thankfully, on our drive up there was no rain or snow, but this is what we woke up to the next day. These deer seemed to live right outside our kitchen window. How beautiful! It was so nice to be up in the mountains.

Seth's sister Kristina, her husband Curt, and daughters Felicity and Eva came to stay the weekend with us. It was a lot of fun. We went swimming (these pics are after swimming when we walked through the arcade). (Felicity on top, Eva on bottom)


Happy Birthday Kristina!!!


The girls loved the jacuzzi tub.

and they loved our tan fleece blanket. It was hard to get them to share. Too bad we didn't bring two.
It was a very relaxing time for us to be together. This is the view at dawn from our bedroom window. It was wonderful to just be with Seth and admire the amazing sky.

Seth and I went to Monticello (Monti - chelo), the home of Thomas Jefferson. It was great to learn more about him. He was an amazing person, politician, inventor, reader, linguist. You name it, he probably did it.
He always recorded the weather, wind and temperature every day.
He built this clock which has been running for over 200 years.
They wouldn't let us take any pictures inside (sad, but true). My favorite part about the house was the library. I LOVE old books.
These are some pictures of the grounds.

The garden reminded us of Seth's mom, Jeena's garden.
Jefferson knew what he was doing when he picked this spot. I craved to see it in the Autumn, my favorite time of year. Virginia is so beautiful, even in December before the snow, but to see it when every hill side is just alight with color, red, gold, brown, yellow, orange and green! We will definitely go back.

The cemetery where Jefferson is buried. Somehow, we didn't think to go over to the other side to take a picture.

Here's us with old Tommy. He was 6'2"! That was near giant stature in his day. This is a life size statue of him.
By his own wishes, Thomas Jefferson's tombstone notes his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his founding of the University of Virginia, and his responsibility for Virginia's Statute of Religious Freedom. For any who don't know it, he was also the third President of the United States.
I just couldn't resist. How can you not try to capture such a beautiful dawn!

My Grandfather (Claude Hubbard) was born in Virginia, and sometimes would take my Grandma, aunt and mom to Virginia. Whenever they crossed the state line, my Grandpa would have everyone put their hand over their heart, and he would sing "Carry me back to ole Virginny"

Chorus:
Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and corn and taters grow.
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

An interesting song, to be sure.


For any who were wondering (Jacob Wagner), this is what Seth looks like with a goatee.
... a fumanchu...
... and a mustache.

What a wonderful vacation it was. Seth and I watched movies, made delicious meals, went to a very funny magic show, a relaxation and a couples massage workshop, we played games, rested, talked, read books together, and just enjoyed each other's company. (Just the opposite of our vacation a year ago)It was a wonderful vacation!!