Family Visits: The Morris' come to Indiana!

Hi Y'all!

I know it has been a while since I last blogged...more than two weeks actually. BUT, some things have been going on making life crazy and busy. I didn't mean for that to sound negative if it did because God is SO good, all the time! I have a post in progress with life updates, but in the meantime I wanted to share with you about our awesome weekend last weekend!

The Morris family from Florida came to visit us! I had been looking forward to this weekend for months and I think the Morris girls had been too! Hannah and Haley are the sweetest and funniest girls to be around, we just love them! Their Mom & Dad aren't bad either!

I was able to take a half day from work on Friday and meet them at their hotel around lunch time. We grabbed a bite to eat at The Boathouse in Winona Lake and then took the rest of the afternoon pretty easy. Eventually we made it to our house where we watched Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and relaxed. Our nieces were able to come over after school too, which was great. Emma, Ainsley, Hannah and Haley were flower girls and jr. bridesmaids in our wedding and they hit it off great together. In fact, Emma and Hannah frequently write each other letters to this day. How sweet is that? Needless to say, it was exciting for them to see each other again!

We had dinner together at El Mez (our favorite Mexican place near our house) and went bowling afterwards with the girls. We had a great time at the bowling alley and I think the girls did too!

Other than visiting us and seeing our house, the purpose of this trip was for the girls to see snow. Of course, they came when we had zero snow. Actually, we had some snow...dirty snow in parking lots and on the side of the road. It didn't matter to the girls though! Saturday we drove to Michigan for some snow tubing. Once Haley got over the fact that she had to wear to many clothes (funny!) we had a great time. The girls LOVED tubing and said they could have done it all day long. This was perfect because they got to see snow...not real snow, but still. Here are some pictures from the day:

The tubing lanes...ending right in the middle of a muddy corn field.

I LOVE this picture of Haley...so cute!

At the end of the middle lane they had built a speed bump out of snow...too bad we went over it many times into the corn field. My back is still a little sore!

Beth got some great action shots while we went down the hill. I thought she was so brave to have her camera out on the ride down!

After tubing Saturday we had a sleepover at our house with Emma, Hannah and Haley. We enjoyed a night of pizza and movies. I think everyone was tired from the events of the day because we went to bed pretty early with no arguments from the girls, ha! I will say that it felt so good to lay down after our fun and adventurous day!

Sunday morning Hannah & Haley's parents met us and we went to church. After church we decided on a whim to head to a State Park we had heard about and read about in the newspaper. Pokagon State Park was a little bit of a drive for us, but it was totally worth it! They have a toboggan run that was built in the 30s or 40s that has been maintained and is still open in the winters. They have a system that refrigerates the track so you can still go tobogganing when there is no snow and the temperature us above freezing. How cool is that?

The only negative thing was the weight of our toboggans. They were 60 pounds! I think that we all got our exercise carrying those back up the hill after our runs! Oh, and they tell you your speed at the end of the run, too. Our fastest was 35mph, and the record is 42mph. That is fast!

...and they're off!

The last time we went down we were all too tired to carry our toboggans back up so we brought down the car and shoved them in the back. Redneck? Maybe! BUT, we did see other people do it. Sometimes that makes it okay!

We drove around the park as much as we could to see it, and it really looks nice. I think this may be a potential camping spot for us in the future...maybe next fall we will do some tent camping? We'll see!

Sunday night we had dinner at El Mez (again) and just took is easy...Monday was back to the grind for Stephen and back home for the Morris'. I had Monday off to take Louie to the vet (more on that later) and I was so thankful I had a day to relax and do some laundry...it was an exhausting but FUN weekend for sure! Thanks for visiting us Morris' family! You guys are always welcome, anytime! See you in Florida in 23 days! :)

a look back...

I was browsing through old posts from back in the day, like circa 2009. I found some interesting ones and some really inspiring ones too. One thing that I wanted to touch base on again was my bucket list. I figured now would be a good time to stop and take account of the things I have accomplished on the list and determine what needs to be worked on. Do you have a bucket list? 

1. skydive

2. travel to as many foreign countries as possible

3. adopt a child from a foreign country

4. move out of Florida, even if only temporarily This was accomplished September 2010 when I moved from Florida to Warsaw, IN after accepting a wonderful job and scouting out an apartment with the then soon to be Mr.

5. drive across country on no specific timeline

6. ride in a hot air balloon

7. cruise to Alaska

8. finish college (maybe) I did finish the degree I was striving for at the time this list was composed, but I would still like to further my education at some point. I guess this is a task that could never completely be done, who wants to shut and lock the door to education in their life? Not me.

9. buy a home

10. break 200 in bowling (HA) I have broken 200 once! The Mr. has too, he usually beats me every time. We both require one game to warm up though :)

11. go on African Safari

12. fall in love and marry my best friend Done and could not be happier! October 2, 2010!

13. take a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon

14. learn how to play the guitar (working on this)

15. change my own oil in my car I accomplished this once in Florida with the help of my good friend, Curtis. I thought it would be economical, but honestly it cost just about the same as having it done...so I pay someone to do it instead of getting dirty myself!

16. go to Hawaii Done, October 2010 on the most amazing honeymoon. Can we go back? NOW!? You can see pictures and highlights of our Hawaiian honeymoon here if you missed it!

17. eat Matsumotos shaved ice in North Shore, Hawaii Does it count if I had shave ice in Hawaii, but not Matsumotos? Let's not even talk about how many times we had it the week we are there. It is delicious!

18. see the cherry blossoms in DC

19. zip line in the jungle (Costa Rica, Jamaica, etc.)

20. run a 10k race through the mud When I composed this list I was training for this race and we did run it to the end. So many good memories were made at that race and The Mr. could not believe I did it when he returned from a month in Nigeria. I felt SO hard core! You can read about the race and see pictures here.

I know that my list was pretty short at the time, but I wanted to start out small and not be overwhelmed. I am happy about how much I have accomplished so far and might start thinking and talking to the Mr. about things we can add to the list. Do you have a bucket list, and if so what kind of things are on yours?

Have a great day! :)