School Field Trip With Shane

Hi all,
I've had the privilege to be asked to go on a field trip with my little Grandson Shane.  Today, we went to the Shalom Wildlife Sanctuary game farm to visit with Santa and ride in a decorated wagon pulled by a tractor which was also driven by Santa. I started off this morning by arriving at the Z's house at 8AM.  The kids were watching Curious George and were already dressed and finishing up eating breakfast.  Audra was sleeping yet and Sarah had everything ready for me to take the kids to school.  We had to leave by 8:40 to get to school in time to take Kaylin to her classroom and to go to Shane's room to get ready to leave on the field trip.  We all got in to the van and took off to school.  As I was told by both kids...."Grandma, this isn't the way Mommy and Daddy take us to school".  I explained to them that they know the back road way to their school and that because I don't live around here, I'm going to take the main road there.  They seemed to be ok with that, but I could tell, they just weren't too sure about Grandma's driving.  They've been in this situation before with me where we got lost going to the hospital after Audra was born.  We ended up going way west out into the country and had to call Sarah/Matt to get directions back to CMH (Community Memorial Hospital).  So as we were getting closer to school...all of a sudden, Kaylin yells.."Hey Grandma this is the right way, we're almost there!"...Little smarty pants.....So we got there with minutes to spare.  We got Kaylin to her classroom and then proceeded to Shane's room.  I had to put Shane's snow pants on, because he saw that most of his little friends had theirs on too.  Good thing we brought them along, because as it ended up it was a little chilly on the wagon ride.  Leave it to Grandma to try and get his snow pants on without first taking off his boots.  It was a little tricky, but we did it and got them on.  It ended up that we were the last ones to get on and got to sit in the first seat on the bus.  The bus driver said that he was not going to turn on the heat right away, because it was so warm in there right then.   Shane sat by the window and for a while was just watching outside as we drove along.

Soon I looked down at him and he had fallen asleep.  It took approximately a 1/2 hour to get there.  The Shalom Wildlife Sanctuary game farm is a little north of West Bend off of hwy 144.

 











We got off the bus and then I asked Shane if he had to go to the bathroom, which he did, so we went and got that out of the way.  We then got onto the wagon and Santa was already there talking to everyone. He told us that we were going to be traveling through the woods and stopping at five different places where there will be a Christmas stocking filled with presents that are to be given to each kid from the animals & Santa at the end of the ride.

We started going through the woods in these really tall pine trees.

Here is the first stop at the horse barn.  There were 2 horses in there that were named Sugar and Candy Cane.  Santa fed them some "sugar" and then took out a bag of presents for the kids.  The present was a sweetheart piece of candy.

Then we stopped at the buffalo pen.  Here is Bill the buffalo. His present to give was a jingle bell ringer.

Here is a little creek along the ride.

Here is an albino deer. There a couple of these in the woods.

Here is "Stripe" the skunk.  It really smelled bad here !! The kids got a arm band here as a present that Santa said they should wear when they go to bed on Christmas Eve.  This will let Santa know that they have been good little girls and boys and to leave an extra present for them under the tree.

The 2 pictures above is the fourth stop.  There were 2 fox in there.  One was a female fox named Patty and the male was named Smoky.  The present they gave was a little stuffed Santa mouse.

The last stop was by Santa's reindeer.  The kids were really interested in these and they all stood up in the wagon to see them.  The present they gave was a little poseable reindeer.

We then drove back to the starting point and got off the wagon.  Shane wanted to look at the tractor that Santa pulled us around with.  Here are a few pic's of Shane checking it out.  He commented on how BIG the tires were....

After checking out the tractor, Shane and I went into the gift shop entrance which then we went into another room decorated up really cute and had cookies and hot chocolate waiting for us.  It was nice and warm in there too. 

 

We then got everyone ready to get back on the bus to come back to school.

Shane getting back onto the bus.

So we drove back to the school and go off and went into Shane's class room.  We got back at around 11:45AM and Kaylin was just about ready to be picked up.  Shane's teacher Miss Laurie gave him his bag of presents and released us to leave and meet Kaylin at her classroom.   I had a Senior moment and forgot where her classroom was so I asked Shane to take us to it.  No problem....got there in a couple seconds!!! LOL.  Kaylin was in music so we had to wait a little for her.  In a little bit, here she came with a big smile on her face.  We got her coat on and left to go home.  Then we had another incident with me making a wrong turn and having to go a different way back home.  Sean had called me on my cell phone while I was driving, so while I was at one of the stop-n-go lights I called him back.  He just wanted to know why I was off work today.  So as I'm driving and talking to him, I'm not paying good attention for the turn left onto Division off of highway Q.  I instead took the first left which took me back onto the freeway going north.  I just told the kids, "that's ok, we'll just get off on the next exit and come to your house the back way.  The kids again weren't too sure about this.....So we get off on the next exit (Mequon/Lannon Rd.) and turned right onto Mequon Road.  As soon as we did, we went past the Country Suite hotel where they had stayed last year when they first arrived home until their house was ready to move in.  Again...Kaylin yells "Hey Grandma....there's where we stayed at when our house was getting cleaned"....I could just hear the sigh of relief from those kids that YES...Grandma made the right turn and we are going to get home safe and sound....I might be putting too much stress on these poor kids.  They may think again about having Grandma drive them anywhere.  They did tell Sarah about the wrong turns we made, so I couldn't escape being found out...LOL...

Oh well,  I had a wonderful day and will do it again if asked....

Love to you all,

Safe travels in this holiday season......

Hi all,
Last week was a wonderful and exciting time for me. Celebrating Thanksgiving and having all of the family in the house at one time. The Grandkids stayed over from Wednesday night until Saturday night.

Wednesday:
I took a vacation day today so I could clean house and get ready for Thanksgiving. I had to go to the eye doctor at 9AM to pick up my new glasses. Now I can see again! Ha,ha. Bailey was very happy that I was home with her. Every time I leave for work in the morning she starts shaking and won’t look at me at all. Poor little girl….  Matt, Sarah, Kaylin, Shane & Audra arrived at the house around 9:30PM. All the kids were sleeping so they were put to bed right away. Sean was not here yet as he was coming down on Thursday morning. Sarah & Matt stayed up a little while to chat and then we all went to bed around 12 midnight.

Thursday (Happy Thanksgiving!):
I got up around 5AM and guess who was next??? My little morning buddy Kaylin. She is a early bird too. After I got my coffee and cereal for Kaylin, we went downstairs. We turned on the TV and found Angelina Ballerina and the Bernstein Bears. We also checked on my Farmville crops to see if they needed harvesting…Nope not yet….Sarah & Audra were up next and then Shane. Slowly, Matt & John made their way downstairs too. We only had about an hour to lay around until we had to get showers taken, get dressed and start making the last minute food for Thanksgiving. I had to get the 23 LB bird in by 10AM to eat around 2. We had taco salad to make, and cheese and sausage to cut up too. Everyone chipped in and we got it done. Mom & Joe came around 11:30 right before the packer game kick-off. Sean came strolling in about that time too. He made his yummy Buffalo hot dip…..Um,Um…

Kaylin wearing  her turkey hat

Audra eating cherrios

At 2PM. the bird is done and the mashed potatoes were ready. The sweet potatoes were done too along with all of the other go-withs, so we sat down to eat. Chris & Dannette came then. They went for brunch with Dannette’s Dad, Kelly & Dan. Kelly and Dan didn’t come because they had other Thanksgivings to go to also.

Dannette brought some goodies

The packer game was on, so some people sat downstairs to watch it. Everything tasted real good. Later on, Mom & Joe left. Joe was real happy with the packer win. Matt was yanking his chain all through the game to get him riled. It was real funny. But it turned out good in the end. Sarah, Matt & Audra left around 7PM and then we settled in for the night. The kids brushed their teeth and got PJ’s on. We watched some TV and went to bed.

Friday:
Again, I’m up at 5AM…Getting my coffee and who do I hear coming down the stairs??....Kaylin. She’s got a cold too, so she was coughing a couple of times during the night. We went downstairs and harvested some crops in Farmville. Papa made pancakes when he got up and he had some help. 

Sean was last to get up as he went out at 10PM on Thursday with his friend Holly to Walmart. He said it was crazy, crazy, crazy but he survived. He got home around 1PM. So he was a little tired. The kids couldn’t wait until he got up. I found Shane pounding on his door a few times and quickly got him away and downstairs. FINALLY Uncle Sean woke up and they were really happy to see him. Once he ate and got dressed, we started to put the tree up to decorate. John put the lights on and then the kids started to put the ornaments on. Soon I could see that the tree was starting to lean and all of a sudden….crash! it went down! The kids eyes were like saucers and were horrified that this happened. You just got to laugh it up, so that’s what we did…The kids relaxed and when the tree was put back up, we started all over again.

We put more ornaments in the back and Sean put some magazines in the front of the stand to make it tilt more back to the corner. That worked. I have a Christmas village that I set up underneath the tree and so that’s why the tree is on a wooden stand about 2 feet higher than normal. So after the tree was decorated, we went down in the basement and dug out all the boxes that had houses in them and set them up under the tree in a line. I ran the line of lights to put into the houses so they lit up for the kids to see. We got the ice skating ring out that has ice skaters that skate around on the ice. They really liked it. They immediately started playing underneath the tree with that and drove some of the matchbox cars up to each business. It was really cute. I’m still debating if I want to put everything out. It would be like dangling a piece of candy in front of them because some of the items are very fragile and would break easily if played with. So, I’m leaning towards to just setting out the minimum and let them go at it.
I still had to bake a few things to take over to my sister Denna’s house on Saturday for my families side’s Thanksgiving, so I decided to start baking then. I was going to make a Chocolate Trifle, Lemon bars & a apple pie. We needed to make a pan of chocolate brownies for the trifle, so I got the mix in the bowl and each kid stirred until ready to put in the pan to bake. Then there was an argument as to who gets to lick off the spoon and the bowl. They said I should pick who gets what. I then said to them ok, but no arguments or no one gets anything….They agreed and so then Shane got the bowl and Kaylin got the spoon. While the brownies were baking, we got the crust for the lemon bars ready and the pudding mixed up for the trifle and that was put in the frig. By this time the kids were getting pretty antsy so I said we are going to the park!!!, They got their coats and shoes on and we headed outside and walked to the school playground just down the road from our house. As we were walking, I suddenly thought, Uh, oh….what happens if somebody has to go to the bathroom??? Shane had just gone to the bathroom before we left, but Kaylin had not. I asked Kaylin if she had to go (we were about ½ way) and she said “no, I’m like a camel…I hold it really long”. I almost fell down laughing. We made it to the playground and had lots of fun…climbing on the tire pile, sliding down the many different slides, riding on the see saws…etc. We were there about an hour, when I was getting a little cold, so I said “everyone ready to go back? “ Of course, Shane says “no”, but I persuaded him to change his mind, with a granola bar when we got home. Those kids were pretty tuckered out when we got back, but that granola bar sure tasted good ! We then had mac-n-cheese & hotdogs for supper and then started watching the Polar Express movie. We had some popcorn too. We got the kids into their PJ’s and ready for bed, because it didn’t take long, before the eyes were closed.

Saturday:
I got up, ate & then the kids took a bath (Shane) and a shower( Kaylin) and got dressed to go to Denna’s. Kaylin’s cold was getting worse, so I called Sarah up to see what kind of medicine to get her. I ran to Walgreens and got some medicine for her then. We left the house around 12:30 PM as we were supposed to be there between 1PM & 2PM. We got there and had a nice Thanksgiving with everyone. We even talked to Denna & Rusty’s youngest daughter Emily & her husband Chris who live in New Mexico via Skype. I’m so glad we make a point to all get together at least for the holidays. We discussed also what we were going to do for Christmas. My brother Duane is hosting it. He has a neighbor that has a team of horses that pull a show wagon around at parades. Duane is going to ask him if he would give us a wagon ride through the fields. We’ve done this before about 10 years ago, and it was really fun. We left around 7 PM stuffed with food again !!

Sunday:
John and I got up and got showers done and dressed. We are going up to Green Bay today to the Polar Express event that the National Railroad Museum puts on. We had to leave by 9:30AM to go to Sarah & Matt’s. We had to load up the snow blower into the truck that we are giving them. So we did that and took off. We got there unloaded the snow blower, packed up and left around 10:15A. Sean is going to meet us up there. The ride up was uneventful, just long…..We are going to go out to lunch first at the Texas Roadhouse near the museum. We got there and Sean was already waiting for us. The lunch was good, little Audra sat in a high chair that the restaurant has for the first time and she did real good. It was around 2PM and we left to go to the museum. Our tickets were for 3PM, so we had an hour to waste. They let us go into the museum early and walk around part of it. Soon it started and we went into another large room that had huge locomotives parked and decorated with Christmas trees in every color you can imagine. It was really pretty. There were different tables set up with games for the kids to play and some free tattoos were given out.

The kids in one of the big locomotives

3 of the train conductors

Huge screen to show the pictures from the book as they story was read




We toured the locomotives and the attached cars. Kaylin was a little scared at first. She thought that the engines were going to move when we went in them. I explained to her that these were old engines that were parked forever and to come and see what they look like inside. She was still a little afraid, but she came up the stairs with me. Once she got into it and saw the different levers and knobs, she relaxed and lots of fun. She couldn’t wait to go into the next one….It was really cute! Soon the Polar Express play started so we had to go to our seats. The kids sat in the front on a carpet. Some kids wore their PJ’s. The first song was about Hot Chocolate and after they were done singing, they passed out hot chocolate to everyone. Then they had a man read the Polar Express story. After that the conductor yelled “All Aboard”. We got up and out our coats and went outside and got onto another train waiting for us (the Polar Express). They had it all decorated real pretty. The conductor then came down the aisle and punched our tickets, the kids tickets he punched a Christmas Tree into it. Then they went down the aisle and handed out a large jingle bell to each kid. It was really cool, because as they got closer to us, the jingle bells got louder and louder as more kids got bells to jingle. We then pulled up to the north pole (the front of the main building) and we all got out and went in to talk to Santa. We stood in line (it seems like forever), but we got to him and the kids sat on his lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas.

We walked outside then near some of the decorated trees and the sign for the Polar Express. We said good bye to Sean and then left for home. Another long drive. I, Kaylin & Shane fell asleep. We got home around 7:30PM and got into our truck and went home. Bailey was so glad to see us as she was way past her feeding and going outside time.

All in all, it was a very nice holiday for all of us. Now it’s on to Christmas. We are going to have Matt, Sarah, kids & Sean here on Dec. 17th to celebrate our family Christmas as they will not be here during the Christmas weekend. Every other year they go to IL to see Matt’s side of the family and this is the year for IL visiting.

Have a great week.

Hi all,
As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, I am trying to get everything in order at our house.  We are hosting the Winters side of the family this year.  So far I have gone to the grocery store 3 times in 2 days and I hope that is it.  But I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to be going again. I am always thinking of more things to pick up.  I even made a list, but I seem to be adding to it.
As for what has been happening in my life lately, here goes:
On Sat. Nov. 17th, I went bowling for the third time.  I belong to a league at AMF lanes in Waukesha.  Right across from the Expo center.  I did pretty well this time.  My highest was a 90.  The reason why I did so much better is that I learned to put the right fingers in the bowling ball holes. This is the story....For the first 2 times that I bowled, I was putting the wrong 2 fingers into the bowling ball!!.  I guess my trainers, i.e. C.J., Sean & Jackie failed to mention that.  I was up there getting ready to throw the ball about 1/2 way through my second game and I hear Sean yelling at me "Mom ! how are you holding that ball?"  I showed him and he , C.J. & Jackie almost fell on the floor laughing.  I have been sticking my index & middle finger and my thumb into the holes instead of my middle and ring fingers & thumb.  Everyone had a really good laugh, but since I changed my finger placement, I improved, So I can't be upset about it.  Also. C.J. told me to stand off to the side of the lane instead of standing in the middle of it before I throw the ball, because I seem to hook to the left when I let the ball go.  That works better too.  Everyone had a good time and good games.
Sunday we celebrated Sarah's birthday.  They came over to the house after church and the kids helped decorate Sarah's cake.

We had spaghetti & garlic bread for supper.  Here is Audra learning to climb up the stairs:

Notice her little tongue sticking out.  Working hard going up those stairs!
This last weekend, John and I went up north to take the riding lawnmower to store it for the winter and hopefully to mow & mulch the leaves in the backyard.  Because is was hunting weekend and didn't want to deal with the crowded highway on Friday night, we didn't leave until 5 AM Sat. morning and arrived in Minocqua about 9:30AM.  It was about 34 degrees out.  Sean texted us and said there's snow on the way.  So when we got to the cabin, John unloaded the lawnmower and started mowing.

Lots of leaves !!

After he got done, we were asked by the VP of the Homeowners Assoc. to see if we could take out the last pier that was left in down by the lake.  John thought by putting his ATV in the back of the truck and using his winch, pull up the pier to loosen the legs from the muck.  Then just pull it out.  Sounds easy right? WRONG !  He hooked the winch up to the pier and it just pulled the ATV down on it's shocks, the pier didn't even budge.  So we took off the wooden boards and called Dewey to see if he could come down later in the week with his skid steer to get it out. Here is a picture of us by the pier after trying to pull it out.

Backing up to the pier



So we decided to go into town to Ace hardware to pick up a tie out for Bailey.  She busted hers, thankfully while we were outside with her so we could catch her.  We left around 12:30PM and by the time we got back home (around 1:30PM, it was already starting to snow.  John wanted to put up a new outside barn light, but it was not to be this time.  We got home and got the trailer backed into the barn and closed it up for the day.  I had stew in the crock pot for supper so the house smelled really good.  We ate supper and that was it for the day/night.   By the time it was dark out (around 5PM, there was already a good 3 inches on the ground.  Only in Wisconsin can you mow your lawn in the morning and have measurable snow by nightfall.

Here is how it looked the next morning.  It was a really pretty snow.

Sunday, we got up, put plastic on the patio door, packed up an left around 11:30AM.  We wanted to stop at the popcorn store in Minocqua to fill our popcorn bucket, but they were closed...Oh well. we"ll try next time.

We got home around 3:30 safe and sound.

Hope everyone has a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving.