Long Lost Blog Post

We're long overdue for a blog update so here are some highlights from the last 6 months.

We started school, and brought home a dog.

We made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch, and the girls were a bride, troll, and pop-star for Halloween.

For Nora's birthday we went skating.

And we celebrated Christmas.

Maybe my 2017 resolution should be for more regular updates.

St. Louis Vacation

For our summer trip we went to St. Louis. We had a great time. We started with the Gateway Arch, Nora really enjoyed sitting on the windows over the edge of the Arch.

We stayed at Union Station Hotel, which was built out of a converted train station. It had some pretty cool features.

The next day we walked over to the City Museum. It was very cool, especially the way the girls got to set the pace of our exploration and decide how much to push their limits. Kristin and I did get some pretty good knee bruises.

For a final day we went to the Zoo. We didn't get too many pictures, I think the polar bear and penguins were everyone's favorite.

Abby's 8th Birthday

We've got a lot of blog catching up to do. I'll get started with Abby's birthday, there were birthday pancakes and Abby picked cupcakes as for her birthday cake.

She also had a big birthday party will all her friends from school. As I recall the theme was candy fairies. I do remember we went through a ton of pizza.

Nora's Lost Tooth

Nora lost her first tooth at school yesterday! She was pretty excited, so I'll let her tell you about it in her own words:

"How I Lost My Tooth
I was at school in PE class. I had a loose tooth. I wanted it to come out before class was over. I wiggled and wiggled. Then I pulled and at last my tooth came out. I told a lot of people. My mom gave me a bag to put my tooth in. I hope the tooth fairy comes to my house tonight.
By Nora VanDuyne"

She also drew a picture of the tooth fairy (complete with bags for teeth and dollars) coming to visit while she's sleeping. Apparently Bear has stayed awake when the tooth fairy has come for Abby's teeth and told Nora what she looks like.

It all worked out - last night Nora left a tooth and two cards that she made for the tooth fairy under her pillow, and this morning they were gone and a dollar was in their place. Exciting times!