Sad Xmas for Neighbors

Ken was out snow-blowing the driveway on Christmas Eve morning when he looked around and saw what he thought was fog. When he turned around and looked up the street, this is what he saw.

This house if four lots away from our house and I am standing in our driveway. I thought the house closest to it was going to erupt as well. Luckily, I am married to my own personal Marlboro Man (if you read Pioneer Woman, you get that) and he had already plowed not only our street, which has a pretty good incline, but also around the fire hydrant on our front lawn. The township doesn't know how lucky they are to have randomly put the hydrant on Ken's lawn. He ALWAYS digs it out of the snow. One the cops answering the call asked who had cleared the street and the hydrant. DH (dear husband) said he had and the cop said "You may have saved that house." Well, I just filled with pride that my guy was being recognized for his innate goodness.

Here are the firemen hooking up to the cleared off hydrant. Mark was in the house not wanting to look out the window. He has a strange aversion to fireman and fire trucks. He handled it well though - no tears at all. He even peeked out the window after a while.

DH watching on.

There ended up being at least three fire trucks on the scene. We heard through other neighbors that the family and their pets all got out. They believe the fire started in the garage and they lost three cars to the blaze. I haven't been down the street to see the destruction, but I can't believe the house is in very good shape after such a blaze. I'm just thankful no one was hurt. I hope the family found a way to have a good holiday.

Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving 2008 experiment was a huge success and a new tradition is born!!

We headed back to the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio and brought the whole Warner clan with us for added fun! We also didn't have to shop, cook or clean because the Kalahari had a wonderful buffet. Bonus!!!

As we left the buffet we saw all of the other families taking beautiful family photos in front of the carefully decorated fireplaces, all dressed nicely with freshly scrubbed faces giving their best photo smiles. Well, we decided to keep it real. We'd just pigged out on some food after a morning of water fun. We were in sweats and tired!!! No fancy posing for this family!

We all decided to get adjoining rooms where one of the rooms had a full kitchen, dining area and living area. It was so great! The only downfall was that these rooms happen to be the farthest away from the indoor waterpark. The long hallways reminded us of those scenes from the Shining with those creepy girls. In the summer it wouldn't be that big a deal because you could walk through the outdoor waterpark, but when it's about 30 degrees outside, it seems like a better idea to walk the extra mile indoors than to freeze outside. So, we figured we'd look at the positives and think that hey, we are just walking off any extra calories from Thanksgiving. Yeah, that's it. Needless to say, that attitude only went so far. Ken was on the phone before the Warners arrived looking for a closer room. None was to be found. Oh well. My butt got quite a workout :)

Here is the inside of one of our rooms looking from the fireplace to the kitchen with the bar.

Here are the boys playing in the living room area. Yeah, we let them play Nerf Cosmic Keep Away. I'm sure the people below us were thrilled about that. We were just grateful the kids didn't bust the nice flat screen on the wall. That would have really been a buzz kill. This is where the adults went to get away. It's an 21 and over swim up indoor/outdoor hot tub bar. Cheers Jeff!

Here is Mark on one of his breaks from all the water fun. Chillaxin at it's best.

The kids gettin their grub on. Nothing better than a balmy 85 degrees with water fun and pizza. A kid's paradise.

After the water fun we went to the arcade where they had this little arcade bowing alley. Mark loves to bowl so this was a natural.

I feel like I never take enough pictures but I felt I must keep a firm grip on the camera so that I could rest assured there would be no pictures of me in a bathing suit. You are all welcome for that. I will trust that my lovely sister-in-law will burn all evidence she has in her camera. We made a deal Sandy, remember that!!! LOL

Keep a room open for us Kalahari. We'll be back next year!!