"Jay"cation!

Hooray, it's vacation week, and it's been great so far! We started with a relaxing Saturday and then hit the road Sunday for a short stay in Jay, Vermont (home of Jay Peak Resort). The draw was a brand new water park at the resort called The Pump House. It's HUGE and totally awesome. It just opened in the middle of December, so it's practically brand new. Justin snuck away Sunday for a day on the slopes to take advantage of some long-awaited POWDER! It finally snowed and Jay reportedly got 47" of snow. I packed the car and kids and made my way to the fabulous rental house--we met up with our great neighbors, the Crafts and McCleary families. As always, my photo taking could have been better--you'll have to imagine the fun times and yummy meals that happened in the house both days we were there--but I did manage to capture some of the great moments we had. I'm SO glad it's vacation week!

Front of rental house--it was such a gorgeous day when I drove up on Sunday.

The boys enjoyed running around the big, open spaces when we first arrived (especially after being in the car for almost 2 hours). We arrived first, which was nice. They ran around, I unloaded the car. 

Still a gorgeous house, even on a cloudy day.

Life jackets were provided--YAY--and it was bright, cheerful, and WARM inside! 86 degrees!

The largest lazy river in the country, apparently. 

We all spent a lot of time in the lazy river. I couldn't get photos when it was all of us together, though!

View from the 2nd floor entrance. What you can't see from this angle is a great area for small children...fun but totally impossible for me to take photos there--too much splashing water! :-)

Contemplating our next move. 

Justin signed a waiver and bravely took on the surfing ride...

This pool had a basketball hoop and climbing wall. So cool!

Love.

Snowshoeing with the ladies. We saw a MOOSE!

Will's "date" with Tracy--ECHO Center!

Tracy took Will on an adventure last Saturday, and he loved it! It happened to be the Winter Fest in Burlington (despite no snow) and it was kids day at the ECHO Center. Will can't stop talking about his "date" with Tracy! :-)

Water table with boats and a current. Awesome!

"Is that a nice fish or a mean fish?" is probably what he's thinking...

Ringing the bell at the general store. Service please!

Posing with visiting mascots!

I can't remember what Tracy said was on the other end of this phone! 

There were some pretty tantalizing treats for kids, like this marshmallow/candy skewer!

Another mascot--is that Arthur?

Ready to sail away!

My artists

I brought some paints home from school tonight to make a sample project for my classroom. Will and Patrick were so excited to explore their own paintings while I worked on mine! Like their t-shirt smocks?! Those are my old field day class t-shirts. :-)

This was the text message I got today from Laura--the boys wanted hair accessories too, since all the girls had them! They'd be cute girls, wouldn't they?!

The Sorenson Family is DOWN!

So, as I got ready for bed on the eve of January 30th, I had the kiss of death thought, "Wow, we haven't been sick for a while, and the kids haven't been sick all school year." Then BOOM, Patrick wakes up during the night and throws up all over me several time during the night. Ick. I stay home and we survive. We decide to keep Patrick home on Tuesday since he just doesn't seem back to normal, thinking we're giving him a little extra recuperation time. All is well...Justin is home with Patrick and then BOOM--Justin gets sick! Around 11 pm on Tuesday, Will started getting sick too. Our washer got a workout last week. I should record posterity that I got horrendously sick too, sometime early Wednesday morning. Needless to say, it was a sick day for ALL of us on Wednesday. There is not much worse than a stomach virus. I'd take strep throat with its antibiotic cure any day over these. The good news--we were all in the clear on Thursday for the most part and back at work and school. But what a week!  

I knew things were getting better when they started to eat. Granted, it was just lots of saltines at first! :-)

Eating yogurt=full recovery