Alex’s 13th Birthday Party

Alex and his friends had a lot of fun celebrating his 13th birthday.  We picked everyone up and went to Airway for bowling, pizza, and the arcade.  Then we went back to our house for a sleepover and another friend joined late.  The boys had ice cream cake, played soccer in the basement, played video games, and some board games.  The holiday and birthday festivities are finally over… just in time for school Monday. 

 

Birthday Fun

Alex had a fun birthday! Streamers, balloons, gifts, lotto tickets, and a giant yard sign. The boys both have hockey tonight so we are going out to dinner tomorrow night.  Alex’s party with friends is Saturday night.  

 

Happy 13th Birthday, Alex!

Alex is officially a teenager! Happy Birthday

Happy New Year!

On New Years Eve, we went to Airway to do the Pirates Curse escape room. It was a level 8.0 but we actually escaped with a few minutes to spare. It was definitely our best escape room effort and everyone contributed. After the escape room, we went to the Podd's for New Years Eve. They had crab legs and grilled rack of lamb (always such good food at their house) and all the guests brought appetizers and snacks. The boys played mini sticks, pool, and foosball and the dads played cards. It was a fun, relaxing evening.

Happy Hanukkah

We celebrated Hanukkah on Monday night after our ski trip. We had a nice dinner and the boys (and Winger) opened their gifts. We gave the boys their traditional calendars and we booked an escape room for the family to do on New Years Eve. Grann is going to take the boys to Top Golf at some point and also got them Wander Club token holders, some tokens to start them off (Yosemite, Comerica Park, Michigan, London), and gift cards to order more tokens. It will be a great way for the boys to remember all the cool places they've gone.  

After gifts, we went down to the basement to do our Basement Games.  We typically do these on NYE, but were invited to our friends' house so we decided to do it a night early.  We played dome hockey, shuffleboard, darts, foosball, ping pong, marbles, and Mario Cart.  Alex was the ultimate winner this year (his first time in 5 years of basement games) and was very excited.

 

Boyne Mountain Resort

On Friday morning, we got up early to head to Boyne so the boys could ski for a few days.  We dropped Winger off with Grandma and made it to Boyne just after 11am.  They boys were on the slopes by 11:30 and we were able to check into the Chalet Edelweiss shortly after.  This was our first time staying in the Chalets and we unanimously decided that is where we would stay going forward.  There are only 35 rooms and it is located between two ski slopes.  Our room had a balcony overlooking the Mountain Express lift which was a lot of fun.  There was also a nice lounge with hot cocoa and pastries, a living room area with comfortable chairs by the fireplace, a sauna, and a firepit (with smores!) just outside.  The boys were able to ski-in and ski-out all day and pop in for hot cocoa whenever they wanted.  On Saturday, Alex took a break from skiing to go to the water park and Phil joined Will on the slopes.  Despite the warm weather, they had 29 runs open and 7 lifts.  Before heading home, we went to Petoskey for a late lunch and walked around the town for a little bit.