Keeping Busy

The weather was pretty cold and wet during Christmas, which meant the kids spent a lot of time trapped indoors. Christmas distracted them for a while, but then we desperately needed to get them out of the house! Thankfully Claudia got us into the Clay Center at a great price. All the kids enjoyed running a bit crazy with their cousins. 

An entire wall full of Blood girls

Of course, it isn't just the kids who need some fun! Thanks to Mom Blood and Jocelyn being willing to watch kids, the rest of us enjoyed a delicious meal together with Dad.  

Not pictured: us enjoying some delicious Thai food with Aaron & Ashley for our respective anniversaries. The food and the company were both amazing! We're still trying to lure them out East...

We also discovered this really cool new park not too far from the house. It was mud-free, which made it better than any other outdoor options. But it also had really cool equipment, like these parent-and-kid swings: 

Elise was ecstatic. The higher the better!

Catherine scaled to the top of the climbing web.

There was also an obstacle course complete with a timer and a 50 yard dash with a timer. There may have been a friendly competition among the original Blood boys as to who could run it the fastest. Jon was winning for a while with 5.69, but Timmy eventually took it with 5.31. 

But we couldn't stay at the park forever, which meant spending a lot of time in the house together. Seth just couldn't resist teasing everyone, which earned him some more Uncle Stephen love: 

We spent New Years Eve playing games and eating junk. We didn't make it until midnight because we're boring and old, much to Seth's dismay. But Jon wanted to get enough rest before we made the long drive back home.