Where giggles grow.

We took the kids to the new Downing Children's Garden at Botanica yesterday and..... WOW! It's pretty darn awesome. Really awesome. Totally awesome. Gus and Bea had a fabulously fun time watering the flowers, running down the paths, climbing in the tree houses, and just plain giggling in the gardens. If it hadn't been sweltering hot (and lunchtime) we would have stayed even longer. But it doesn't matter, because we bought a family membership and now we can come back as often as we'd like. What a fantastic addition to Botanica. Well done, Wichita!

Wisconsin Waterpalooza

The Denneler family is back from their summer vacation. 

 < insert giant sighs of exhaustion here > 

We drove 13 hours north to the Wisconsin Dells - apparently not just the land of cheese, but America's largest waterparks too. We stayed at Glacier Canyon Lodge in The Wilderness Resort, and waterparked (is that a verb?) until we were sufficiently pruney. They have 8 indoor and outdoor waterparks, a zipline, arcades, a pottery shop, lazer tag, and outdoor amusement rides too. Boredom was never an option.

Then we drove to Janesville, Wisconsin to visit our good friends, the Kolstes - who entertained us with golf, a water ski show, fireworks, biking, and more water fun on their boat.

6 days + 6 states + 6,000,000,000 gallons of water = 1 tired family

Here are more photos than you probably care to see. Enjoy!

I'm happy to report that these smiles were coming from the backseat almost the entire trip. Yes, the constant use of iPads, iPhones and DS games helped, but Gus and Bea were very good travel buddies during the 1500+ miles.

Macarons for my man.

Eric commented the other night that I never bake for him. And he's mostly right. I'm always baking for a party or a birthday or a surprise of some kind. So I decided to make some macarons, JUST for Eric. 

I intended them to be red, white and blue (you know, for the 4th of July and all...) But they turned out more maroon, white and topaz. Darn food coloring. Not very patriotic. But still yummy. And super-cute on top of this old ice cream scale I rescued from the Rainbow Drive-In demolition years ago in my hometown. (Colby, KS) 

Freak of nature.

The freak I'm referring to isn't Eric, it's our holly bush. We gave it a much needed shave & haircut today.

Fifteen (or so) years ago, we planted this pyramidal holly in the front of our house. And for 15 (or so) years, it's grown and grown and grown. I'd estimate it's probably 16 feet tall by now. Eric claims "coffee sludge" is the miracle fertilizer. Every day, when he gets home from work, he dumps the remains of his morning coffee cup on the bush. (No wonder it's always smelled like Starbucks in our front yard!)

Whatever the reason, we get people asking us all the time what kind of tree that is in our front yard. It's not a tree folks, just a really, really, really, freakishly big holly bush. 

Why so blue?

So, I went to Walmart the other night to buy milk and lightbulbs... and I came home with two bags of blue play sand. Why, you ask? Helloooooo?!?!? Because it's BLUE! How fun is that? (I'm such a sucker for new products. As my husband knows all too well.)

We put it in the rocketship sandbox, and Bea squealed with delight. Although, she got a little panicked when she thought her hands and feet were turning kinda Smurf-like. No worries, it rinses right off with the garden hose.

P.S. 

Our backyard rocketship was featured on Ohdeedoh this week in their "My Great Outdoors" projects. Woot! Once again, Eric's mad-dad-woodworker skills received lots of cool compliments.

AbraCAKEdabra!

No magic-themed party would be complete without a rabbit being pulled from a hat!

My creative project this week was making 24 magician's hat cake cups with chocolate rabbits for a 7-year-old girl's birthday party. My husband and my mom (who was visiting this week) would probably agree, I became mildly obsessed with figuring out how to make a magician's hat that could be easily transported by little, messy kids and still be edible.

The hats are made of foam can coozies (that I painted black). And the hat rims are cut out of black foam sheets from Hobby Lobby. I put a paper cup inside the foam coozies and filled them with layers of mini-cupcakes, frosting, regular-sized cupcakes, more frosting, and then topped them all with crushed Oreos. The rabbit suckers are made from white chocolate candy melts and a plastic chocolate mold I found on Amazon. (Thank goodness for 2-day delivery!)

At the last minute, I decided to make some magic wand forks. I went to Freddy's Frozen Custard and they sold me some of their jumbo pink straws. I taped off the tops and painted the bottoms black. Then, I wedged the black forks inside the straws. Worked like a charm. Magical, one might even say!

Paris, 1993.

Can you believe this is me & Eric in Paris, 18+ years ago? Look at that crazy, looooong hair of mine. And look at that baby face of Eric's. He's always looked so young. Even now. And my God, why are our jackets so large? We could smuggle 15 baguettes under those tents.

Why am I posting a photo of us in Paris? Because I'd like to go back. Someday. And one of my favorite blogs - Oh Happy Day - is giving away a trip for two to Paris! Not that I want you to go online and register to win too, because that would make my odds for winning even worse. But if I post their contest on my blog, then I'm entered to win. Oh, OK... go ahead and register, but if you win, I don't want to hear about it.

Je tiens à aller à Paris. (Translation: I want to go to Paris.)

S'il vous plait? (Please?)

I also remember how to order a ham & cheese sandwich: Je voudrais une sandwich jambon et de fromage.

Four years of French class. I've still got it. Sorta.

By the way, you should seriously check out Oh Happy Day. It's full of all kinds of fun ideas and inspiration.  

 Me in front of Pei's Pyramid at the Louvre.

 

Eric in front of Sacre Coeur.