As a Christmas gift, my parents took the whole family to Frankenmuth for a night at the Bavarian Inn. If you've never been to Frankenmuth, you're lucky. Seriously though, if you like German stuff, and towns that pretend to be in Germany, than this is the place for you. The Bavarian Inn is a huge hotel done up like a German Chalet, complete with a staff dressed like Germans (sans the Nazi garb) except with huge swimming pools, a minature golf course and a giant arcade.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and the guys took the kids down to the pool while the women went shopping at a nearby outlet. Keeping track of 8 kids in a large pool, when there a million other kids around is always fun. At one point, we had to walk through the arcade to get to a pool at the other end of the hotel. We lost every kid at one point or another on that 100 yard journey.


We celebrated both my Mom and Nate's birthday that night. The girls had put together a photo album for my Mom and she loved it. At one point, her jaw dropped and she stared at me. I racked my brain to figure out what I'd just done or said that was offensive and I came up blank. She started yelling and hugged my brother Jon and his wife Beth. They'd put a page in the photo album that shared that they are pregnant! We were all really excited about the new baby, and are conflicted as to how to pay Jon back for all the damage he's inflicted on our children. How do we do this, without permanently scarring the child and annoying Beth?



At every event, my Mom wants to make sure we've got some kind of group picture for her grandkids. This one was no exception... Fun to the end. The trip was a nice getaway and a fun chance for us all to hang out. It's amazing how well we all get along. We have so much fun together. We laughed so much during this time, and even with 8 (soon to be 10) grandkids, my parents make sure that each of the kids gets one-on-one time with them and feel important to them. You can check out the the rest of the pictures here.