Here comes the Arends Clan!!!

We had some visitors this last weekend. It was kinda of un-expected, but that seems to work out better than trying to plan something!!! I talked to Pam Arends on Thursday morning and her husband was going to be gone all weekend and the kids didn’t have school on Friday because of Parent Teacher Conferences, so if we weren’t doing anything, they were going to come on down!!! I told her to start packing her bags!!!

The got to our house about 6ish on Friday night and Noah got his second wind when they come. He was pretty excited to have some other kids to play with!!! We had some Papa Murphy’s pizza and hung out at the house. On Saturday morning we got up and had some breakfast and then me, Pam and her kids left to go shopping. We left Rick and Noah at home to do some man stuff! They actually hung the Christmas lights on the house and Rick even set up the Christmas Tree in our entry way. Seems way too early for Christmas already!!!! I’m not sure when I’ll decorate the tree, but I think it will be at least another week or two.

When we got home from shopping, we told the kids that we would hook up the microphones and they could sing, play guitar and drum and then they could play the Wii. So it was noisy for awhile!!!! And then the competitions got going on the Wii!!! We decided to grill out for dinner and then we ended up having Movie Night later on.

It was a great weekend for them to come down. It was nice and warm all weekend, so we didn’t have to worry about any weather.

Black Eyed Peas

Last night, Rick and I went out on a date to celebrate Rick’s birthday while his parents watched Noah. We first went out to eat at Zio’s Italian Restaurant. I had the Chicken Alfredo Lasagna and boy was that good!!!! I only ate half of it so I could finish it off today!!! After eating we stopped at a few stores to do some window shopping and then we were going to head home and go to our neighbors Halloween party. We didn’t have a costume yet so as we were talking on the way home, we thought we could be the Black Eyed Peas. So we stopped off at Target and picked up some black shirts, green duct tape and some black face paint. Pretty easy costume!!!! We got home and made a “P” out of the green duct tape and put on some black paint and we headed over to the neighbors house. A little later in the night, they even had the band play a few songs for everyone!

Pump It Up Party

Today, Noah was invited to a neighbor girls 3rd birthday party…and are we glad he was invited!!! We all had a great time!!! The birthday party was at “Pump It Up” – the inflatable party zone!! We were not quite sure what to expect, but when the party got started, we all went into the first room and there were 3 huge inflatable activities to play on. One was a huge slide, another was an obstacle course and the other was a bounce house. Noah just looked around for a minute and then he ran to the bounce house. Rick got in with him and they were having a great time!!  Noah had a hard time standing up in it, but that didn’t bother him at all, he would fall down and just laugh. Rick then took him down the slide and at first he didn’t know what to think of it, but then he wanted to do it again. After about 20 minutes in that room, we went to another room that had three different inflatables. We got to be in that room for about 20 minutes and then we went to the party room and had birthday cupcakes and the watched the birthday girl open her presents. Then it was time to head home. We were not even in the car for a minute and Noah was sleeping already! I guess he was wore out – plus it was already a little past his nap time!

In the bounce house with Daddy.

Going down the slide with Daddy.

Even the big boys had fun!!!

Playing so hard, he worked up a thirst…too bad he doesn’t know how to drink from a water fountain yet.

Sooo tired!

Here’s a short little video of Noah in the bounce house.

Kansas Race

Pam & Brian Arends headed down to KC for the weekend so we could all go to the Kansas NASCAR race. My mom rode along with them so she could watch Noah for the day – thank you mom!!!!

We packed up some stuff for tailgating on Saturday night and then Sunday morning we finished packing the cold stuff and left for the track about 6:45. We were following our neighbors – Jeff & Jenny and their friends that came from out of town. We got to the track and meet up with a couple other people and got the tailgating started!!! We got the fire pit going, tent set up and the grill cooking some French toast, eggs and sausages for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked around the sponsor trailers that were in front of the track – then we headed onto the track!!! The first thing we did was sign our name on the start/finish line!!!!!

Then we went to walk around the infield. We couldn’t walk in front or behind the pit box area, and we also couldn’t go in the garage area. We did get to see some cars being pushed out of the garage to get ready for the race!! We were also only a couple arm lengths away from Rick Henrick!! Then it was time to visit Victory Lane!!!

After we walked around the infield, we headed back out to our tailgating group and grilled some hamburgers and brats for lunch. Then it was time to go in for the race!!! Our seats were in section 206, which was just north of the start/finish line a hair, so we had really good seats!!

After the race, we headed back to our camp site and started the grill once more. We figured we were not even going to attempt to try to leave right after the race…which was good, because we watched a pickup right next to us, wait in line for at least 1/2 hour before he even moved!!!

We had a great time with friends and Grandma had a great time with Noah, so it all worked out!!!!

100 Best Places

This was in our Olathe Newsletter that we just received – so if anyone is looking at moving…Olathe is a great place to live!!!

Olathe Among America’s 100 Best Places to Live

Relocate America recognized Olathe in 2009 as one of the nation’s 100 Best Places to Live. Olathe is the only city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area in the top 100 cities, and is one of only two Kansas cities selected. Olathe was also named to America’s 100 Best Places to Live in 2008. Relocate America considers a community’s education, employment, economy, crime rate, parks, recreation and housing as part of the selection.