Our new Piano

We recently were given a piano. What a blessing!!!! Brett's aunt's sister was downsizing her house and needed to get rid of the piano, but wanted to pass it onto a young family that would take good care of it and put it to good use. And his aunt thought of us. How sweet and thoughtful! I never imagined I would ever have a piano in my home, knowing how expensive they are. What a blessing this will be as we WILL USE IT, and now I know I will have to get my girl's piano lessons. Too bad I don't know how to play it.

Metzger Reunion

The first ever Metzger Reunion was held at Honey Creek Resort on Rathbun Lake in Iowa. My grandparents are living and going strong. They are celebrating 60 years of marriage next year. The awesome thing is EVERYONE: CHILD, GRANDCHILD, and GREAT GRANDCHILD were there minus just two grandchildren. That's a lot of people!! My family stayed in a tiny 4 bedroom cabin. Imagine 9 adults and 9 grandkids in this cabin. It was tight! Between nap schedules, early birds, swimming and meals. We were all pretty busy and worn out. Honey Creek was very beautiful! Great golf course(so my husband says), indoor waterpark was perfect for the young ones, they even had a really nice playground and sand area. Plus, there's fishing, boating, etc. The thing that I cherished most was the time I got to spend with family I haven't seen in YEARS, cousins, aunts and uncles. It's crazy to see all our own families that have grown over the years. Hopefully we can keep these reunions going, and my grandpa and grandma can continue to go strong. And over the years we can continue to see the generations grow. I wish I had more time to take more pictures. There are so many moments that I missed on camera.

This is the only picture of Drake that I think he looks like my Dad and not his father Nate.


My mom and Alexa

Drew, Rose, Makenna, and Mae

Drake and Alexa

What Esslinger's do for fun: we play Sequence, for money. ;o)

The kids spent a lot of time playing in the room and jumping on the beds. Remember, the cabin, was tiny.

The Esslinger Women!

A mix of grandchildren and great grandchildren

Alexa going down the waterslide with Makenna.

So Alexa is our crazy, fearless girl that LOVES the water. She is not afraid of it at all. She goes crazy in the bathtub and hates being restrained in a flotation device in the pool. The girl thinks she can swim on her own. So when I heard there was going to be a indoor waterpark with a baby-kid area, I knew it wouldn't be deep enough to put her in a flotation device, but if I let her go in there on her own she would probably drown herself. SO I put some arm floaties on her and she just went wild. SHe LOVED IT!!! She didn't want to walk in that water, she wanted to swim, and SO SHE DID. I know, kind of crazy, my 18 month old with arm floaties on, but given the situation and circumstances, she DID GREAT!!

Makenna and training wheels

That is our house behind Makenna.

Makenna is finally not afraid of riding her bike. She was riding her smaller bike last summer and then we bought her a bigger princess bike thinking it would motivate her to keep it up. But she fell on it and ever since then, she would not ride a bike. Well she

conquered that fear recently when she got brave enough to try it again. And we have an awesome trail right outside our house. Well since this day which was only about a month ago, she has rode her bike to the park several times. WE are so proud of her!!

Enjoying our New Backyard

Rain or Shine, Cold or Warm, we have enjoyed our new backyard. The previous owners left an OLD and I mean old playground. But the girl's don't know any better, and they both love the slide and Makenna loves the swing. The plan is next spring to buy and build a BRAND NEW playground. And now that it is starting to get cold, we are starting to use our fire pit and have campfires. We also plan on taking out the gardens to make more yard space. The tomatoes were nice, but WAY TOO MANY to keep up.

Gum in the HAIR!

So we've had an issue with Makenna chewing on her hair lately. Well...one day I gave her some gum in the car and we went into Babys'R'Us and sure enough she starting chewing on her hair and next thing I know I'm in the middle of the store trying to get gum out of her hair. Well, I think she was pretty embarressed and when we got home I had to cut a little chunk of hair out. It could have been way worse. But...I haven't seen her chew on her hair lately. PRAISE GOD!! Too bad she had to learn the hard way.

Alexa's Animal Sounds