Winter fun

With my new teaching position this year I find I have less time for things like blogging. During nap time I try to clean part of the house, prep dinner, and take some time for myself and at night I enjoy spending some time with my hubby. Anyways, we've been doing our best to enjoy this cold season of the year. We have taken the kids sledding a couple of times and despite Sully getting a nasty scrape on his cheek during our last trip, the kids really love sledding. Our town has an ice rink downtown but every time it's finished the weather warms up and the ice melts. It has finally been cold for a solid two weeks and we look forward to checking out the ice rink this weekend.

This is the time of year we always think about what memberships we want to renew and what gives us the most bang for our buck. Most of these places you only have to go to two times to make a membership worth the cost. Here is my list of our family's favorite memberships for the year...

-Betty Brinn Children's Museum: Awesome children's museum. Our outings there usually last two hours or so and we've been several times but there is still so much to explore. The kids love it. It's only difficult when I go myself or for a play date because I have a hard time keeping the kids in one area so I can supervise them.

-Feith Family YMCA: We've been members since we moved to Port and the Y seriously deserves it's own blog post. All five of us love it here. Sofia attends a preschool program that meets twice a week for 1.5 hours. She has been involved with swimming lessons, gymnastics, art classes, etc. We love coming here as a family to go swimming or just run around in the gym when the weather is gross outside. I also am a member of the TrY club and have met so many amazing people through our group workouts.

-Milwaukee County Zoo: This is probably our favorite membership, especially in the summer. We even go throughout the fall, winter and spring because there are plenty of indoor areas to explore.

The one place we didn't get a membership for last year was our community pool, Pirates Hollow. I regretted it because a membership is only $50 and we probably spent that with the amount of times we went with family and friends.

I try to stay creative and explore a lot of different places during the winter so my kids and I don't get bored. We go to the library at least once a week for story hour and even if we go twice per week the kids are still excited about the train table and Sofia loves to check out new books. If it's at least 35 degrees I'll take the kids on walks or hikes around our area. Otherwise, we spend time reading or doing arts and crafts projects balanced with a heavy dose of dance parties. I love to hear what other people do for fun during winter.