This weekend we were lucky to have a nice long visit with Mike's brother Joe, Jen and their two beautiful boys AJ and John. We wanted to do something fun and unique while they were here so we first took them to the SPAM Museum in Austin, which is about a 35 minute drive due west from here. AJ has many food allergies, so because they always have to bring food for him no matter where they go, they've depended a lot on the Turkey version of the "meat." AJ loves the stuff. As for Benjamin, he hates it, but still really loved the museum!

The exhibits are very hands-on and kid-friendly, which was great for the little guys. Benjamin and AJ were also able to pretty much have the place to themselves since the roads were a bit bad Saturday morning and there were not many people out and about. Just to remind us it is indeed still winter here, we received another few inches of snow the night before. After running around the SPAM museum, we went into town and had lunch at the wonderful Piggy Blues BBQ. We were so surprised at the place, which turned out to be a very cute restaurant with delicious BBQ!

Back in Rochester, later on Saturday, we all went bowling at the same place where we had been a couple of weeks ago with our neighbors. Unfortunately, the bowling alley was extremely busy for the 5:30 cosmic bowling, which we had made a reservation for. I think the boys were so tired from the beginning of our day and they did not last more than one game. It was fun though and AJ sure was impressed with his glowing shoes!

On Sunday we took it easy and spent time hanging out at our house. The boys watched movies, played like maniacs and we got to enjoy our Godson, John.He is just such a cute good mannered little guy! Mike and I were able to get out of the house for a while to prepare for Sunday's festivities: our annual Academy Awards party. We tried to have different foods to represent the 5 best picture nominees. We had Milk Milkduds, Frost/Nixon ImPEACHment salsa and chips, Mini SlumDOGS in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button cajun BBQ sauce and The Reader German prezels and mustard. As always we had everyone fill out ballots to predict the winners and I believe I was the one with the most correct answers. It wasn't too hard - Slumdog Millionaire won for most of the awards. It was great to have everyone over again for the party, we always enjoy it! The only downside is that the awards are always on a Sunday and run pretty late into the night. We can always depend on our friends, Jen and Nate, to burn the almost-midnight oil with us until the very end and this year Jen and Joe stayed too. Joe had the day off so they stayed with the kids until Monday morning.

As with most of you, I am sure, we are all in need of a vacation at this point in the winter. February is nearly over and March is almost here so at least the possibility of Spring is keeping us in good spirits. Sadly, we aren't going to be able to take the trip to Colorado that we had been planning on because Mike took charge of a project at work that has some crucial dates right before and after the time that the trip would have been. So who knows when we will get away. Hey - atleast we have Milwaukee to look forward to (wink, wink Erin!)... ;-)