Wisconsin By the Numbers

-Spent time with both of the kids' great-grandparents
-Played with all of their five lovely cousins
-Ate ice cream almost every day
-Drank beer and ate cheese every day
-Made about a dozen daisy crowns
-Loved on two dozen baby goats at our tour of the goat farm
-Watched mom and dad be surprised by the arrival of Dad's college roommates on Monday and Tuesday
-Received one million mosquito bites (actual number, we counted)
-And Adam got three stitches across the back of his noggin after a fall on the play ground (he's fine, stopped crying as soon as it was all over.)

It's hard to believe we packed so many people and places and fun into a single week - the pictures are really the only way to prove it.

The start of pal time

Father's Day with Grandpa Charlie at John's lake house

Dad with his college roommates and Juan. And Ellie, who is probably learning something not age appropriate.

Tim helping Adam spot a frog at the Ridges

Sunset at the end of highway 42

"Mom, if there's a sea monster, I'm going to run away." (this is the morning after his stitches - you can't even see!)

Goat farm tour has something for everyone!

Grizz's Friday morning golf foursome

Freezing in Sister Bay

Hailee and Ellie reading to Clara and Leah

Flower crown action

Coach Tim played a lot of yard baseball with the kids

Breakfast of Champions

Sara and the great-grands with Grandma Rosie

Matching girls

The combined ages of these children are just barely more than the age of this hammock

One of many fantastic dance parties on the deck

Summer Equinox at Ellison Bay

Couldn't ask for better travelers than these two

One Eyed, One Horned

What's wore, the wonky line from where I trimmed her hair recently, or the blurry mess of the line where I applied the dye? She wanted me to do the whole underside of her hair and then also the ends. So, I basically mashed dye into half of it, it a haphazard way. And while I applied it all over Adam's head, it only really took on the top part, which is fine. Meanwhile, I look like I murdered Barney with my bare hands, despite the fact that I stopped by a janky nail salon and asked if I could have some of their rubber gloves, since I didn't have any at home, and decided to freshen up Ellie's hair on a bit of a whim (I told her I'd do it tomorrow, but we're going to have a busier day than I anticipated, so we came home after gymnastics and turned into unicorns before Friday fun-day with Gigi and Grizz.)

She also learned how to do front walk overs today.

Adam had his last day of preschool today, which was bitter sweet. I'm ready for him to be at them same school with his sister, I'm ready for him to be in school five days a week, but it was sad to leave the preschool that has treated him so kindly and loved him so much for the past two years. His teacher this year has been SUCH a doll - she clearly has such a heart for preschoolers and is so sweet. The assistant teacher is great, the director is very kind and the front office staff is incredibly nice as well. What more could you want? They sent home a scrapbook of his work during the year, which is darling, and makes me feel less bad about throwing away all of the other work he did this school year.

You know what we'll never throw away though? This pencil holder he made for Tim for Father's Day, which apparently features his mug shot.

Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City!

This weekend we completed a whirlwind tour of Lawrence, Kansas to watch Tim's younger cousin Daniel get married. This means we are very old, because when Tim and I got married, Daniel was only a little bit older than my children are now, and his six year old sister was our flower girl.

They asked for no pictures during the ceremony (which is a trend I personally love - no one wants to invite people to share in their big day and then look back to just see a bunch of iPhones held up over the faces of their loved ones... plus the pictures are always 100 times worse than the shot the professional photographer just took) so here is a picture of the space beforehand, with some of the 1,000 cranes that were folded, hot glued onto fishing line and strung throughout the venue. It was such a simple, but gorgeous ceremony.

It was so sweet and sincere and hopeful, watching these two beautiful kids stand in the late afternoon sunlight and pledge to be each other's favorite person forever. Having been a child bride myself, I am partial to people who get married before they're old enough to rent a car. And it felt doubly nice thinking about Gigi and Grizz celebrating their 40th anniversary on Sunday (talk about children getting married!) and watching Mimi and Pa take down all of the other dancers during the anniversary dance, as they are weeks away from celebrating 45 years together.

Also I made Tim and Jake wear matching outfits, and explained to Don and Evan the phenomenon of how great an exposed forearm looks on a man in a dress shirt.

I found Lawrence to be a charming little college town, and all of the green made me wish it was time for summer vacation in Wisconsin. We had a lot of good meals, and plenty of good cocktails. Amanda (the bride) recommended a bar called John Brown Underground, and described it as a "grad student bar." I think she may have meant hipster, because there was a lot of craft cocktailing, including jars and vats of infused liquors at work. I especially enjoyed that all of the labels including quotes around the words - that's how you know it's a quality product, and not just grain alcohol with rotting pine needles inside.

Here you can vaguely see that Jake is drinking something out of a Coke bottle, in a tub of ice.

Most of the group did an escape room on Saturday before the wedding, but my personal version of an escape room is closing the latch on an air conditioned hotel room and becoming a zombie in hotel sheets. I also did some poking around the little downtown shops, doing some retail therapy. On Friday when we got in I made Tim go to the antique mall with me - didn't buy anything, but he enjoyed visiting some old friends.

And Gigi and Grizz, like the saints they are, took the kids from dinner time on Thursday (the even brought them on their hot date!) until we arrived at about 5pm on Sunday, their 40th wedding anniversary. Just in time to send them off to their anniversary dinner, and Grizz's regularly scheduled 8:30pm bedtime.