Waterpark Fun!

Not much happened during the week last week, so we'll just skip ahead to the highlight - a weekend at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells! Andrew had a continuing education conference at the resort all weekend and by default Mads and I got to tag along for some fun at the hotel!! We were also lucky enough to have Erin and Alice come along with us for the weekend!

Andrew had a few patients to see early on Friday morning and then left directly from Ripon to get to the hotel for a 10:15 class on Friday. That day our good friend, Ryan was named Wisconsin's Young Optometrist of the Year! Congrats Ryan!! :)

Erin, Alice, Mads and I came later in the evening. We arrived around 7:45, jammied the girls up and went to bed. Not without a picture, though: First friend sleep-over!! :)


On Saturday morning Andrew had to be to class by 8AM. The girls got ready and headed out to the outlet mall where we met up with Jen and Isaac who happened to be in the area for the day as well!! We did a little shopping and Andrew was able to meet up with us during a three hour break from class. After the outlet mall we said goodbye to Jen and Isaac while the rest of us headed to downtown Wisconsin Dells and walked around on the "strip" a bit. We scored a couple caramel apples, but that was the extent of it. We then went back to the hotel area and had lunch at Monk's. By the time lunch was done the girls were sleepy so we went back to the room and everyone napped.

Once the girls were up we suited up and hit the water park. My daughter was quite the character... she had no fear for the water and went running right in. She also thought the waves in the wave pool were the coolest thing. Hmmm, remember Myrtle Beach and her "Retreat?" Not this time!!

Walking alone in the water, didn't care a bit about it!

Fun in the coconut swing!

Chillin' with Alice on the beach chairs. (This was after we were told that the girls needed to be wearing life vests.. Whoops!)


That night Andrew ended up coming back to the room after 7, so he missed all of the fun in the water park. We had some ice cream in the lobby and then walked to the indoor amusement park to check it out. I didn't have my camera with me, but I did get a couple pictures of Mads trying out some games on my phone.
Guitar Hero: Preschool Edition! ;)

Motorcycle Mama!


Sunday morning Andrew had class at 8 again. Erin, Alice, Mads and I just chilled in the room until check out at 11AM. Dave came down for the day, as well, and he got there around 10ish. We checked out right at 11, had some lunch and then hit the water park. We stayed for quite awhile in the water park, until a little after 1:00.
Mads and I were even able to hit the lazy river. We went around twice and Mads just chilled on my lap while we went around. She was a very good lazy river-rider! :)


We also did more sliding on the giraffe slide, which she didn't require any help getting up to the top on. I helped her a bit on the way down, as the slide was pretty slick and speedy!


Bathing Beauties:


Andrew was done with his classes for the day at 1:30. He met up with us and we headed for some fun at the Indoor Amusement Park. First Andrew, Mads and I hit the Ferris Wheel.



Next was the carousel!
Andrew, Mads and I:

Erin, Dave and Alice:


After the carousel the boys hit the go-cart track. I don't know what happened on the course, but Dave started out ahead of Andrew, but at the finish line Andrew came in before Dave! :)


We played a few arcade games and collected some tickets. We came home with a bracelet for Mads, a tootsie roll, and a jumping eyeball (of all things!)





We left the Dells around 3 and headed to Madison to meet with Gramma J to pick up Lily, who had been on vacation for the week. We then headed home to unpack and rest from our fun weekend!

I have two random pictures from the week. The first one is of my lovely tea party host and the second is of Mads helping make macaroni and cheese to take to the Dells.



Thanks for stopping by!!

I almost forgot the "room service" picture!!

Chicago Trip

Last week I worked on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Tuesday Mads and I stayed around the house for the most part. We played with the toys at the house and did some coloring. Mads had a lot of fun coloring pictures in her coloring book.


On Friday morning Mads and I cleaned the house and packed for our weekend trip to Chicago. Once Dad was home from work we headed down to Monroe, where we spent the night. Lily wasn't able to go to Chicago with us, so she's having a vacation week at Gramma J's house.

We left for Chicago around 9:30 Saturday morning. We wanted to make sure we had enough time to get down to Tinley Park for my friend's wedding at 2PM. Tracey and I worked together when I was at Children's so it was nice to see her, my friend Juli, and some other coworkers as well! The wedding was very nice, as was the reception. We weren't able to stay late as Mads was getting very tired. We were able to keep her up an hour past her bedtime, though, and we left the reception around 9:15. Mads learned how to clink her glass for the bride and groom to kiss, so she thought that was pretty neat. Thanks to Juli for showing her this new trick! :)


Juli, Tracey and I:


We spent the night in a hotel in Tinley Park. We had a super comfy king bed that Mads had fun playing in.
Little babe in a BIG bed!


And, of course, we got the "room service" shot!


We were up and at 'em by 8:30 on Sunday so we had some time to kill before lunch. You see, it is a requirement that anytime we're in Chicago that we must go get a burrito from Pancho's. So the burrito was our agenda for Sunday. We ended up parking near US Cellular Field and taking the Red Line downtown so that we could walk Michigan Ave. This was Maddie's first Chicago train ride. I think she dug it for the most part!



We made a couple stops on Michigan, the Nike store and the Lego store. Mads needed new shoes for the winter as her feet grew another size and a half in the last nine months! So we splurged and got her first pair of Nike's, complete with Shox! We also stopped by the Lego store where I think Andrew was more excited than Mads was. We found some neat Duplo's that are the right difficulty for Mads so we picked up a little Zoo set for her.

After walking Michigan Ave we kept walking south and hit the shopping area on State Street. We swung past Garrett's popcorn to pick up some yummy cheese and caramel popcorn. We then headed back to the train station to go back to the car and on to Pancho's.

I think we got to Pancho's around 1PM and we ordered our favorites, a chicken burrito for Andrew and Mads and a Vegetarian burrito for me. Mmmmmmm!
Mads was highly excited about the chips because you can "dip, dip!"

Elmo needed a chip, too:



After Pancho's we took a drive down Halsted Street and through our old neighborhood. Not much has changed in the old neighborhood other than the signs we saw for permit parking, which we always thought would be a good idea.

We got home around 5PM, did some grocery shopping, and then Andrew and Mads busted out the new Duplo Zoo. She likes the slide the best, especially sending the penguins down it!



That's it for our recap. I have one more picture, it's from yesterday morning when Mads was showing off her new shoes. She's actually jumping, trying to show you just how high she can get with her new Shox! :)


Have a great week, thanks for stopping by!

A basic week

Looking through the pictures from last week, I'm finding that I didn't take many. Since last Monday was Labor Day I included that in last week's post. That only leaves Tuesday - Sunday.

Tuesday was Andrew's birthday and I happened to have the day off. Mads and I went to Ripon to have lunch with Dad. We stopped by the office to pick him up and before we left for lunch Mads had some fun in the exam room. I'm sure you saw the picture that I posted last Tuesday, but I just have to post it again. Mads did everything herself. It started with her climbing into the exam chair with Elmo on her quest to get the transilluminator, or flashlight. Then what I think happened is that she turned and saw the eye chart remote, so she got down from the exam chair and climbed up on top of the stool. Then she could reach the remote and change the letters on the screen. She left Elmo behind on the exam chair and all I did to help this photo was to put Elmo in a sitting position as he had been laying in the chair.

ICO Class of 2034?


As for lunch, the sandwich shop that we wanted to eat at was closed, so we ended up just going to KFC. Mads and I then returned home for her nap and afterwards we went to pick up the pizza and ice cream cake for Andrew's birthday supper. Barby, Ryan, and Caden came over to share the dinner with us. It was a very nice and tasty evening!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were work days. After work on Friday we left for a weekend in Monroe. We made it to Gramma J's house around 8PM and shortly thereafter hit the bed. On Saturday we went to coffee with Grandma Honey and she got Mads a special treat - whipped cream! Mads loved it!



We then had lunch at Gramma J's and at 2PM, Mads and I headed over to cousin Terri's house where she was hosting a Meet Baby Landon party for cousin Melissa. It was a nice gathering and we had fun seeing everyone. Mads even gave Landon a couple kisses while I was holding him.

When we got back to Gramma J's house we went over to the park to play for awhile. Mads had a blast on the swing, of course, and she tried out the tire swing with Daddy. She also did some sliding too.



For the sake of comparison, the same slide, July 13, 2008:


Sunday we ended up leaving Monroe early as Mads was simply pooped from a busy weekend. She was asleep before we even passed the old Whitehead compound just outside of town. When we got home we took some yard waste to the dump, washed the car, and went grocery shopping. Mads was a super big helper when we got home with the groceries, she helped me put them away! :)


That's all I've got for last week. This weekend we're heading down to Chicago for a friend's wedding in Tinley Park. Should be a lot of fun!

I only have one random picture from this week. This is from the car wash on Sunday. While we were waiting Andrew and I had both picked up a section of the paper to look at. I looked over at Mads and she had chosen a section, too. The comics, naturally! :)


Have a great week! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!



Love, Your Little Optometrist

NEW Zoo

How was your week last week? Ours was standard for around here. I worked four days and had Tuesday off. Mads and I spent the day doing some shopping and organizing in preparations for our friends, the Zabels, to come down for Labor Day weekend. We went up to Appleton in the morning but were back in time for Maddie's nap. We also did some grocery shopping in the afternoon.
Mads discovered how fun stickers can be while we were wandering Festival:


On Thursday we went back up to Appleton, can't even remember why now, but we went to Fuddruckers for burgers for dinner. We let Mads have a burger and after she inspected it she really gave it a shot!



Friday we got the bummer news that the Zabels weren't going to be able to come for the weekend. It turns out that Tony caught a round of H1N1 and was stuck at home feeling miserable. We were looking forward to their visit but didn't want them to make the trip if they were feeling lousy and wouldn't be able to enjoy it.

Saturday I did the house cleaning while Andrew did work in the yard. What started out as a simple mowing turned into an all day project. First he trimmed the hedges and then went downtown to rent a tiller to till the dirt where the clothes pole finally came out. Then I was telling him how I hated the red lattice that was up against the wall by the porch outside and jokingly asked him to knock it down. Well, Andrew decided that he would actually knock it down! Once the lattice was gone I mentioned that if he was in a demolishing mood he could knock down the ugly red fence in front of the porch. Again, he went to town! The fence came down easily, but there were still the ugly bushes in front of the porch. So, what does Andrew do? Tears out a bush! What a guy!! :)

On Sunday we went to church and afterwards headed up to Green Bay. We met up with Grandma Mary, Jill, Claire and Nick and went to the NEW Zoo in Green Bay. Mads has never been to the NEW Zoo and the last time Andrew and I were there was in 2006. The kids had lots of fun. They were able to see all the animals, of course, and ride the carousel and train!










After the Zoo we headed back to Mary's house for some tacos and cake to celebrate Andrew's birthday. Then we headed back home to Oshkosh. Jen, Karl, and Isaac came over that evening to play some Wii. We stayed up late that night, Andrew and I didn't hit the bed until about 12:15AM! The last time we were up that late was on New Year's Eve! It was really nice, though, because Mads let us sleep in until 8:15 on Monday morning!! She's such a good peanut! :)

Then yesterday we did more stuff around the house. Andrew got the other three bushes out from in front of the patio and also got the weed paper pulled up from that area so hopefully we can till that soon. Mary came down for a few hours and had some burgers on the grill with us. After supper Mads and I made zucchini-blueberry bread for Andrew to take to work for his birthday treat today. He decided this morning that he wanted to save the bread for himself, so the ladies at work didn't get any birthday treats. :( Mads was a very big helper with the bread helping me do the mixing, and of course, taste testing!




That's it for our week in review. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and enjoyed the gorgeous weather! Here are a few randoms from last week:

Talking on the phone on the potty? No! It's actually a Yahtzee game!

Rub-a-dub-dub, the babe's out of the tub!

Singing Happy Birthday to Dad on Sunday:

Someone got new slippers, and they have ELMO on them!!


Thanks for stopping by!