Saturday down came an old oak tree. It had been dead for quite some time...I missed the actual fall as I was inside with a sleeping baby, but I hear it was quite spectacular.
Andrew learned how to use a chainsaw, although I didn't get any pictures of that. He was hungry afterwords.
AWWWWWW!
Sunday was Family Day at P&H. It was pretty cool to see, as I haven't been there in years and only had the fuzziest memory. P&H holds a lot of family history. My paternal grandpa, my maternal grandpa my dad and my uncle have all worked there. My paternal grandpa actually had the heart attack that killed him while at work, and Dad pointed out the spot where he fell to me. I never met my grandpa so it was very surreal and emotional to see the spot where, in essence, he died.
We also visited Dad's work station, where he left a message for Oz and Carter.
25 years ago there was a picture taken of me and Mom next to a crawler. Hey Dad, you should scan the picture so I can post it here!
We headed up to Dad's house (which is in 'the dirty sex' as Heather so recently put it) to visit the Milwaukee Public Museum and engage in all kinds of other fun and hilarity.
We hit up the museum with my Dad. Neither boy had gotten enough sleep so they were both crabby. Carter ended up freaking out about all the things that were being killed (the infamous T-Rex eating the Triceratops, the Native Americans hunting the buffalo, all the dead animals on display) and we didn't even view the last floor of the museum. I was disappointed to see that the Egypt exhibit is gone, but did enjoy running through my favorite part, The Streets of Old Milwaukee/European Village (and I do literally mean run) even if I didn't actually get to see much. I'd live in there if I could.
We hung out at the house.
Picked pumpkins from the garden (placed kindly by Dad as the deer had eaten the ones Jeanne grew). Heather took enough pictures of me picking pumpkins with Carter to make a flip book with us moving, but I'll spare you and only share one.
She did manage to squeeze this lovely shot in though.
I can do it!
Okay, maybe I can't.
Oh look, here's another one. It's like developing a roll of film and finding half of it is self portraits of Andrew.
Carter actually got to drive the other lawn tractor this time. He did pretty good with it, pulling the trailer around the yard and then carrying Dad and Oz up to the top of the hill where Dad was brave enough to run the log splitter with both boys and no other adults (a trip I may not have approved had I known that's what they were going to do).
We hit the woods. It's nice to go back there in the fall when the danger of ticks is over. Have I mentioned my fear of ticks? I'm afraid of ticks. No thank you, I'll skip them.
In a bet for lunch, Heather climbed a tree to sit in the tree stand. It was more hilarious than this video lets on.
Farmers don't like to throw things away. They stick old equipment out in a field and save it as it will probably have a purpose again some day. My dad subscribes to this mentality and you can find all manner of interesting things at his house. On this particular day, some of the things he'd saved proved their use in making me nearly pee my pants.
Hobo Heather sleeping on a bunkbed surround by burrs.
Getting a little exercise in. (I seriously could NOT keep a straight face)
Out on the links.
We ended up finding a family of mice living in an old golf bag. Carter got to touch this one and then when we shook out the bag another four came scampering out. I didn't know mice jumped when they ran, but they do. And one almost jumped right up Heather's pant leg which was FUCKING HILARIOUS. Seriously. Hilarious.
On our way home we hit the Vilas Zoo in Madison with Heather and my BFF Meghan and her three kids.
Sera rock climbing.
Oz going down the big slide by himself.
It would have been extra cute if we could have gotten Carter up there, but he refused, but Noah and Xander look cute.
After the zoo (yes, those were all at the zoo. The children were unimpressed with the animals, but did love the play area) we went out for Thai food, yum! Then I stopped at Meghan's new house in Oregon and headed home.
Andrew's 10 year high school reunion was in September so we headed up for that. I seem to have not actually taken any pictures of the weekend, which probably has something to with me getting horribly sick and spending all of Friday night throwing up ham (which is HORRIBLE because it still tastes like ham). Needless to say I am now boycotting ham until at least Christmas when the lure of ham gravy may be too much for me.
Someone took this picture of Andrew and his high school BFF Jay at some point.
I did manage to snap these pics with my blackberry.
I feel like the Oktoberfest theme really shines through in them.
Behind Andrew you can see the delicious food spread. O_o
I'm not exactly sure where our $70 went, but it certainly wasn't spent on decorations, food or that awesome Miller 64 they served (which I couldn't drink b/c I was still feeling sick).
In July we visited Wisconsin for my 10 year high school reunion (OMG!IFEELSOOLD!). It was at a bar in downtown Milwaukee which was nice because the only cost was the beer I chose to drink. Heather went with me because Andrew just didn't feel comfortable going. We ended up driving down with Chester, who decided to go at the last minute. I was able to reconnect with some old friends and was surprised by how a few turned out, but overall it was good. Heather's friend, Megan, met us down there too so all in all it was great. We stayed with my dad.
We visited Summerfest in hopes of seeing the strongman competition. That ended in disaster, but other parts of the day were fun.
Fireworks at Sussex Park (while Heather and I sent picture texts back and forth, me of our fun, her of sad faces on the empty patio at Pete's).
We hit the Milwaukee County Zoo with Heather, my BFF Meghan, her husband Dan, and their kids Noah, Xander and Sera. Oz walked around in his diaper for half the day because I didn't change his diaper in time and forgot extra pants.
We also visited with Urgrossmutter. We actually made her smile a real smile.
And we probably did other stuff the rest of the month, but I guess it wasn't that interesting. I really hate summer so we probably spent a lot of time in the basement playing with toys.
And you're here too! Well fancy that. Check back as often as you can for updates on us. And comments are nice too. Maybe I'd post more if I received more comments. Or maybe I'd post more if someone put 10 more hours in the day.....
