I guess I do remember

I hate July, and the biggest reason why is what happened 18 years ago today. My dad went into his second open heart surgery and didn't make it out. It surprises me how much it can still affect me today.

I've been looking through old pictures and flashing back to those times a lot lately. And its occurring to me that after 18 years, I feel like I don't remember much about him. But as I looked at the pictures, I do have memories of the trips and occasions that are captured in those images. Those don't go away.

This is one of many pictures I've found from one of our many trips to the Vilas Zoo in Madison. As a kid that zoo seemed so big. And the trip to that zoo was always a big deal, at least it seemed that way to me. The sea lion enclosure behind us looks the same today. I know now as a grown up that the zoo isn't that big, but its big in sentimental value. In fact, when I wrote my cover letter to apply at the Wisconsin State Journal, I mentioned the memories I have of trips to the zoo as a child. And now its really special for us to go there now with Allie. I'm sure it seems really big to her.

Here we are on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. We're really tiny in the middle. I remember climbing all the way up into the crown. This was way before 9/11 of course, so we could still go into the statue. We couldn't go into the torch though. We went there the summer after I finished second grade. And after the Statue of Liberty, my most vivid memory is of the traffic jams and how I told my parents I'd never go to New York  City again because of the traffic jams. I haven't been back to New York City since then, but I'd like to go there, hopefully to run the New York City Marathon someday.

I don't remember the occasion for this photo but there's Jeni, Johanna and me with dad. Our property had so many trees. My dad didn't want to ever move because he didn't want to drive past the house and see all the trees cut down. I haven't been down that direction in a long time but I don't think they're all cut down.

During the vacation to New York, we also went to Washington D.C. I remember seeing the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. I suppose I don't remember as much about that portion of the trip though, except for getting sick in the hotel. I think more than one of us got sick during that trip. That must have been fun for Mom.

My dad built an addition onto the back of our house when I was really young. It was our family room and it had a playroom in the basement. We eventually stopped using that part of the basement though because it flooded a lot. The family room had a separate stair case into the playroom. At some point an attempt was made to jackhammer through the concrete from the other part of the basement to former playroom. There was a big hole in the wall, but never a real doorway.

I guess I do remember a lot. I wish Allie could have met her grandpa though. I'll tell her what I can when I have a chance though. As long as I have these pictures, I do have the memories.

I miss you daddy.

Creative mind at work

This kid is thinking. She's taken over the dog's bed. Combine that with her newfound interest in blankies, and she's got a portable bed!

This is what she did when we asked her if she wanted to go night-night. She's a little young for the living room campout though!

She's really thinking and playing. This morning while I ran my 10-mile race, Dada just let her run around the park. She's becoming a little daredevil. She's also discovered the joys of jumping on the bed, one reason why it took her awhile to fall asleep at naptime today! She also took her shirt off. Allie is full of surprises. Oh, and she's 21 months today!

Time for teeth

At bedtime every night, Mama changes Allie into her pajamas. Then we find Dada and head to the bathroom for teeth! Its so cute, once we find Dada Allie smiles really big, points and says "teeth!" We've recently started letting her do it herself. She brushes her teeth while Mama or Dada brush her hair. She loves it, which makes us happy. We're helping her start a good habit early.

After teeth, we go into her bedroom and read a story together. Sometimes she's really attentive, other times I'm not sure she even notices us reading to her. Then we kiss, hug, and group hug a few times before putting Allie down. Sometimes she goes to sleep right away, other times she stays up and plays awhile and goes to sleep when she feels like it. Tonight was one where she stayed up for awhile.

Who's who?

If I wasn't the one looking through the pictures, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell us apart! This first picture is one of my favorite baby pictures.

And here's a picture of my favorite baby! Yeah, I can see the resemblence.

When I was looking for pictures last night I kept finding the portrait that I thought was my favorite. Then I found three more! I loved this dress. How old was I here? Mom, do you know how old I was here or in the following pictures? I think this was around age 5?

With her hair pulled back one day, as we were getting out of the car after work I looked back at her and felt like I was looking at myself!

I'm sure these are ages 2, 3, and 4, but I'm not sure what order they're in.

Of course, we can't leave out Dada. I see Allie's resemblence to him too. We are one good looking family.

No shirt? No problem

Dinner tonight was kind of a flop with Allie. We had chicken and rice with the last of the green beans from the farmers market and rolls. We thought it would be perfect! Well Mama and Dada loves it, but Allie didn't love it as much as we'd hoped. In fact, I don't think she ate any of it. So we gave her some yogurt instead, of which as much wound up on her as in her.

So her shirt went in the laundry and she went shirtless after dinner, which she didn't mind at all...

Notice how she's shirtless, yet she's still wearing her flip flops! I love this kid!

She's been playing with Monk a lot lately. They get along well, although Allie can be kind of mean to Monk. But Monk doesn't mind. Since Mama and Dada don't always want to play with Monk, Allie can take over that duty.

Summer to-do's: half done!

The state of our summer to-do list, from June 7:

-Go to the zoo We've actually gone to two zoos, Madison and St. Louis!

-Go to the beach: Still trying to plan this. We're hoping to do a beach day with Jocelyn before she leaves for college, but she's a busy girl.

-Take a Betty Lou cruise: Ahhh, these cruises are a bit pricey and take some extra planning because we need to have the money and foresight to buy tickets ahead of time.

-Spend a night in Chicago: We really want to visit my brother and his girlfriend who recently moved to Chicago. We also want to put our Madison Children's Museum membership to good use, as we can get discounts to a lot of the museums there. I don't know when or if we can coordinate it though. Maybe in the fall?

-Go to Discovery World and other fun places in Milwaukee: Like Chicago, I don't know if we'll have the budget for this. The good thing about Milwaukee though is that we aren't limited to only going there in the summer!

-Go to a Brewers game: This still hasn't happened yet, but we're determined to get there. By this time last year we weren't even interested anymore as it wasn't a good year for our team. This year, they're hanging in though!

-Ride the merry-go-round at Ella's deli This was a lot of fun and we want to make this a regular outing, perhaps as a special birthday treat. We're seriously thinking of having a birthday party there as well.

-Go to a Mallards game: We tried to go a couple weeks ago, but because of poor planning it didn't work out. We didn't buy tickets ahead of time and the Mallards are wildly popular, especially on a Saturday night! Lesson learned, we're hoping to try again next weekend.

-Play at the Children's Museum: Mama took Allie when we had a day off in June but we'd like to get back there soon!

-See Grandma and Grandpa Durso, Aunt Julie and cousins Carson and Cole! We're hoping this will be during our week of vacation near the end of the month. We had such a fun time on our family vacation! I wish we could go back!

-Get ice cream at the Memorial Union terrace: We made it to the terrace this past weekend! It's always fun to go to the terrace, but its never fun to try and find parking there.

-Check out the Mad-City Ski Team: Now that my band concerts are over for the summer, we're free on Sunday nights for the shows, so we hope to do this in the next few weeks.

-Go swimming! We're going swimming as much as we can and we love it.

-Spend a lot of time with our whole family, especially Aunt Jocelyn who is going away to college in the fall. We've had lots of family time but would still like to get more before Jocelyn leaves!

So we've crossed off half the things on our list. Summer's a little more than half over, so it works out. I know we can at least get a few more of these things crossed off. This has been a fun project and a good way to finally take advantage of all the awesome things we can do here in Madison.

We love the Terrace!

We love going to the UW Memorial Union Terrace and getting ice cream. Unfortunately we don't love the parking. Its impossible to park there. But I'm not writing about the parking.

Its still really hot here, but not extreme. I'd say cool enough but it certainly wasn't cool... what I mean is its not so yucky so we could go outside! We spent time outside in the morning at the farmer's market and later after Allie's nap went to the terrace.

We walked around a pier for a few minutes looking at the ducks. Allie really liked them. She said "hi" to them when she saw them and she said "bye," complete with a wave, when we left them.

But it was too hot to walk around by the water before we went to get our ice cream!

I remember this spring, the first time we gave Allie ice cream. We'd gone to State Street and walked around the Capitol. She wasn't very interested at the time. Well, she was quite interested today!

The terrace is always crowded. Look at the lake and you can see why. Add to that beer (which we have never partaken there), ice cream, brats, and the fact that its UW! Its everything thats awesome about Wisconsin!

After our ice cream we walked down by the lake some more.

Look at that sun! Before we went to the terrace, I decided it would be a good idea to go for a run in that heat. I got done and wondered what had made me think that would be a good idea? Oh yeah, the fact that we were coming here for ice cream afterward. It seems like everything we like in Madison involves ice cream in some way...

I say this a lot, but this is a good illustration: This is why we love Madison. This is why it never crossed our minds to move after I got laid off in 2009. I just wish it was a little easier to park around that area!

Heyyo

On our way out to the farmer's market this morning, we hear Allie say "heyyo," and turn around to see her holding her keys up to hear ear like a phone! So cute!

Those little kid sandals just won't do

She's always trying to play grown-up! Why wear her little shoes when she can steal Mama's? I couldn't get her to look up and smile at me though-she was concentratin too hard!

Just her size

We bought Allie an art table a couple weeks ago and Dada set it up over the weekend.

She drank her milk and water (well, it was Mama's water, but she really likes that pink bottle) there on Sunday morning.

She makes sure to sit in both chairs. The chairs also serve as their own toys.

She even pulled her princess chair up to the table too.

We haven't actually gotten out the "art" part of the table, but she sure enjoys the table without it. It will be fun to see her creations!

What we do when its hot outside

It was a lazy Sunday indeed, still wearing pajamas in the middle of the afternoon and wearing Dada's hat.

The only thing better to do when its 97 outside? Well, I wouldn't suggest running 6 miles on the treadmill. Thats what Mama did. But later we all went swimming and had plenty of fun. No pictures though, too hot to get out of the pool!