It must be love

Allie has rediscovered Elmo. In fact, it seems she really loves Elmo.

A day at the beach

With the new fiscal year that strted in July, I don't have furlough days anymore. I don't miss the not getting paid part, but I do miss the extra days off. We've worked three or four full weeks in a row and we still have like four more full weeks until we get Labor Day off. So I decided I wanted to take a day off today. Unfortunately Dada wasn't able to take the day off with us though because too many of his coworkers are on vacation.

My little sister Jocelyn is going away to her freshman year of college in a couple weeks and we'd been talking for awhile about going to the beach. So we found the day that worked for both of us, today!

Unfortunately the first beach we tried didn't smell too good and the shoreline and water didn't look so good either. So we tried another one where the water and smell were good, but the shore was rocky.

Allie ended up napping early and long this morning into afternoon so our time for the beach was limited. It was OK though because I figured our first time out would be short.

Allie couldn't really walk in the water much because she kept tripping on the rocks where it was shallow. So I just held her and we walked out a little farther and splashed around. It was fun!

She did like walking along the shore and burying her feet in the sand.

After we got out of the lake we went to the playground for a little bit.

We took Allie's bucket and shovel and she had fun digging in the pebbles and putting them in the bucket!

She liked the bucket so much that she kept trying to dig on the sidewalk as we walked to the car!

For some reason Allie's always kind of slow to warm up to Jocelyn. But they were good friends by the end of the day.

Later we went out for a pizza dinner. Allie was fresh from the bath and decided to put on shoes, just not her shoes.

It was such a fun day with Auntie Jocie! It was too bad Dada couldn't join us. Too bad Mama has to go back to work tomorrow, but at least tomorrow is Friday!

Be like Mama

She's really into imitating Mama! She didn't actually put this shirt on herself, though she's now into taking shirts off. Dada thought it would be cute and he was right!

A gorgeous evening by the lake

Sunday night we wanted to go see the Mad City Ski team show. Doug and I have been fans since moving to Madison five years ago. We can't go too frequently because I have band on Sunday nights and just because we're busy in general, but we try to get there a few times each summer.

In brainstorming logistics to go, we had to consider the fact that with a 6 p.m. start time, we either have to eat a really early dinner or a late one. Add to that the fact that the shows have been growing in popularity every year and parking as well as seating on the shoreline is hard to come by if you're late (and by late, I mean on time), we came up with the perfect solution: A picnic dinner by the lake before the show!

Chomping on a tomato.

It turned out that I'd planned a good meal for a picnic. We had salad with our last produce from the farmer's market and I made italian beef as well, thinking that would be just as good cold as it is hot. I was right. We took along some chips too and stopped at the PDQ for some quick drinks and headed to the park! For Allie we packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as well as newly discovered treats tomatoes and cucumbers that we had for the salad.

We got to the park just before 5 p.m. and got a perfect close parking spot! Despite getting there so early, however, we didn't get a super close spot for the picnic to the show. They've added bleachers so to spread out we had to move down the shoreline a bit. We did get a great view, we were just too far away to hear the announcing. It was OK. We loved it even without hearing it.

There were a bunch of kids around us and Allie divided her attention between them and the skiiers.

This is what she saw...

...and her face as she saw it!



It was hot, but as the sun started setting behind the buildings downtown, it felt pretty nice with the breeze. We had a great time and then it was so easy and quick to get in the car to get home! Allie was plenty tired because she was up kind of late, but since we had our picnic, we were able to just put her straight into bed when we got home. We most definitely hope to do this at least one more time before the summer is out!

Allie's first art project

Yesterday we got out the "art" part of Allie's art table. We started with the paper and crayons. She wasn't too interested in coloring though. Rather, she liked taking the crayons out of and then putting them back in the box.

She sure is concentrating!

Pretty good for handling those little sticks!

But see? She did color a little bit! I wanted to keep her first art creation, but alas, she later ripped it up because thats her favorite thing to do with paper.

Then she decided to carry the crayons all over the living room.

It was fun, but we obviously see many hazards in allowing her to just carry the crayons all over the house.

In fact, one crayon is already broken and she's already colored on the floor here in front of the door. I need to figure out what cleaning solution cleans up crayon from linoleum, or else we have some nice light red scribbles next to that rug. Lesson learned, when we color from now on, we only give her a few crayons, not the box. We also don't let the crayons leave the table.

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!