The fun ends...

Yesterday we said good-bye to Aunt Marie.  (Can you hear us crying?)

For one last hoorah we went to our little zoo for the morning.  The highlight were the penguins who were out to play and the grizzly bear taking a bath.  But I do not have pictures of any of that.

Instead I have this picture, which is the official obligatory picture at the zoo.

And this one, so Mary can remember that I took her to see the giraffes (something that was very important to her).

And this one because my kids begged me to take their picture.  (Who are these kids?)

And this one to somehow make up for the fact that I have no pictures of David on his kindergarten field trip because I totally failed.  (I often count on pictures to make up for my parental failures.)

Also, I let the kids ride the lame-o train.  (They were so excited!)  I definitely do not need another picture of my kids on this train.  But then I saw them together, my sweet boy and cute little girl, their heads poking up out of the caboose.  And my heart went pitter-patter. And I had to take a picture.

Okay, two.

Because I just want to gobble them up.  What can I say?  I'm in love.

So it was a wonderful morning.  But the day had a sad ending.  Aunt Marie had fly back to Utah.

My kids adore her.  Me too!  I appreciate so much her example of faith, dedication, and service.  I am also grateful for her professional expertise and the wisdom she gained from teaching special education for thirty years.  She has a gift for teaching children and finding ways to reach them.  I was trying to soak up as much as possible to help me prepare David for first grade.  She was reassuring (don't we all need a little reassurance sometimes?), and she gave me some great tips.  What a blessing to have her in our home.  I'm thankful she took the time to come see us.

Mary told me today that she misses "her friend."  And she wonders when she'll come back...

...me too!

Thanks for hanging out with us, Marie.  We had a great time!  

Even more fun with Marie

On Tuesday I gave Mary and David the choice between taking Marie strawberry picking or to visit a museum in Milwaukee.

This isn't a strawberry.  (Though we call that little girl a Mary-berry.)

It's Discovery World in downtown Milwaukee, right on the shore of Lake Michigan.  It's a building that fully capitalizes on its beautiful location on a pier.

Inside the museum there are many views like this to be had.

(Also of note are the two siblings who at that moment were not bickering.  Perhaps someone would care to nominate me for a Nobel Peace Prize--I do manage to negotiate an occasional truce. And sometimes my camera even records affection.)

On such a perfect day in such a beautiful setting, we had to spend a good deal of time exploring outside the museum (and taking pictures).

I love these silly heads.

David and Mary were obsessed with running around and finding spider webs.  They made a competition  between them of who could find the most spider webs.  (There were so many to be found that we lost count and they both "won.")

Marie and Mary in front of the "bendy-building."  I believe it's the Milwaukee art museum.  And it's pretty obvious (too obvious?) that it's supposed to look like a sailboat.  But Mary insisted that it looked like I building that was bent, so she called it the "bendy-building."

I had no intention of taking more than one or two pictures that day.  But it was gorgeous outside and the kids WANTED to pose for me!  They were begging me to take their pictures.  What the heck?  Is Lake Michigan some sort of weird energy vortex that changes your kids' personalities?  So, how could I not take a bunch of pictures?

We ventured out over the water.  Everyone was very brave.  (Must be that vortex thing working again.)

And when David decided to jump from rock to rock, I did not completely freak out into panicked hysterics.  (Yes, there definitely must some kind of mind altering energy vortex down there.)

We, of course, also spent plenty of time inside Discovery World, which is a science museum.

Two thumbs up for "the water wing."  There's an aquarium, which includes a large tank of fish native to the Great Lakes.  (Now I finally know what the famous sturgeon looks like.  David liked the paddle fish best.) In fact, there is a whole exhibit on the Great Lakes which was pretty neat.  The aquarium also included an underwater research area that really captured David's imagination.

Mary asks over and over to explain what happens to the water after she flushes the toilet, and her civil engineer father isn't always around to tell her.  So I appreciated the exhibit on fresh water (though there was too much information about too many aspects of fresh water in too small an area--but at least I was able to glean from it an explanation to satisfy Mary's curiosity).

There is also a life-size replica of a 19th-century Great Lakes schooner.  We had a great time exploring the ship.  It was wonderful!  Look at the adorable captain at the wheel.

On that side of the museum was also the best exhibit/explanation of simple machines (like levers, pulleys, and wedges) that I've seen.  My unscientific mind even had a few scientific "ah-ha" moments.  (Vortex?)

I'd give the technology wing of the building mixed reviews.  Way too much crammed in there.  (I hate it when museums go for "shock and awe" over genuine educational value.)  There was an interesting Les Paul exhibit, and David and I were able to light a bulb for a few seconds by running on a giant hamster wheel.  But the best part was the bed of nails!  David bravely volunteered to try it out for us.

Check him out!

Ouch?

Nope.  David reported that it felt like lots of tiny stings but that it was relaxing and didn't hurt.  (He's been going through kind of a scaredy-pants phase lately, so I was a little surprised he actually went through with the whole bed of nails thing.  He was so proud of himself!  I was proud of him too!  Woo-hoo!  You just never know when you're going to need a bed of nails to restore your kid's confidence.)

I think it's fair to say we had a great time.  Then we drove back to Madison, stopped for an hour at the park to play scuba diving and hide-n-seek, and then went straight to David's gymnastics class.  I was pooped by then--I don't know how David managed all those cartwheels and somersaults after such a long day.  Whew!

Let's just say we all slept soundly that night.

More fun with Aunt Marie

We love to have fun with Aunt Marie!

Yesterday we drove to the famous (relatively speaking, of course) Wisconsin Dells for a tour of the very Dells themselves!  And in what better vehicle than a WWII DUKW?  

Wondering what an "army duck" is?  Here ya go...

David has been looking forward to this day for months.  (He loves anything even remotely related to guns--something I'm desperately trying to take in stride--so an amphibious vehicle on which you can mount guns?  He was all over that.)

David enjoyed learning about how the army ducks worked.

Mary enjoyed making faces.

Does your vehicle have this gauge?

(How cool is that?  Oh, hey, I'm driving on coral, allow me to adjust my tire pressure accordingly.)

Our vehicle had that gauge!

Even though it was broken.....


Mary was scared at first.  She almost refused to go.  This is Mary showing me how she was scared.

But once we got going, she loved it!

David, not surprisingly, loved it.

What a handsome kid.

During the one hour tour, we entered and exited the water twice.  Here is what it looks like when one of these things leaves the water.  (This vehicle belongs to the other tour guide operators in town.)

Six wheel drive, baby.

Anyway, the whole point of the tour is to see the Dells.

Almost there...

Drum roll...

Ta-duh...

Try not to pass out from excitement...

This, my friends, is the whole reason for the existence of the Water Park Capital of the World.

Okay, so it isn't Hawaii or New Zealand.  But it is quite lovely.  Definitely worth cruising by and snapping some pictures.

Some scientists believe that the rock formations may have been formed in just two weeks by a massive post-Ice Age thaw and violent flood.  Crazy.

Usually you can see much more of the formations, but the river is super high right now.  (Like many other rivers around the country.)  I think on a more normal, less swollen day, our duck would have circled this island.

Also, under the ledge on this rock are the nests of some birds that migrate up here from Venezuela.  They eat three times their body weight of mosquitoes each day.

I want these birds to know that they are welcome in my backyard anytime.  Especially in August.

Mary wanted to pose for me in front of the natural beauty, so here ya go.

Soon enough, it was time to leave the Dells behind.  Up, up, up, and

out of the water.  (Six wheel drive, baby. And 1 mpg. Three on land.)

These here are our army duck rescue boats.  (The river was so swollen that rescue ducks were on alert.)

Fortunately, we required no rescue from a duck or any other water fowl.

Army ducks were usually used to transport supplies from ship to shore.  Our duck did a fine job transporting us folks from loading dock to dells and back.  As expected, it was a little cheesy and underwhelming.  But it was a great outing!  We had a lot of fun.  (And David left ready to send a postcard to his bff about it and determined to build an army duck out of Legos.  So I know the adventure was a success!)

Before we left, we of course needed a picture with this helicopter on site.

And Mary insisted on a few more poses...because there is no better background for cute little girl pics than a beat up army helicopter.

Aww, but she's cute no matter what the background.

Good night.  More fun awaits us tomorrow!  (And I'm pretty wiped out from today...pictures coming.)