Summery--visitors!

Thankfully, near the end of June we had visitors to break up the monotony of our summer.  Hooray!  Best of all, it was the Thompsons!  Gina and I both moved to Dayton, Ohio the same week--and we immediately became good friends.  We left Ohio at the same time too.  They moved to Colorado, and we went to Texas, then onto Wisconsin.  During the summers that I criss-crossed the West, I managed to see her a couple of times.  But it'd been a long time since then, so I was thrilled to learn they would be stopping here for a few days during their grand summer road-trip.

Nephi and Gina and their boys were so kind, patient, and accommodating during their stay.  We weren't exactly the best hosts ever.  Greg had an important deadline just around the corner, so he was often gone to campus, and, even though I wasn't battling headaches anymore, I didn't feel 100%.  (But I felt closer to 100% than I had all summer!  There was something about talking to Gina and being with her boys that was calming, distracting, and reenergizing--just what I needed.)

I love Wisconsin, and I am pretty obsessed with showing it off.  If I had been my normal self, I would have dragged the Thompsons to every restored European immigrant site within a 50-mile radius.  This time I preferred to sit around all morning in my pajamas chatting while the kids played Wii and/or worked on construction projects in the sandbox--which, come to think of it, was probably a huge blessing for the Thompson boys because, as my kids know too well, you can only see so many old barns.

But we did manage a few things (none of which involved an old barn) like, for instance...

a cookout at Picnic Point on Lake Mendota...

 (This ash-covered sweetie is Benjamin, the littlest Thompson.  I finally got to meet him, and he is a heart breaker.  So darling and gentle.)


and a visit to the Children's Museum...

Isaac and Mary getting their hair set.  (What, your children's museum doesn't have vintage hair dryers?)

We were so sad to see them go.  Boo hoo!  The morning they were trying to leave I kept following Gina around the house talking.  I couldn't stop.  They'd been here three days, but I still had four thousand things I wanted to discuss with her in depth.  Oh well.  The comforting thing is that I know we are the kind of friends who can pick up right where we left off.  (Looking back at Ohio, it seems almost too easy.  Who clicks with someone who will become a lifelong friend the first week you move somewhere?  Me!  Lucky me!)

Mary still talks about "when our cousins were here," and I love the thought that Gina and Nephi and their boys are part of our extended family!  I have no doubt our paths will cross again--I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Grand Solar System Tour begins

Last year we set about pretending to tour Northern Europe.  This summer we are setting our sights even bigger:  The Solar System!

Madison is crisscrossed with bike trails.  And if you take a certain route, you will meet every planet in the solar system.  Starting at the Monona Terrace, which plays the role of Sun, the planets (more specifically, informational signs about the planets) are spaced to scale.

Last weekend we started at the sun, traveled out to Ceres (a dwarf planet past Mars) and returned back to the sun.

THE SUN

MERCURY

VENUS

HOME SWEET HOME

MARS

CERES

And then we returned to the sun.  (That's Frank Lloyd Wright's Monona Terrace.)

The inner planets are pretty close to each other--it was easy to knock them out in a short afternoon.  Next up will be Jupiter.  We're working up to the many miles long journey out to Pluto.  That's our goal this summer.

To conclude, here's a picture of my sweetheart.  We walked out on the dock while Greg was loading up the bikes.  I've said it once (more than once), and I'll say it again ... Love that kid.

Anyway, here's to happy peddling this summer!

Picnic Point forever

We went with a group of friends to Picnic Point on Madison's Lake Mendota for a good old-fashioned cook-out of hot dogs, brats, and s'mores.

(My kind of camping--one meal, no tents.  And, yes, I do try to convince my kids that roasting hot dogs over a camp fire counts as camping.  The longer I live away from the West, the more anti-camping I become.  But perhaps it has more to do with age than being in the Midwest.)

It was so fun, especially the being with friends part.  And the eating part.  And the lovely lake part.  But especially the friends part.

Can we just live in Madison forever?!!  Pleeeease?

Outing

We follow three academic calendars in our family.  Sometimes school breaks and holidays observed and parent-teacher conferences align, but often they do not.  For instance, last year we had three different spring breaks, David, Mary, and Greg each with their own.  This year, miraculously, all three of the students had the same week off for spring break.  

The first half of the week was spent working on a project in the backyard.  The kids excitedly followed their dad around for hours as he hammered, nailed, painted, mowed, dug, hauled, and took the inevitable thirteen trips to Home Depot.  The second half of the week was spent in Kansas City.

But there was one day when Greg needed to go to campus and focus on his research.  And our little friends were all out of town, so there were no play dates on the calendar.  So I had the kids to myself.  I stared at my kids for a few minutes, trying to remember.  There was something familiar about this situation: Me, my kids, and a whole day ahead of us.  What does a mom do with her kids on a day off of school? 

Then I remembered.  An outing.  You go on an outing!  (My, how life has changed. Back in the day before school and all that comes with it--like homework and after school activities and playing with friends--I do believe I took my kids on an outing almost every day.  For sanity.  Toddlerhood requires a full agenda if you and your kids are not homebodies.)

With such unseasonably warm weather the past few months, I thought we could visit Olbrich Botanical Gardens and looks for signs of spring.

We found them:

Green grass and blossoming magnolia trees.  (I love the scent of magnolia blossoms.  Heavenly.)

And emerging tulips.  (I love tulips.  Too bad they don't smell like anything.  But that's what the spring magnolias are for.)

We posed under the Thai pavilion.

And climbed on an elephant.

And skipped through the birches.

Then we tried out a new playground.

And inspected the shore of Lake Monona.

It's nice to get out.

***

I leave you with this picture from the botanical gardens.  Sometimes it's hard having a little sister.  There is little difference between adoring and annoying.

We have a visitor!

My aunt Marie is here!

Mary has already taken her to the Capitol and the Children's Museum.

And David has attempted to make her well-versed in the ways of Ninjago.

There's also nothing like a Friday evening on the lake at the student union.  With ice cream, of course.

This was Mary's pose of choice.  (Where did she get the idea to pose like that?)

Silly girl.

And a silly boy!

These two little silly heads are spoiled with all the attention they're getting from Aunt Marie.  (They've had a great time playing with her before.  Here and here and here and here and here.)  We're ready for even more fun with Aunt Marie this week!

Weekend!

Our weekends often don't feel like weekends. Greg usually needs a good chunk of time to study.  So, often, Saturdays feel like any other day, except the kids are home bored. Even holiday weekends can feel pretty mundane.  I had no particular reason to look forward to Memorial Day weekend...

...until we found out my brother Dave and his wife Alejandra were coming to visit.  They took the train from Texas to Chicago, caught a quick fun (rainy) glimpse of the Windy City, and then took a bus to Madison. We love benefiting from their wanderlust and sense of adventure!  We enjoyed a great weekend together.

No trip to Madison is complete without a walk down State Street and a visit to the Capitol.

You also can't visit Madison without enjoying a pint on the terrace of UW's Memorial Union.  (Most people opt for a pint of beer; we go for the other kind of pint.  Ice cream! Fresh from the creamery.)

On Friday, Dave, Ale, and I visited David's classroom and joined him for lunch.

As usual, David was attached at the hip to Bailey.  Aren't they cute friends?

Mary also had a chance to show Tio and Tia around her classroom.  She was very proud to point out some of the lessons in her room.


The weekend was filled with lots of playtime, inside and out.  (With a few special spectators.)

One evening David took Tio, Tia, and Mary on a bike ride.  I figured they would be gone ten or fifteen minutes.  So I was surprised when they returned an hour and a half later--with ice cream on their faces.  David took them all the way downtown to Culver's!  When they arrived, he looked expectedly at Tio and Tia, assuming they'd buy him an ice cream.  (They did.)  Then David showed them the way home.  I am so impressed with David's sense of direction!  And Mary is a trooper.  She did the whole ride in flip-flops on her little bike without nary a complaint!  My kids rock.  Ale took a few pictures on their adventure.

As previously recorded, we enjoyed our fair share of brats at Brat Fest.

On Monday, thanks to some free tickets we scored, we did a very Memorial Day kind of thing: We went to a water park.  Water parks aren't exactly my cup of tea.  (And I think you all know I have mixed feelings about the Dells.)  But we had free tickets, 90-degree weather, and some super fun companions.  We all had a great time!  (Even me.)

 Ale took these cute pictures of my kids.

We were all so sad to say good-bye to Dave and Ale.  They are so much fun to have around. We are very grateful they made the journey up here. We wish them the best on their next endeavors (law school and nursing!).  And we look forward to seeing them this summer.

On Tuesday Greg and I were reflecting on what a great weekend we'd had.  We realized it had been a long time since we'd really "celebrated" a weekend.  Yay for Memorial Day!  Yay for Dave and Ale!