We traveled today. On an airplane. For the first time in almost two years. Woohoo! We’re in Denver meeting our new nephew/cousin and he’s the sweetest little nugget. More photos to come, but this one will have to do for now. Off to sleep for the big day tomorrow.
We’re about to head out on a traveling adventure. What does that mean for these two? A trip to the convenience store for a candy treat for the airplane. So many choices, so little time. In the end, Chase chose Smoothie Skittles and Robbe selected Mambas. I will be sampling both.
We spent Saturday celebrating Chris’s mom for her birthday. It was a lovely 70s celebration filled with lots of food, too many sweets, and so much laughter.
She brings so much joy to so many people. It was nice to put her in the spotlight for once.
Robbe has been working on wiggling his front teeth for weeks and weeks. Today was the day for the left one—thanks to his cousin’s help and encouragement.
The ingredients for a successful extraction?
a Froot Loop
three pistachios
lots of pushing, twisting, and spinning
a piece of floss (and some delicate finessing by me)
I have a feeling he other front tooth won’t be far behind.
Today was our third Summer Surprise Adventure day. I try to find something new to do once a week to expand our horizons of fun activities in our area. Today’s adventure was a visit to the Wisconsin Logging Museum (yep, that’s a thing!). We enjoyed the beautiful day by meandering through some historic buildings and learning a lot about the area’s logging trade.
To round it out, we finished up with ice cream from the adorable ice cream window pictured above. Sometimes everything just works out.
It’s that time of year—4-H time! We’ve been busy working on projects. These are puppet heads, obviously.
I purposely let my phone die this weekend—it was a lovely tech break. The downside is that I don’t have many photos.
Even without the photos to prove it, we had a really great weekend. Lots of lake time. Lots of family time. Lots of delicious food. And all-around beautiful weather. It doesn’t get much better.
Pretty rowdy around here as we head into the holiday weekend. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m taking a tech break. Happy 4th, everyone!
We said [another] farewell to Richmond this week. Unfortunately, he hasn’t found his forever home yet, but there was another foster home willing to take the sweet little guy because we’ve got some travel coming up in July. Richmond has been with us for almost two months. It was hard to say goodbye, but that’s part of the deal and I have high hopes Richmond will find the perfect family really soon.
The other butterfly emerged from its chrysalis yesterday and we set her free today! Even Richmond’s antics couldn’t stifle this little lady’s drive for survival. Good luck on your adventures, friend. I’m glad we met you.
I promised more photos from Madison, and here you go. It was such a fun little getaway. The boys were SO excited about a mini vacation—it was the sweetest thing ever. Staying in a hotel after so long was about the best thing that’s ever happened to them. This city remains one of my favorites.
This little guy (or gal?) emerged today! It was beautiful and incredible and so exciting.
And then? Before we could wait for his little wings to dry out and release him, there was an incident. Richmond, our foster cat, was outside on the porch where the butterfly cage has been for the past two weeks. Apparently the fluttering inside the cage was too much for him. When Richmond was out there for a few minutes on his own, we came back to find the cage on the floor and our new friend gone. It was (and still is) devastating.
We’re continuing to hold out hope for our second chrysalis (even though the cage got batted around a bit). Keep thinking happy thoughts.
We enjoyed a lovely day in one of our favorite cities today. More photos to come, but I’ll leave you with this one tonight.
Eau Claire is pretty cool, I have to say. Today we made an impromptu stop at Artisan Forge to check out some metal dinosaur sculptures on display right now. Amazing, right?
This crazy crew made it all the way to the neighbors’ raft at my parents’ lake house this weekend. It’s no small feat, let me tell you!
It was a lovely weekend filled with some of our favorite people. And swimming. Lots of swimming.
The boys created a pretty sweet scavenger hunt for Chris yesterday—all by themselves! It was the highlight of a day celebrating this great dad. We fully realize how lucky we are.
Caterpillar update: they’ve both moved to chrysalis stage! Super exciting, right?
Fifteen years. Chris and I got married 15 years ago today. It was a crazy hot day surrounded by all of our friends and family with ice cream sundaes and a pretty epic dance party. That day remains the best day of my life (I was in pretty immense pain when the boys were born, after all).
I’m thankful every day that we’ve built this beautiful life together. We’ve gone through a lot in those years, but it really feels like we’re just getting started, you know? This is the life I’ve always dreamed of with the best friend I never could have imagined.
I ran across the quote above when I was contemplating marriage today. It gave me a good chuckle and I thought you might enjoy it. In case you’re wondering, though, in this marriage, it’s clear that I got the better deal.
We found these beauties at the lake this weekend and decided to bring them home with us (we left a lot of their friends, in case you are worried). Boom. Two days later they’re preparing for their chrysalis. I don’t know why, but watching caterpillars transform is about the most intriguing thing for me. I’m just so in awe of the process.
It goes without saying…I’ll keep you posted on progress!
The new sculptures are installed! We’ll have to go back once all the name plates are up (it’s fun to see their titles, afterall), but we had a great time touring all the impressive works of art that are a part of the 2021 Sculpture Tour Eau Claire. Pictured above are just a few of our favorites.
small city | BIG DAYS
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