Yeah, so I haven't posted in awhile. Everyday I'm all, "Gee, I should really write in my blog today", but then I just don't. For one thing, I have been feeling overly contemplative lately and am so wrapped up in my mind that I have not felt the desire to put anything down on paper or the computer screen for that matter. Second, I've been busy. Yeah, yeah, I'm always busy, but I'm more busy that usual. Third, well, I simply have not felt like it, so there ya go.

Since I am so far behind I should update as to what has been happening in my little corner of the world. The biggest thing that has happened is that Scott and I took the kiddos on a family vaca a couple of weekends ago. Amazingly, the kids all did well with the not-so-small amount of driving that we did. We did have a few "incidents" on the trip. One of which was Braden setting off alarms at the Milwaukee Public Museum when he entered an exhibit that apparently they do not want people in. The flashing lights, deafening beeping noises, and the voice coming over the intercom repeating "Intruder, Intruder" until Braden got out of the exhibit is what clued us in to this fact. Another fun event of the trip was one of the kids calling 911 from our hotel room in Barneveld, WI. We had no idea that this phone call had taken place until the front desk clerk called and not-so-kindly called and asked me if we were really in need of assistance. Trust me, it was hard not answer her question with, "Hell yes, we do. There are four short people in our room in need of a swift lock-up somewhere away from their mother. And get here quick because the lock-up is for the short people's safety!"

Really, fun was had by all though. Braden got to fulfill his dream of being a Cheesehead, as you can see above. Regan and Gwen got paid $5 each by my aunt Donene to "bug" my cousin, Zach, which was about the highlight of the girl's trip.

See how they so lovingly placed flowers in Zach's hair? Yeah, they enjoyed doing that. I'm not sure that I can say the same for Zach, but he was such a good sport about it. Isn't he cute?

We spent a chunk of time in Madison on our trip, which BTW is my and Scott's favorite city. We went to our favorite restaurant, The Great Dane, and we hung out on State Street. See below. Don't we look like the happiest family ever?

This picture was taken outside of Clary's
Popcorn Shop.

If you ever find yourself in Madison go there. You won't regret it. I think we walked out of there with 11 bags of popcorn, all of which had been fully consumed by the time we left to come home on Sunday thanks to Scott and the short people. My popcorn, a simple bag of lightly salted corn, went mostly to feeding the ducks at the University of WI Terrace Friday afternoon. I cried a little as I saw my yummy popcorn being fed to those wee creatures, but it made the kids happy and you know that I do it all for the kids. I mean, look at Braden feeding the ducks here. How I deny him anything, especially the chance to feed ducks?!

Besides all of the fun in Madison, we got to visit with my wonderful friend, Joy, her husband Chad, and her two sweet baby girls. We also were able to spend time with extended family that we have not seen in a while, including my grandma Betty (my mom's mom), many aunts, uncles, and cousins from my mom's side, and of course, my brothers. Here is my brother Jason glamming it up for my camera:

















All in all it was a great trip. We came home after five blissful days of not having to deal with real life, to having to buy a new dryer since our "old" one died the day before we left for our trip. I put old in quotes above because it really wasn't old, it was actually less than three years old. We just replaced our "old" washing machine two weeks before that, and least to say I will never buy a Maytag anything ever again.


Since our trip I have been preparing to have photos entered into a show at the Red Mug Coffeehouse in Superior on June 13th. I'm getting quite antsy to get my photography business off of the ground, but I realize that due to financial issues this coming to fruition is likely a long way off. In the meantime I have been taking some photos of various folks in order to work on my portrait taking skills, including my neighbor's brand spanken new little girl. The bonus of doing such photo shoots is that I get to hang out with my cool neighbors and manhandle their cuddly newborn.

Finally, I have to tell you that I have the sweetest daughters of all time. In recent weeks Braden has become disenchanted with his hand-me-down Dora bicycle and has been pleading for a new Thomas the Train bike. This past Sunday me, Gwen, and Regan headed to Target to do a bit of shopping. While there we spotted a Thomas bike. When I checked out the price I saw that it was a bit more than I could afford for the time being and decided that I would come back and buy it in a few weeks. The girls did not like this plan because they know how horrible it has been for Braden to have to live without a Thomas bike. I looked over to see the girls looking through their shared wallet and finally pulling out a wad of cash and handing it to me. It was the money that they had earned for our trip by doing various chores around the house, money that they had been very frugal with on our trip, to the point of not actually spending most of it. They wanted me to use the rest of their money to help pay for Braden's bike so we could bring the bike home for him immediately. With tears in my eyes I reminded the girls how wonderful they are and I put the Thomas bike into our cart. Braden was more than a little excited when he saw it, although I think that Gwen and Regan may have been happier than Braden about that bike. I think that I may have been too. :-)