busy weekend part 1

We had a very busy weekend this past weekend. We hardly had more than two hours at home to ourselves besides when we were sleeping. On Saturday, we made the trek up to North Central Wisconsin for a memorial get together. Greg's uncle David lost his wife Elaine this past April and it was her wish to be cremated and have her ashes spread in this lake near Hayward, Wisconsin.
This lake is the home of Elaine's sister, Audrey. I am really glad we got to see Elaine one last time when we were down in Florida over Christmas. I will miss her a lot when we go back this coming December.

After making the three hour drive to Hayward, we stopped downtown for a bite to eat.

After getting my fill in the candy shop where they made delicious turtles, fudge, and peanut brittle right in front of you, we made our way back to the cabin that Mary and Rich were sharing with a few other people.

Meredith had lots of fun playing by the lakeshore. She was throwing sticks in the lake for some random dog (it was the neighbors in the cabin down the shore from Mary and Rich), she saw a snake, and she got up close and personal with a couple frogs!

She made best friends with Shirley (married to Greg's uncle Don)!

She also hung out on the lap of Grandpa Carlson.

She goofed off with Daddy (this is a horrible picture but cute nonetheless).

At the end of the day, she made friends with Elaine's grandaughter, Vicky.

more zoo!

Well folks, we went to the zoo again! Meredith loves it so much and it's so close. She just can't get enough of these goats.




Aren't these the cutest little piggy tails you've ever seen?

She was looking and giggling at the giraffes here.

Here we are about ready to go into the butterfly tent which she loved!
We had to keep telling her that she couldn't touch the butterflies.

Here are some of the butterflies.

zoo

This last weekend was a great weekend! I was fortunate to be able to meet up with some more of my Internet friends. Yes, I have a bunch of Internet mommy friends and we had a blast. Being a part of a mom's forum has been such a pleasure and learning experience. I don't know what I'd do without chatting daily with my Internet friends. Many of them I will never meet because they are scattered all across the country but I have been fortunate to meet a few local moms from my fourm. In the picture below, you see Meredith and her friends Madeleine, and Bryson. Not pictured is Bryson's brother, Brecken.





We checked out the Africa display. Giraffes are really beautiful animals and of course Meredith loved seeing them along with the zebras.





I have been the the farm animals part of the zoo many times but I leared that the goat yard is open from 12-3 each day for kids to run around with them. Meredith had a blast - this is her favorite part of the zoo.

The picture below is one of my favorites. I love it when she gets that timid grin and runs over to me for safety but still is overjoyed at the same time.

almost two years in the making...

And we finally have pigtails. Real pigtails on the back of her head.

mommy abuse

My apologies for not updating the blog for such a long time.

I sure there are other mommies out there in this very same situation - I'll just keep it short and sweet. My child is abusing me. There, I said it. She's abusing me.

She has been known to hit the cat before and once in a while mom and dad are on the receiving end of a nice, old fashioned slap. Last week she bit me as I was rocking her in the chair before bedtime. I was wearing a sweatshirt and it still broke the skin and left a nice bruise (the marks are still there as I write this). Now, on to the best part. Yesterday, Greg and I were in her room reading her books before bedtime. Greg was in the chair, I was laying on the floor. We were reading 'Big Red Barn' which is about animals that live and play all day in a barn together. When the animals make noise in the book, she runs up to get her stuffed animals. She threw one of the stufed animals at me and I told her that throwing things isn't allowed. When it came time for the cow, she ran to her toyshelf and got her plastic cow flashlight that moos. She ran over to me and threw it at me and it hit right in the ribs. So as I was laying there on the floor all curled up in a ball from the sting of it, she picked up the cow and threw it at me again - this time hitting me right on the bride of my nose between my eyes. Holy moly, talk about painful.

I'm not a happy camper about this situation. I'm still in pain from it. My head hasn't quit hurting and my nose is so sore, I can feel it constantly. My whole head hurts. I just can't take this mommy abuse anymore.

It's a darn good thing she's cute.

Check out the wild hair. She's going to be rockin' some pigtails pretty soon!

memorial day 2009

We spent a day over Memorial Weekend at Lake Byllesby in Cannon Falls. We met up with my family - Grandma and Grandpa Schwake, Auntie Jennifer, Uncle Chris, and Uncle Ben & Aunt Angie. It was wonderful to have such nice weather - it was perfect. I've uploaded a bunch 0f pictures but they all are overexposed :-( I was trying to be creative and it didn't work out. It's hard taking pictures outside because I can't view them in the viewfinder when it's really bright out to see if they turned out like crap or not.


Hats, hats hats. Hats, hats, hats. Hats, hats, hats, hats, hats....sing that to the tune of Jingle Bells. That is how every subject is ended on Elmo's World and we have a segment on hats so these pictures make me sing hats, hats, hats. Hats, hats, hats.

Meredith loved the dogs. She loves dogs. Too bad we're NEVER going to get one :-)

something to make you laugh

We came across this today as we were walking back to our car from the St. Paul Farmers Market. Apparently someone was VERY concerned that their 1985 Crown Victoria was going to get stolen. I found it so amusing that I had to walk to the car and get my camera just to take a picture. It was almost as good as when we saw a golf cart down in FL parked at Target with The Club on it.

Stay tuned for some Memorial Weekend pictures coming tomorrow.

i scream, you scream...

We all scream for ice cream! I'm not a huge fan of ice cream. I mean I like it but I can definitely go without so ice cream isn't a huge staple in our household. Plus, I have to watch the girlish figure, you know. Meredith eats ice cream with Grandma Schwake all the time though. During the summer, they go to Culver's all the time so she has been feasting on ice cream since she was a wee one last summer.

I thought it would be a nice treat to have some at home (of course I picked the WRONG flavor for Daddy) so I thought some chocolate ice cream sounded good. When I was cleaning up after dinner, I told Meredith that we were going to have ice cream cones. She about flipped out wanting one right then and now. She threw a mini-fit about it unless I stopped everything to get her that ice cream cone. I think she thoroughly enjoyed it though.

mothers day 2009

Well folks, I finally made it home and am happy to say that my feet will be firmly planted on the ground for three whole months. I just got back from Portland on Friday and little later than expected but home nonetheless. It was one of those flights where we backed up from the gate and the pilot comes on and says a 'light' is on so they had to call the mechanics. Turns out the engine was (and I quote here) "broken" so we had to pull the plane back into the gate and they didn't know whether to cancel the flight or fly in a part from Seattle. We all got off the plane and formed a line at the check-in desk to be rerouted on to different flights. After about two hours, they suddenly said they had it fixed - Viola! So, most of us got back on the plane and made it in a few hours late.

I have so many stories to share from my week in Portland, I don't even know where to begin. The weather was beautiful when I arrived and I had an awesome view of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood from my hotel balcony. It was beautiful for three days and then it rained for four days in a row. I spent Saturday afternoon at Portland's Saturday Market. It was very neat and I could have spent a lot of money there. I ended up buying a handmade fleece coat with puppy dogs on it for Meredith.

Part of my job involves hiring temporary staff to help in registration, watch meeting rooms, etc. Well, I had no idea if one of my workers was a man or woman. The name was Sharra leading me to believe that it was a woman but I just didn't know for two whole days. This person had a buzz cut, voice that could go either way, a body that looked like It's Pat (an old SNL skit from around 1990). On the last day of the event, she (yes she!) was talking about how she was in the ladies room and another woman in there pointed her in the direction of the mens room across the hall. I couldn't even imagine! She was joking about it and was saying she had to get lifters for her boobs. I'm sure she's well aware that she looks like a man - thus the reason why she was joking about it. I was just glad the gender mystery was solved because I accidentally referred to her as a 'she' in front of her before I knew she was a she and I would have been mortified if she turned out to be a he.

Some may think I'm a bitch for this but I was in Starbucks one morning and there was a man in there with his miniature pinscher. I went up to the counter and asked if they allowed animals in the store. They said only service animals and I kind of snorted and said that I really didn't think that this man had a service animal. They proceeded to go over to him and ask him to take the dog out. I just don't understand why some owners of lap dogs think they can take their animals in wherever they want - especially in an establishment that serves food. That's just gross. There was a mall across the street from my hotel that had a sign saying that dogs were not allowed there except for people bringing them into portrait studios (and service animals of course).

I had a great Mother's Day. Thanks Greg and Meredith for the great gifts.

We played around.




Some kitty lovin'. This is odd because whenever Tabitha comes anywhere near her coloring book, she has a fit but she was just dishing out the kisses today.

Check out this wispy hair. She is nowhere near ready for a haircut but it looks like a mop. I guess I just need to have it grow out a little more. She's really working towards a nice mullet.

pizza hut

Really? Seriously Pizza Hut - get your act together! I went online to order the Panormous because it was such a good deal ($10.99). It said that it can not process my order for delivery for whatever reason - as if I live out in BFE or something. I proceeded to call in my order and asked for it to be half pepperoni and half cheese. 45 minute later, Curtis comes knocking on my door with this:

I thought the Panormous was supposed to look like this:

So, thinking there was some mistake because the Panormous is supposed to be two square shaped pizzas in one box, Curtis leaves the other two pizzas with me and says he will go back and get the right pizzas. Five minutes later, he calls me and says he just checked and they just put them in different boxes and asked me if everything was okay. I said "Sure Curtis - it's just fine".

I guess it will be a while before I try Pizza Hut again. At least it was hot and fresh.