2008 Wisconsin Trip (Days 5-9)

We spent the second half of our vacation up at my parent's lake house. People in Wisconsin call them cottages, but here in the south they're known as lake homes. Anyway, we had a great time right from the start. Ayden was very excited about the sand toys and bug collector that grandma and grandpa had bought for them. He immediately wanted to roam the land looking for spiders, caterpillars and any other creepy crawly insect he could find. I didn't participate in this...I don't like bugs. Jameson like playing in the sand.

Wednesday night, Auntie Nikki (Ayden's Godmother) joined us after she finished with work. Uncle J (her husband and Ayden's Godfather) wouldn't be able to make it until Friday. I was so excited to see her! She got involved in the bug hunt even though she too dislikes insects. Thursday was a day for relaxation. Nikki and I stayed in the house reading our books until late morning and then finally decided to join the rest outside. We made a trip to Slippery Rock and took a put-put ride around the lake. Friday we geared up for the Danke invasion. My dad had decided that my aunts, uncles and cousins should all get together for a mini reunion while we were up with the boys. Friday we were expecting 10 additional people and Saturday would bring 5 more. OMG! 22 people up at the lake! I must admit that I expected some drama but there were only good times. We took another trip to Slippery Rock on Saturday and spent some quality time floating in the lake. Sunday came quickly, and it was a sad morning as I packed up our belongings to head back to Neenah. We had lunch with Jason's parents and made our way to Milwaukee to return our car and catch our flight back home. It was a long day but I was happy to back in Georgia and looking forward to resuming our routine.

Click here to see the rest of the pictures from days 5-9 Once in flickr, click the "i" for details.!

2008 Wisconsin Trip Pictures Days 1-4

Can you believe that we haven't even been home a full week and I managed to get our pictures downloaded and edited? Okay, so the boys were forced to watch a lot of Scooby Doo last night before bed so I could get it all done but it was worth it!

So here are the pictures from days 1-4 which were spent in Neenah with Mima, Papa and endless amounts of friends and family. Click here to see the slideshow (click on the "i" to see photo descriptions)!

2008 Wisconsin Vacation (Days 1-4)

I love vacations. I love getting away from work and home responsibilities so we can spend some quality time together as a family. But let's face it...vacationing with two small children while pregnant isn't exactly relaxing. We had a fantastic time in Wisconsin seeing so many friends and family but now that we're home, the exhaustion is settling in.

We started our vacation on Saturday, July 19th. After crossing just about every item off of my 10 page list, I announced that we were ready to head to the airport. So my mom picked up my family of 4, 3 suite cases and 2 car seats and we were off. The kids were relatively behaved in the airport but once we got on the airplane I started to have thoughts of locking myself in the bathroom for the duration of the flight. Once we were in the air, Ayden sat nicely and watched a movie (thank goodness for portable DVD players!) but Jameson was out of control. He wanted to touch every button over our seats. I think the flight attendants were ready to throw us off the plane. It was difficult to keep him from kicking and pushing on the other passenger seats and let's not forget to mention he had horrible gas. There is nowhere to change a diaper on an airplane so I had my fingers crossed that the gas would not turn into poop. I was so excited when our plane landed almost 30 minutes early in Milwaukee.

Daddy and Ayden went to collect our bags and Jameson and I headed to the rental car area. First I got in the wrong line and when I found the right one, it was practically a mile long. Apparently Budget is quite popular. Once we had our car, we had to put in the car seats and stuff our luggage in the trunk. We were ready to make the 1 1/2 hour drive north to Neenah. The first thing both of the boys wanted was a movie. Sorry guys...no DVD player in this car. Luckily we weren't too far into our drive before they both fell asleep. We met up with some family and friends at Ground Round for lunch (I ate waaaaay too much) and then headed to the Payne's for some rest before Jameson's baptism.

So we're all pretty tired from traveling all day but we made it to the church by 5:00 for the baptism. There's a reason I chose the Saturday night service instead of Sunday morning's....no one was there! Have you ever seen a 2 year old get baptized? It's not pretty. Jameson was rolling and crawling all over the alter. He kept lifting my dress up and when it came time to do the "water" part, he looked at the pastor and said "NO, NO, NO" and shook his finger at him. Humiliating, yet so very entertaining. We went to Cranky Pat's for some of the best pizza in the world (the south just doesn't know how to make a good thin crust) and then went to my parent's house for a bath and bed.

We spent Sunday through Tuesday hanging out with Jason's family and some friends. We had dinner at Cory and Wendy's, played at Riverside park, let the boys jump around naked in a fountain, took a few walks and made Mima some pretty stepping stones for her garden. We saw all sorts of aunts, uncles, cousins and great grandparents.

I'll try and get some pictures posted of our first 4 days before we move on to the second half of our vacation...the lake!