Our Trip to Wisconsin - home now

We have returned home now from a wonderful trip to Wisconsin. Here are some pictures:

First though, before we left, Nathan tried his hand at dressing himself. This is what happened.

shorts - a PJ 'shark' shirt - cowboy boots - mickey mouse ears . . . mmm - I think we better stick to helping him for just a little while longer. :)

We took a trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo. Nathan had a great time walking and seeing all there was to see. (Notice he is holding Paw Paw's hand with one, and has the other in his pocket like Dada.) Oh, it makes me smile to watch him try to be just like the men in his life! Here Nathan is watering the flowers. In his CHURCH clothes BEFORE church - (thanks Jim). He somehow managed to stay clean and dry. :)Nathan making Mama smile after watering in his church clothes. On Saturday, my cousin got married. Here are the beautiful bride and groom. *Best wishes and prayers for a life together that honors eachother and God.* Here we are, before the reception.

We spent some great time visiting my Grandma. We really enjoyed our visit, and Nathan had fun loving on her. :)

We took at trip the the Children's Museum. Here is Nathan with two of his favorite exhibits. 1- He really enjoyed 'fixing' the car at the 'auto shop'. (remember this for later)

2- How fun to dance/run/play the piano all at once!!

Thank you Julie, for having us over for a great picnic and playdate!

Here is the beginning of Nathan's tree-climbing career - (which incidentally, will undoubtedly coincide with the rising of my blood pressure). Nathan and Auntie Crystal at Fuddruckers. It is a tradition for us to go there. :) Something about cheese fries just really brings two Wisconsin girls together!!

After Fuddruckers we took a trip over to Oscar's - mmm. . . good friends and frozen custard. Funny thing happened though. Richard and I have a 'thing' we do there. We get one waffle cone with custard and one empty waffle cone and I break the empty waffle cone and use it to

scoop some of his custard and eat it that way. It is a great way to share the custard, but still lets me have a yummy homemade waffle cone. Well, this time we were both getting down to the bottom of our cones; I asked Richard to hold mine for a second, and I put my hand out to 'hold' his. Funny thing happened - I started eating his cone with the custard in it and he had the empty one. I think I found it more amusing than him. ;)We had so much fun visiting with my parents. It was so nice to talk with them and catch up on hugs! Nathan had fun playing and being adored!We had planned on stopping on the way home to do some fun things. One thing we planned on was stopping at the St. Louis Arch. Here is the Arch:

Here is why we did not stop:

The drive was going quite smooth, despite a rough start with a fussy toddler in Illinois. Everything was going well. (Let me say here, that we are all OK). This is where Nathan's love of fixing tires would have really come in handy. We were just north of Dallas at 3:00 AM and it had been raining pretty hard for a while. I was driving and Richard had just woken up to see as I smashed into something in the road. My first thought was that it looked like a parking block. (You know, the cement things in the front of the parking spaces.) Icouldn't see it at all until it was completely too late to do anything! SMACK! I pulled off the freeway and took my first exit into a parking lot. We had at least one blown out tire and weren't sure what else was wrong. We called the police and a tow truck / roadside assistance.

The police said that someone had lost control and crashed into a light pole on the side of the freeway and knocked it over across the lanes. That is what I hit.

We had to wait for help for a few reasons. 1 - It was pouring down rain and there was standing water all around an lighting everywhere. Not the time to get out and lay on the ground to change a tire! 2- We had to have someone inspect for other damage before we drove any further. It took so long for the roadside assistance to come that I took advantage of the time and got Noah's latest Friday picture. He is laying on a blanket that Pat made on top of the cooler.

Turns out that it was just one blown out tire! What a blessing! We were all safe, didn't hit into anyone else, didn't lose control of the car, and that was all the damage that was done. We had to wait until the tire place opened in the morning. Even through all of this, Nathan really held together really well. We decided that letting him run and play in the tire store was TOTALLY acceptable! Like his 'ready-stance'?

After a total of 8 hours lost in Dallas, we were on our way. Only to see this just south of Dallas . . .

BRAKE LIGHTS!!

We all got a little silly.

Nathan sang with joy when we started moving again.

. . . Now we are home. . .