The Last Bit of Fun Before the Not So "Good" Bye

So, my year long adventure has come to and end.  That's right, Superman has decided we belong in misery Missouri. So sad since I had such an amazing time in Wisconsin. But time to look onward.  First, however, here are a few photos of the last couple of things we did.

One day we drove down to the Wisconsin Dells and met up with 

the Olsens who were staying there for the weekend.  The place was awesome! 

Here is a picture of just a small part of the place we stayed for the day.

There was a pottery store there where you could make stuff.

It was cool.  Lisa, Raquel and Preston were really getting at it.

While Hailey was being her sweet self.

A while later we all enjoyed the great outdoors at the Olsens' house.

Preston turned that seat into a merry go round and went

round and round and round.

And Rocky kept a safe distance 

While Lisa practiced up on her aim.

And Uncle Kelly taught Raquel how to shoot my pistol.

Then Lisa and I enjoyed one last bottle of wine together.

And I started packing stuff up.  :(

Blue eyed boy and his buddy came to help load stuff up.

We needed all the extra muscle!

 The first little disaster of the trip happened right in the front yard.

When Chris unhooked his truck from the trailer and pulled away,

it sunk all the way down into the mud.

But they managed to jack it up and get hooked on to 

Superman's truck.

Here is our fare well party. Not very chipper huh?

Ya, I know it is blurry. 

 ( I thought it might be from my tears but I guess I was really out of focus)

And one last shot of my beautiful sister in law. 

What a great time we had.  I miss her.

So we got everything loaded up and we headed south to Missouri.

We made it all the way to Iowa before our second little disaster.  

( I say little disaster but it was much bigger than other things that had happened.  

Things like pulling over to take a break and the pugs getting loose and taking off. 

Or When the keys to the truck got lost while we were stopped for the night.)

Yep, like usual, the tire on the trailer  started falling apart on the highway.

Sunday evening, a good 30 miles from a decent sized town with 2 very impatient dogs and 

one good ole blue heeler. Stranded.

Superman decided to creep on down a dirt road that ran along the highway to the next town.

I called mom and told her to look up a pet friendly hotels in the next town.

Luckily there was one pretty darn close and reasonable in price with a room available. 

So we slowly rolled on in and got a room.

Little bits of relief were starting to creep in to our frazzled brains 

as we got comfy in room with the dogs.

Our man/child, Austin had headed out the door to find a soda machine when just a minute later

he came bursting back through the door laughing.

He said a lady was walking down the hall with a black pug following her that looked just like Jack and part way down he just walked over and hiked up his leg and well, you know. 

He said she turned around and then just kept on walking like nothing happened.  

How embarrassed she must have been to have her dog behave like that.

By the end of our laughing I had to go to the car and get a few things and 

Austin was going out for soda again.

When we opened the door to leave, there stood Jack.  Our Jack! 

Waiting to get back in the room.  It was only seconds when we realized, 

there was not another pug in the place.  Just Jack

What a naughty boy!

So our "pet friendly" hotel was a pretty nice place and we were all exhausted.

I found this unusual little gift on the counter as I was getting ready to go to bed.  

How nice I thought but who really sleeps so lightly that they need earplugs.

No one in our family.

I crawled in under the covers and was just on the verge of sleep when I heard an extremely loud horn.

A train horn.  I could swear it was coming down the hallway! 

But it was actually across the street.

Now I know the true meaning of the complimentary earplugs and 

it was not because of the pets.

After a sleepless night we got a new tire and headed south once more.

When we got to the farm it was time to unload.

Mason was supervising.

(You think he was waiting for the four wheeler to be unloaded?)

The End.

Really.  It is the end.  

The end of 'That One Place in Wisconsin'.  

It was an amazing adventure. And such fun to blog about.

But this is good bye.  Thanks to all that followed me.

Ballerinas and Bananas

A week or so ago we got to celebrate Haileys very first birthday 

with her and her family.

We threw out the norm and made banana boats instead of birthday cake.

They are easy and there is something for everyone.

Here we are stuffing the bananas.

So many choices!

Definitely stuffed!

 

And wrapped to be heated.

Okay so the peel doesnt look great but you dont eat the peel!

Here is Haileys birthday treat.

Hailey is sporting a brand new birthday tutu and complimenting shirt.

The birthday ballerina

Ta Da!

All photos were taken by the ballerinas mommy. :)

Broken Hearts

So a little over a week ago, we took a trip back to Missouri.   A big reason, but definitely not the only reason, for the trip was to see our oldest grandson wrestle.  

We also got to see other family and the guys did some work while they were there too.  

I was very excited to see the wrestling matches, but I quickly learned that I really had no idea of the heartbreak that losing a match could cause.

Grampa Juan was trying to get him to watch what was going on on the mats.

Here was the only girl we saw wrestling.  She kicked butt.

 He thought he would take a picture of me and Papa.  He needs a little more practice with the camera huh.

Sittin' on Papa's lap

Coaching from Daddy

And now, out to the mat for his first match.

Look out!

Uh oh. Adrians on the bottom.

Hey, get off him!

Dont let him flip you Bubba!

HEY! Dont push my babys head down like that!

You want this Gramma to come out there!

Aww Match over.  Heart Broken.  Mine and His

I dont want to lose Mommy

Encouragement from Daddy on the second match

Here we go.  I'm holding my breath

Down to the mat

There ya go!

Roll him back over Adrian!

Flatten and pin him!

Aww the other little guy lost.  I was so sad for him.

Third place.  

He said, "I dont know why I got third place.  I only lost twice"

All is good,  Pizza and Angry Birds

Things Change

This is my "Cross Wall" that I started in April of last year.

This is my "Cross Wall" today.

A Winter Weekend

We haven't done much lately because the weather has not been very cooperative here in Wisconsin.  The temps have been very low with wind chills in the negatives for many many days.  BUT, on Saturday we got lucky and it was kind of misty all day but  in the upper 20's with very little wind 

so we decided to layer up and hit the slopes.

I'm not talking about ski slopes. Oh no.  Much better.  The tube sledding slopes.

Preston and Raquel are bundled up and ready to go.

So is Hailey

  Here we are headed down from the parking lot.

 

 And there are the slopes.  

It doesnt look very big 

but if you look at the people standing in line at the bottom

you can get a better perspective

While we were inside getting our tickets, Preston and AJ were outside waiting.

 Then we were heading to the top.  A few crazy people took the stairs.  Not us though.

We laid on our tubes and grabbed on to the rope that pulled us to the top.

 Here was my bunch of family, waiting to come down.  See that nice man waving at me? 

People are sooo friendly here.  Okay, okay really he was telling me to get out of the darn way!

 Here comes AJ and Preston sideways.

 And backwards

 And sideways again at the bottom.

 And Kelly, Lisa and Raquel.  Raquellllll!

 There you are.

 Then we headed into the lodge. 

Close to the warm fire and the food.

 Ugg foggy lenses.

 

 Preston having some pretzel with nacho sauce

 And some blue taffy

 Then we headed back home.  The kids just couldnt get enough so 

Rocky pulled them in a sled we bought last week.

Then we went in, had dinner and celebrated Raquels Birthday.

She's six now.