We had a great week this week, we helped out a little and went to the Team Vogel vs. Cancer race/fundraiser, watched some kickball and checked out the silent auction.  There were tons of people there and I think that they were really happy (and tired) by the end of the day!! 

Then we went to Buckhorn for a few days to see these girls: 

who I haven't seen in a group since I was pregnant with Petey- proally about 2 years! We went to the beach and swam, made pizza and got filled in and caught up on what it is like to drive a science lab around the state of Utah, help birth calves and how the star spangeled celebration was this year. It was well worth the trip to see them, like my dad said when they left, "well, THAT was a nice visit!"

While Pete and I were there we went swimming a bunch of times at the lake, he loved everything about it from the shallow water and splashing, to being carried out into the deep water and going down the slides into the water. What a little fish!!

We also went for a hike at Devil's Lake of course and explored on the rocks for a while there as well.

I am pretty sure that Petey is learning about the striations on the rocks and how the glaciers created those and Devil's Lake from his ranger grandpa!

The last time Petey was at my parent's house we got him up early the first day and after that it just got earlier and earlier- I think he was a little nervous when he woke up in a new place and didn't want to hang out on his own- however, this changed! He slept so well and went to sleep without a peep at naptime and bedtime which is great, it just makes life so much easier when you don't have to worry about that.

He is so funny, at home he regularly reaches into his crib and pulls out his animals and loveys that are in there. But he can't get to them at grandma's house since he is in a packnplay. He figured out a way to rescue them though, but he just needs to be rescued!!

He crawls up on the bed and then just flips himself in to get his little friends! We've said it once... and we'll say it again.... what a little monkey.

It was so nice to come back home, but we had just the best time playing "bahk-bahl", swimming, eating cherries, going for bike rides, "gooo"-ing down the slides and playing in Grand-dan's truck and trailers. He is loved and spoiled completely when he is there!

How we roll...

Pete and I have started to settle into our summer routine... I get up, he gets up about 30 minutes later, we have breakfast, play for a little while and then go for a walk with Scouters or a run on our own before it gets hot. Then we come home and play for a while. We decided to try and move his map time back a little bit so that his day was a little more evenly split up. That means that we now nap at 11:30 or 12 (or even a little later if we are having too much fun!!) until 2ish. 

So that means that sometimes we have to have a little snack picnic when we are out and about!! Sllluurrrppp... AHH!

 

Then go and play to burn off some more energy. He loves to run on these bridges- it gives me a heart attack since he falls half of the time. His face totally says- chill out mom! I'm doing just fine!

Sometimes we have a little too much fun and fall asleep on the way home from whatever park we picked that day. There are 3 really nice parks in Winona-the big park next to the lake, in Goodview at the elementary school and there is a little park just a mile further on the park path that we really like to go to since it isn't as crowded. Now, our routine can be edited and sometimes we go to the beach instead of the park to play which is just as fun. Petey loves to watch the other kids, play in the sand and get taken out to the deep water and swim around.

Race for a Cure and other summery stuff

 

 Well I lost my camera for a week or two so I have very few pictures to share this week and on top of that life has been more than a little crazy- more about that later. 

We went to race for a cure with my mom for what is probably the 12 or 14th year in a row- it is such a great day and so very inspiring to see all of these strong women banding together. We also like to spoil Mooze a little and have some fuN!! 

 Here she is with her support team laughing at grand-dan of course! 

Jackson also celebrated his 2nd birthday that day, so our day just continued with more fun. AFter that busy weekend I stayed in Baraboo to help Bluffview out with immersion. We camped at Devil's Lake and of course it rained! Petey stayed on his first overnight without mom or dad and loved it!

After all of this life started to get crazy. Garrick was on the roof of our new little shed in the backyard- remember the concrete? and slipped and fell. No big deal right? He is on ladders all of the time for work- well this time was his bad luck, he cut his left hand pretty badly on some sharp flashing on the way down and cut through the tendon on one of his fingers... this means he had surgery, a month of taking it VERY easy and no biking... I think that and the fact that he can't change Pete's dipes very well are 2 of the hardest things for him. He is so tough though- we were at the hospital all day today and he had the nurses laughing at him and loving him- my dad came to watch pete- it was so nice to not worry about what he was up to and to know he was having fun! Garrick says that he will take a picture of his finger on Monday at his check-up for all of you to see!

Memorial Weekend

We started out by taking 4 kids under the age of 3 out on the river to splash, grill out and ski- well they didn't ski but we did!! It was so fun!

 Then we had a super fun visit from Ms. Kim Piehl! She riled Petey up before bed, gave him bathes, played in the pool with him and took him to the rock at SMU. We know how to have a good and BUSY time!

Then we had MORE visitors! Garrick's parents and their friends Bill and Jean came to bike and hike! It was a little hot for all of that, but they are tough!

Finally, we got to hang out with one of our favorite almost one year olds for the afternoon! Oscar had fun Incrediblocking and scooting along our windows and Petey liked showing him his toys.


Exhausted yet? I was!

Concrete, Trucks and Tantrums

We poured our pad for the garden shed this weekend. We had some great friends come to help us out and got the job done pretty fast!

Petey liked watching the trucks and wheelbarrows all over the place!

And got to make his hand prints in the cement. (Payton did too, but we undid hers!)

Afterwards, we took a mountain bike ride, went to the playground and got ice cream with Grand-dan and Mooze. We are pretty sure that Peter's ice cream intake was bigger than Garrick's taking into account his size.

Garrick found a bunch of little boards and made a road/obstacle course for Pete to drive his trucks around in. As you can see it takes a lot of concentration!

We were at Target last night looking for porch furniture. We rolled past the ball pen and Pete of course saw it and started to say ball, ball. I of course said yeah, look at them all! As we continued our way down the aisle he started to look around me and was saying, mama, mama, mo-, mo- (more, more) ball, ball, mo-, mo-. Until we turned the corner and they were out of sight... but not out of mind- the tears started and Garrick and I felt like pretty much the meanest parents in the entire world- I mean- who denies their kid a ball? Peter did NOT get a new ball last night... Poor kid.

Finally, this morning I was in a meeting for school and Pete was just walking around playing and reading books by himself. All of the sudden I hear a sucking sound in the kitchen. I go to see what he's doing and he is here:

Sitting on the table sticking his hand in the cereal bowl drinking the milk out of it. All of our chairs are now against the wall away from the table.


I hope you are all staying cool this week! It is 9:00 and 86*... whew.

Summer is BACK

Garrick's sister and family were in town from California- the ones that we went to see last year- and so we voyaged up to his mom's house to get together with everyone. We played with toys, blew bubbles and ate  a lot of food. Peter had so much fun watch Ben and I think he learned a few tricks from him!

It has been 80* (up to 90 this weekend) so I'd say that after a few cold weeks summer is totally back! Kelly and I took the kids to the river to try splashing in the water- Finn was a little smarter than Pete and didn't want to get wet *cold* but Petey spent a lot of time splashing in the shallow water, watching the trucks on the highway bridge and playing in the sand.




Then to end the night we went out to what used to be called Smith Farms- it has a new name- with Lindsay, Chris and Oscar for homemade fire baked pizza. It is only about 20 minutes away from our house and is OH SO DELICIOUS. They only bake on Thursday nights so it is a little crazy there. The farm is also a CSA and they have chickens, cows, a few sheep and alpacas running around. Pete loved watching the animals and did many loops checking them out. The chickens were his fav though. Garrick saw me checking everything out and got the message... this is something that I could do and be very happy. My goal for this summer: To be a mini-CSA for some of our friends in Winona!! *You guys better get your requests in now!*

Spelunking

We went out to WHitewater State Park for a hike yesterday since for the first time in over 2 weeks I had a day off!!! It was so nice and relaxing to just get some yard work done, go for a longer run and to spend time with my 3 favorite guys (Garrick, Petey and Scout)!

We ended our hike at Chimney Rock which is somewhere we don't get to go too often since it is "the destination" at Whitewater and it is so busy in the summer. But it is a big rock that the entire bottom is tunneled out. We spent some time playing in there!

Pete thought it was so funny to crawl around- and stand up!

It was just like mother's day a week late but I'll take it!