La Follette Reunion!

This May was my 10 year anniversary of graduating from the La Follette School! When I first moved to Madison to attend graduate school and get my degree in Public Policy, my plan was to complete the 2 year program and move on! Who knew that I would stay in Wisconsin for so many years! :) Earlier this year, I got in touch with some of the La Follette crew and started planning a 10 year reunion. These ladies are the best - they all have impressive careers, growing families, and a deep interest in public policy. We planned to meet up at the Memorial Union Terrace on Saturday afternoon and have dinner at Graze on Saturday night. I had a smile on my face the entire drive from Rhinelander down to Madison. We had an awesome day - it was so fun to catch up, to learn more about everyone's careers and share pictures of family. It was also a great opportunity to commiserate about the state of Wisconsin politics these days!! ugh!

 

So blessed to have these lifelong friends! Thank you to Erinn, Hilary, Katie, Natalie, Allison, and Alison for a wonderful evening! Here we are at Graze:

 

 

So whenever Dan and I are traveling and we have the opportunity to eat delicious food that we would not be able to get in Rhinelander, we send each other texts featuring our meal. Here is some of the food porn that I sent Dan that evening! Haha!

 

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the kids and their Dad had a great weekend too -

Riding bikes ...

 

 

... and goofing around!

Roman is such a copy cat these days! He is Lucy's little shadow. Lucy apparently was pouting about a photo so her little brother followed suit!

 

Happy Kids!

 

 

End of May Happenings

Here are some of our adventures from the end of May -

 

Late May and early June is turtle time around our house! We see lots of turtles in the road and in the sand laying their eggs. This guy was in the road so we pulled over, let the kids say hello, and helped carry him across safely.

 

 

I needed to make a quick stop at my office one Friday morning so I took the kids on a field trip. Since we were in Crandon, we stopped to check out their library.

 

They had a train table so Roman considered the trip a success! :)

 

Lucy enjoyed looking at new books and playing with new toys.

 

Roman put the tracks together.

And Lucy made tea for everyone!

 

We planted vegetables in our raised beds. We picked out a variety of tomato plants and peppers at the famers market.

 

My planting crew

 

They are always excited to play in the dirt. Haha!

 

I found a couple pairs of goggles at a thrift store and they have transformed bath time! Lucy absolutely loves wearing them and constantly has her face in the water. She is getting really good at holding her breath! She often has us count for her as she dunks her little head under the water. She can stay under for 15 seconds!

 

Bath time fun! :)

 

We have an almost nightly ritual of eating popsicles on the deck. On this evening Lucy found a little frog. She was so excited! I just love this picture!

Memorial Day Weekend

It is officially summer in the Northwoods! We love this time of year! I need to catch up on my blog posts of summer happenings.

 

We typically don't do anything super exciting for the Memorial Day holiday weekend - the weather is still a bit too unpredictable for camping. It can definitely still be chilly in May. We had a great weekend at home in Rhinelander! We spent time at Pioneer Park - playing and heading to the Museum complex.

 

 

The kids love swinging!

 

We headed over to the Museum complex - Lucy was delighted with the Hodag. :)

 

I tried to dress this kids in red, white, and blue in honor of the holiday!

 

Roman sported his American flag t-shirt and climbed aboard the train.

 

Roman is obsessed with trains these days so of course we needed to check out the model trains set up in the basement in the train depot.

 

After the trains, we walked over to the one room school house. Lucy enjoyed looking at the pictures of the students from the 1920s. She asked me to read all of their names and was thrilled to see one little girl named Lorraine! Just like her middle name. :)

For some reason, they had a sensory table with sand in the school house - Roman loved it but he had a hard time keeping the sand in the box....

 

My patriotic little sweethearts!

 

We spent the rest of the weekend doing our favorite summer activities! We broke out the sidewalk chalk for the first time this season.

 

The kids enjoyed some bubbles!

 

We also had some indoor time - Lucy and Roman always love playing dress up.

Yay for summer!