Standing Strong

Thursday, June 14, 2012

WI Trip Day 2 & 3

Friday morning Jackson went over and played at Papa Mel and Grandma Sharon's house. I hung out at my house with my mom, and Katelyn helped me bake cookies for our fish fry later.

Brian and Jackson met us girls at A&W for lunch. I love, love, LOVE their root beer yogurt cones!

That evening we all went over to the Hartzler's for a fish fry. Mel cooked up a bunch of fish.

A certain little boy ate at least 5 pieces of fish! For dinner each night while we were in WI he asked for fish.

Uncle Brian was quite popular while we were visiting.

Brain and I took on our dads in a game of washers. We won game 1 but they fought they way back to win game 2!

All of the cousins swinging. Jackson calls Katelyn and Garrison his cousins too.

Had to get a few family pictures by all of Sharon's pretty flowers.

My love!

Saturday we were ready early to go to Bay Beach, an amusement park gear to younger children.

Tickets cost 25 cents and most of the rides only cost 1 or 2 tickets. We rode almost every ride that was there. It was a rather warm day in WI.

Having fun on the Tilt-a-whirl. I forgot how sick it makes me feel!

Out of all of the fun rides, Jackson said the train was his favorite!

Brian, Darcy, and I went on the roller coaster. This ride cost 4 tickets. It was a lot of fun and caught us by surprise at the end!

We made a pit stop by Sonic for Happy Hour in Green Bay before heading back. No Sonic in Fond du Lac:(

That evening Brian, Mel, and my dad went out fishing. They caught a decent amount of walleyes.

WI Trip Day 1

Thursday morning we played at the park with Grandma Elly and Katelyn. Garrison still had school!

Then, we decided to go out on the lake with Papa Mel. Best decision of the whole trip!

The weather was absolutely perfect! It was sunny, warm, and the lake was calm.

Katelyn and my mom came along for the ride too.

The boys fished while the girls soaked up the sun. Jackson helped Papa reel one in!

He loves fishing!

Like father like son! I wonder where Brian got the fishing genes from?!?:)

Brian caught a few nice walleyes.

Since the lake was so calm, we thought we should let Jackson try tubing. He couldn't get in the water fast enough. He was so excited!

He went on with Brian first. He kept saying, "Faster, Daddy, faster!" Mel even cut in and out of the waves. He rode for a long time!

Next up was me! So fun riding with my boy!

Mom was brave enough to let Katelyn go. This girl has no fear. She didn't hang on at all and flapped her arms with glee the whole time! I think that made her week!

3 generations of fishermen

Jackson and Katelyn went back to take naps and Brian and his dad kept fishing. They caught 10 or more walleyes.

That evening we had a bonfire. My parents have a giant backyard with a nice fire pit area. Jason, Traci, Leo, Lily, Kayla, Ian, Mel and Sharon came over.

We roasted marshmallow and ate smore's. The kids also played in the sandbox.

Beautiful and fun day/evening in Fond du Lac!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Home Sweet Home

I still call Wisconsin home when we travel there for vacation, even though I haven't lived there in 7 years. Then, on the way back to Houston I say the same thing "We are going home."

We flew "home" to Wisconsin last Wednesday afternoon.

The flight was on time and Jackson napped. Can't get much better than that!

My Top 10 of our time in WI:

10. Not freezing while we were there

9. Seeing my 1st grade teacher

8. Root beer yogurt cones

7. Hearing Brain sing at Church

6. Bonfire

5. Brian fishing

4. Dinner with friends

3. Jackson getting to play with his cousins

2. Lots of time with our families

1. Jackson and Katelyn tubing

I will blog more in detail about each of those later. Today was spent unpacking, doing laundry, and a trip to the library. Welcome home!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Tuesday night we headed downtown to watch the Astros play. Jackson was excited about it all day and even remembered there was a play area and a train at the stadium.

I have always liked going to baseball games. Growing up it was the Brewers and now it is the Astros, unfortunately neither of them are usually that good.

Last night there was plenty of entertainment. The Astros scored 4 runs in the first inning, hit a home run in the second inning which meant a free grand slam at Denny's, and hit the Chick-fil-a foul pole for a home run and free Chick-fil-a sandwiches! Two home runs also meant Jackson got to see the train move several times.

Jackson was most interested in the play area, train, broken bat, and SNACKS.

We left before the game was over, but the Astros did beat the Cardinals 9-8!

Another fun night with my boys in the book!

I LOVE summer vacation!

Monday, June 4, 2012

Stuart Little

Stuart Little 2 is one of Jackson's favorite movies. It is a really cute movie. When I read that our local community college was doing that for their summer play, I knew I had to take Jackson. He has never seen the first movie, but thought he would still enjoy seeing Stuart and George on stage.

I forgot to reserve seats online, so we went a little early to claim our tickets.

We met up with some friends at the theater. Jackson didn't want his face painted like a mouse. I even tried to bribe him with food!

Jackson exceeded my expectations of watching the play. The show was about 45 minutes and we had already waited at 30 minutes before the show. However, the play did not impress me. There were some cute/funny parts, but overall it seemed to be all over the place and hard to follow at times. Jackson said he liked it, but said "in my movie Stuart is white. Why was he brown here?"

His first theater experience for a drama.

After the show, we joined some friends for lunch and play at McDonald's.

Even thought the play wasn't the greatest, I am still glad we went. We had a fun morning experiencing something new together (and with friends)!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Schlitterbahn

On Thursday, I had to go to work for our last staff day. PTO provided us with lunch and at the end of lunch my principal did a drawing for 4 Schlitterbahn tickets. Yup, I won!

We decided to put them to good use right away and went yesterday. We left in time to be there when the water park opened and gave our extra ticket to the family behind us. I am so glad we decided to go. It was a perfect day in all senses of the word; the weather, the amount of people there, Jackson's behavior at the park, the enjoyment, really everything! We know that was all because of God!

All the pictures we took captured Jackson's love for water and the fun he had. I think he was smiling all day (except the one picture below)!

We started with the big tube rides, where we all could ride together. We rode these two many times, and I loved watching Jackson's reactions.

Then, we rode some blue slides you needed a tube for. Jackson mainly wanted to ride with Brian, but rode with me once to make me feel good.:) These slides were fast and a lot of fun!

The blue slides spit us out into the lazy river. Brian and I have been to many water parks together, especially when dating. It was fun being able to take Jackson and go on the slides with him too.

We rode it around several times yesterday.

We missed going into the rapids the first time around. You rode the conveyor belt up and then floated down the rapids.

Brian and Jackson almost over turned into the water a few times.

We rode the rapids (or the rabbits as Jackson called them) several times. Jackson said they were his favorite ride!

The height requirement was 42 inches for the majority of the rides. Jackson is 42 1/4 inches. He went down one slide all by himself. I was a little worried about him dropping into the water himself, but he came up and doggy paddled like a champ.

There were many different little play areas for the children. At the beginning of the day Jackson had no interest in them. But, by the end of the day this is were we spent our time.

We never made it to the area that contained the indoor play area that we played on for his birthday. The outdoor season is definitely better!

Enjoying the day together on one of our 50 trips around the lazy river. Brian dropped the camera on one of those times, and I quickly dove under to save it.