The final stage of our epic vacation was spending time with my family in Wisconsin. We arrived in time for a family barbecue at John and Beth's house (my brother and sis-in-law) with their family, my parents, and my uncle Al and aunt Iola, who had driven in from New Glarus. The little ones splashed and played in the pool and with the yard toys while Ted and I enjoyed resting (I think Ted was actually dozing!) and visiting.
Since it's been so long since I was doing our day-by-day journal of our vacation adventures, I have to confess that some things have now become blurred in my memory! A few of the highlights were as follows:
- A family photography session with my high school friend Ryan Bensheimer, who does AMAZING work! If you'd like to see the shots he got, check them out here!
- Ted's and my date night to the Prime Quarter Steak House, a place we had gone out to during our engagement. YUM! We also went to Best Buy and purchased a new camera! Woohoo! We had purchased our previous family camera at the time Kenna was born...AND it had gotten wet while we were in Colorado...so it was high time for a new one! We are now taking a lot more pictures, heh!
- While I enjoyed some time visiting with Mom, Beth, and Aunt Iola, Ted took all the kids (except Zaden) swimming in a little pond area. They had a ball and even caught some fish in their ziplock bags from lunch!
- We took our 4 older kids and went to see the new Pixar movie, Brave, with John and Beth. GREAT movie, but Kenna was scared out of her wits!! We should have remembered that she's a bit more sensitive to things that can seem scary to little ones, and the extremely LOUD speakers in the theater didn't help. Nevertheless...the story line was a great one, as usual. One of the themes I took away was how pointless (even dangerous) it can be to wish someone ELSE would change; instead, we need to be humble enough to look at what WE need to change in our own lives. Relationships are worth the time and energy it takes to communicate honestly and lovingly. Bravo, Pixar!
- We did some puttering around downtown Delavan, particularly in one of our favorite stores, Bibliomaniacs. Found some great books to add to our collection...as if we need more, LOL.
- My dad, John, and Ted took Tobin and Arden out to do some shooting. The boys had never done any kind of target practice that didn't involve a video game console, so as you can imagine, it was quite an experience for them, and they both proved to be pretty good little sharpshooters! I think the "big boys" had as much fun as the younger ones!
- Dad and John also took the older 4 kids out fishing. Kenna was delighted to be the first one to catch a fish--this was her first experience fishing! The older 3 had been out with Dad and John when we were in Wisconsin two years ago. Everyone caught multiple fish, and they even got some big enough to bring home and fry up for breakfast the next morning!
All in all, we had a wonderful time with family! Some pictures are below; you can see a LOT more in the Facebook album, thanks to our fun new camera, ha!
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