The Sister I Never Had

This is my cousin Coni.

Her Dad and my Dad are twin brothers.

This is Coni's Dad, my Uncle Don.

Like I always say, "if you can't have your own Dad around, there's no one better than his twin brother". They aren't identical twins, except when it comes to orneriness! Still, my kids love him! I think the feeling is mutual.

Coni lives about 45 minutes away from us, on a beautiful acreage between Marshfield and Spencer.

There is so much to do at her place.

I love Coni! She's like the big sister I never had!

How Many Grown Men...

...does it take to inflate a kiddie pool?

Three!!

Birthday Pedicures

As a special treat for Allie's birthday, we went to the State College of Beauty Culture (where Aunt Kendra goes to school) for pedicures. Grandma Ruth, Aunt Kendra, Cousin Liv, Meredith, Allie, and I all had our toenails painted!

Allie's 6th Birthday

Today is Allie's 6th birthday!

It's her cousin Amelia's birthday too.

They both had birthday cakes brought from Iowa by Grandma Ruth and made by Mary Jean, the same lady who made all of my birthday cakes when I was growing up. She has made all of Allie's and Meredith's birthday cakes too. Click here to see Meredith's Care Bear cake from her 3rd birthday.

I truly believe the only reason I would have a third child would be to get more of Mary Jean's birthday cake. Yes...it's THAT good!

My Day

Stoney Acres Farm

This year, we bought a membership to a CSA farm in our area. What's a CSA? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture and we think it's pretty cool. Click here to find out more!

As a member of the CSA, we were invited out to the farm for a pancake breakfast this morning.

Grandma Ruth came with us, along with our friend, Mr. R and his mom. We had pancakes with maple syrup, scrambled eggs, cheese, and rhubarb-ade. Mr. R's mom and I bravely sampled the raw milk too.

There were chickens...

...and cats...

...and hammocks.

Yet another beautiful Wisconsin morning!

Slip-n-Slide

Today is the first day that it has felt like summer so our friend and neighbor, Mr. R, invited the girls over for a little slip-n-slide fun!

Treasure Hunting on Father's Day

Today we went on a treasure hunt. It's actually called geocaching...someone hides a container, posts the GPS coordinates on the website, and you try to find it. Jason got a new GPS (Global Positioning System) so we decided to see how well it worked. We found a cache location near Marathon City. He plugged the coordinates into the GPS and off we went.

The neat thing about geocaching is that it usually leads you to a place that you never knew existed. We drove the seven miles to the edge of town and turned off onto an unmarked dirt road. We drove as far as we could in the van, then set off on foot.

"It says to go this way!"

We found some flowers and a toad along the way.

After a short hike, we found the treasure in the hollow knot of a big tree!

And now for the best part, seeing what's inside the box and picking something to take home. The rules are "Take something, Leave something". Allie picked a Hello Kitty toy and Meredith chose a kitty key chain. We left a toy top and a super ball.

What a great way to spend the day in the beautiful outdoors of Wisconsin!

Allie's Big News!

Allie lost two teeth last night!

They've been loose for a long time. In fact, the permanent teeth have been coming in behind them, which had me very concerned.

But after some long negotiations with Dad, "wiggle gently, don't yank", he was able to get them

both out.

The tooth fairy came in the middle of the night and left Allie 10 quarters for her two teeth.

Climbing the Apple Tree

Saturday Morning Bike Ride

I took the kids out on a bike ride this morning. We found a nice paved trail with a bridge that crosses the Wisconsin River. It was so fun. I can definitely see us doing more of this in the future.

Photos by Jenny

I have an awesome friend, Jenny, who is quickly becoming a top notch photographer. Her son was in Meredith's mom and tot class so one day she brought her camera to school and started snapping away. She recently sent these photos to me and I wanted to share them with you.

Saving Lives and Stampin' Out Disease

I was at work today so I decided to do a photo documentary about what I do when I'm playing laboratory scientist.

Here I am drawing blood from a poor unsuspecting soul. I try to avoid this part of my job at all costs.

Here is a common body fluid that I like to analyze. Thank God we didn't get any stool specimens today!

Sometimes it's not good enough to see the whole cup full...you need to look at it really closely. So I put it under a microscope and scrutinize it even more. Beware, you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their pee under a 40x microscope lens.

Has your doctor ever ordered a "sed rate" on you? This is what it looks like.

I get to play with big fancy laboratory instruments. This is the machine that does your CBC.

Here's our fearless leader, Nancy, playing with the big fancy machine that tells you that your LIPIDS are too high.

And this is Terri...she just makes working with blood, urine, and poop all the more fun.