Today's Big News!

No more training wheels for Meredith!

Look at her go! And she's only 4 1/2 years old!

Happy Birthday Allie!

Today we celebrated Allie's 7th birthday by taking a trip up north to Minocqua. Our first stop was at the Wildwood Wildlife Park. This place has quite a variety of animals to see...bears, tigers, zebras, otters, llamas, peacocks, camels, lemurs, and bald eagles just to name a few. Lots of the animals are just wandering around the park, waiting for you to feed them a cracker.

This adorable little guy kept following Allie around.


She was brave enough to get close to this tortoise,


but Meredith wasn't so sure.


This bunny was a bit less scary.


And this cute little hedgehog was fun to touch.

After lunch, we headed further north to beautiful Crystal Lake. Today was the hottest day of the summer so far and it felt so good to take a swim in the clear, cool water.


Back in town, we found a couple of geocaches and then stopped to play some putt-putt golf.


We ended the day with an ice cream sundae, then forced two reluctant kids back in the van, and headed for home.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLIE!

P.S. Be sure to check in tomorrow for a BIG NEWS announcement!

Friday Night Fish Fry

The whole gang came over to our house on Friday night to enjoy a fish fry of crappies and walleyes and to celebrate Allie's 7th birthday.

Here's Grandpa, Aunt Elaine (who was visiting from Illinois), and Uncle Todd,

Jason (the cook) and Grandma Sharon,

me and Aunt Kendra,

and all the girls.


We celebrated Allie's birthday a few days early since we were all together.

I don't know how many times Jason lit the birthday candles so all the girls could have a chance to blow them out.


We had cake and ice cream and opened presents.

Allie got a Nintendo DS video game.

It was a big hit...

with all the girls!!