Thomas is 3, Sophia is 21 1/2 months - WI!

Picking apples off Mom and Dad's apple tree

We had 10 days in Wisconsin! It was heavenly. Mom and Dad made us three delicious meals a day, and Thomas and Sophia couldn't get enough of outside. They played with the old wagon, pushed the wheelbarrow, ate things out of the garden, walked in the "secret path" hidden by bushes, visited the neighbor's miniature horses, and every day, every few hours, picked and ate apples off the tree. It seems as though every picture we have of Sophia outside, she is holding a half-eaten apple! Of course we visited our favorite places like Legacy Chocolate, the farmer's market, Acoustic Café, Old Country Buffet, and we even went to a couple of parks this time that I seem to remember from my childhood. The slides are a lot more scary as an adult, somehow, so high and ... no platform, just perched up there with everywhere to fall! 

Chase-chase with Dominic

We had a night out at Michelle's house, where Thomas and Dominic got along very well (after Thomas ignored Dominic for a couple of hours to play with all his toys, poor Dominic trying to interest Thomas in activities without success), and Michelle made the most delicious lobster macaroni and cheese, and apple pie, made with apples from Mom and Dad's tree. Sophia was a big fan of the lobster mac and cheese too. No sooner would I scoop some for myself then Sophia would start eating it off my plate with lots of humming! 

Our old wagon

One night, Mom and Dad treated us to a night at a B&B and babysat the kids for our anniversary! Nine years now already! I couldn't stomach going anywhere with people, or noise, or city, so we chose a place on the Red Cedar Trail in Menomonie. It was so quiet and peaceful, and they gave us a beautiful, delicious breakfast and Legacy Chocolates on our pillow at night. I think I spent the whole time just listening to the quiet. It's quite a different quiet, somehow, from the kind of quiet in our house in Orlando, even at midnight. So peaceful and healing. It was fantastic. 

Loooooooves those apples!

Then another morning we went to an indoor waterpark in Eau Claire, but even though it was so warm outside, the water inside was freezing! Apparently there had been a problem with one of the furnaces used to heat the water the night before. The cold water was a shock for us Floridians, used to a swimming pool as warm as a bath! Because of this, the kids couldn't take full advantage of the kiddie section, but we floated down the lazy river in floating tubes several times (the water was much warmer, due to being heated separately by a different furnace) and Matthew and I got to go down a couple of the adult slides -- lots of fun! I made Matthew go first to test how scary they were. I ended up going down 4 or 5 times, I think, just to make sure I got my money's worth! On the way back home, Baba and Thomas sat in the backseat and had a pretend snowball fight and rolled up pretend snowmen. What a wonderful picture that was! I couldn't stop smiling at their fun. 

The sweet taste of success(ful apple picking)

Dad and Matthew spent a lot of time trying to get the digital TV antenna up and running, but it was quite the battle, and in the end, I think they decided that they needed a more powerful antenna since they're just too far away from the transmission source, and in a valley. But now they have a little bit of TV, instead of no TV!