Our Milwaukee County Zoo Trip

Last Tuesday Tom had a Solar Class at WE Energies in Milwaukee. It was a gorgeous day in the 70'sF so I decided that would be an excellent time to take the boys to the Milwaukee County Zoo and have some good bonding time with them before the baby arrives.
Can you believe we have 4 more weeks to go???? Jeesh I got a a lot to get ready!
Zoos can be a really difficult place for an eco-friendly family, that's for sure. It's a difficult moral dilemma...are the animals well taken care of? Are they better off in the zoo than in the wild? Well the wild is the best place for them, but a lot of them are not safe from poachers and human activities. The zoo does spend a lot of money on conservation and education, so that does help ease my guilty conscience. The Milwaukee County Zoo is one of the few zoos in the United States to have Bonobos...a relative of the Chimpanzee. There were 3 Bonobos that we saw, but they were so very active and having a grand time just goofing off it was really hard to get a good picture of them. Here is the only picture I got:

There were 2 gorillas that we saw. This one was very sleepy, probably bored out of his gord. We did make eye contact with him, and the kids and I signed "I love you" and when we did he would close his eyes and kind of smile back, like he knew what we were saying...probably just our imagination, but it felt good.

The cheetahs were outside, but the Lions were in their winter enclosure. I really liked the indoor enclosure for the Big Cats. They were behind a thick wall of glass, but they were so close!

Most of them were sleeping. There is a sleeping Tiger behind Reeve and Kyle in this next picture:

Here is a sleeping Leopard:

Most of the time I was way behind Reeve and Kyle. They just were so excited, and the weather was so beautiful, that they just couldn't walk slow for their pregnant Mom.

I was relieved to sit on this cramped little safari train for 20 minutes. (Reeve took the picture...don't I look exhausted?)

Reeve LOVED the train, but we really didn't get to see the animals very much. The train at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL was better...actually so was the train at the Indianapolis Zoo. I didn't care I just was glad to sit down!

Kyle was pretty pleased with the train too:

Look how small this train is...we felt bad for the train conductor, he looked really cramped. Reeve and Kyle had to help me in and out!

Reeve felt bad for the polar bear...thought it was way too hot for him, and wondered why he wasn't swimming.

The Grizzly decided it was a perfect day for a swim:

It's always neat to see free roaming animals at the zoo. However, this goose was not kind! I didn't get the picture, but he started to attack a little 2yr old girl...she was traumatized!

The peacocks and peahens were friendlier and more interested in each other.

I forgot to mention we went to the zoo on St. Patrick's Day...that's why the boys are decked out in their Green Bay Packer t-shirts & sweatshirts...actually most of the folks wearing green at the zoo were wearing Packer paraphernalia.
The Giraffes were looking tall and beautiful:

Here are the pregnant pics...Reeve took this one:

Kyle took this pregnant picture of me by the giraffes:

A woman saw Kyle taking the picture and offered to take a picture of the three of us:

Anyone who has ever spent any time around Kyle knows that he is obsessed with Zebras. The two things he really wanted to see at the zoo were the vampire bats (too dark and scary to take a picture of them...man were they FREAKY!) and the Zebras.

The elephants were LOVING being outside...we had to stand back because they were really flinging the mud around!


We got a kick out of seeing some solar panels at the zoo, since that's what really brought us there in the first place. This was a tracking panel.

Tom had a great time in his class, and says he learned a lot.

Clean Work Van & New Cross-Stitch

Well the temps this past weekend were beautiful...feels more like May lately than March. I've been wanting to take a pic of the work van since we got the lettering put on it, but it's been super dirty.

Tom and the boys fixed that. Reeve and Kyle LOVE to wash cars, and they could hardly wait to clean up the work van.

I stayed at a distance...Reeve can be a overly ambitious with the hose. They hadn't even started to wash the van and Kyle was soaking wet. Reeve said it was an accident and Kyle was laughing so hard I don't think he cared.

We're all pleased with the way the lettering turned out.


I finished as much as I could with my other gift cross-stitch, and I got started on the one for the baby. It's a design that I embellished from a cross-stitch that my friend Dana made for our wedding. I made one a couple of years ago, but I took lousy notes on how I did it. It took me a little bit, but I worked it out and hopefully wrote better notes this time. Picking the colors was difficult. I'm just not into the typical baby pastel colors, and I wanted to use colors that I had in plenty...to use them up.
The wedding design had flowers where my hearts are.

I chose 4 colors, so we'll see how it turns out.

On Tuesday Tom had a class in Milwaukee and we all got up at 4am to drive down there with him. We dropped Tom off at his class and the kids and I went to the zoo. I'm still organizing those pics, but I'll try to post them soon. It was a work out walking around that zoo!
Yesterday I finally got out in the garden and planted a 4 10' rows: 1 spinach, 1 Black-Seeded Simpson Lettuce, 1 red/green lettuce mix, and one salad bowl lettuce mix. The day before I started on hoeing the rows for my sweet peas, but that has a bit more work to do. Reeve loves hard work, but after about 20 minutes of hoeing kind of muddy grass he gave up. I worked at it for about an hour after that. I have 3 12-14' rows of sweet peas planned, so hopefully I can get them in the ground soon...I'm a little late, but oh well! I also have seeds to start indoors (cabbage, broccoli, etc...). At any rate the spinach should be ready to eat a couple of days after the baby arrives...can't believe we have LESS THAN 5 MORE WEEKS!

The Kindness of Friends & March Mud

Tim, a good friend of Tommy's (see link to the right..."Best A/C Company in Florida") gave the boys these really cool wooden walkers.

They played on these for hours the other day. Reeve said it was so hot outside he was sweating...it was in the low 50's! Both kids said it was way too hot for shoes with socks, so these wooden flip-flops worked out perfectly.

They had to practice working together to get some coordination, and they had a ton of fun doing it.

Well pretty much all of the snow has melted...leaving us with March Mud! Kyle must have changed clothes 3 times this day. He just loves the mud.

We need some SUN...look at Reeve's white legs...they're blinding!

Friday the 13th Hoax?

I checked the weather forecast on Friday and got a pretty good laugh.

New Hustler B&B, Dynamic Dishwashing Duo, & 34wks

What's Tom's latest project??? He's helping to remodel the Fountain Mission Home in Hustler, WI.

The church could no longer afford to run this as an Assisted Living home (my Grandmother lived there for a little while).

The new owners want to operate it as an Eco-friendly Bed & Breakfast...in Hustler! You must understand Hustler has 2 Churches, 2 Taverns, a bowling alley called the Hooterbowl (that was the Elementary School, years and years ago), a cheese factory that closed and is being turned into a museum, one bank with one teller that closes at 3pm!, a convience store, the Hustle Stop, that SOMETIMES sells gasoline...when they can afford to buy it, and about 157 (MAX) residents. It sounds like it has a lot, but believe me it is SMALL! Gary Gladstone, who wrote a book called "Passing Gas and Other Small Towns along the American Highway" wrote a bit about Hustler...basically he said it was so small that driving through it "made his hair hurt." I think he did come back and posed with one of the Happy Homemakers Gals who was holding two bright orange bowling balls at chest level in front of the Hooterbowl.
At any rate it's pretty exciting to think that our little one horse town (as my late cousin Dee Dee (from Chicagoland) affectionately called it when visiting my Grandma Corky at the Mission Home) will have an eco-friendly B&B. The new owners want to cater to bicyclists...as it's right on the Omaha Bike Trail that connects Camp Douglas, WI to Elroy, WI and in Elroy you can get on the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail...the first Rails to Trails bike Trail in the Country. Sparta, WI is the Biking Capital of the United States. The other exciting thing about this B&B is that one of the owners is Grammy Nominated "Simply J.P.", aka JP Olson (married to the Town Chair of the Town of Fountain...our little Township with 367 registered voters...the same little Township that I'm running for Town Supervisor in the April 7th election this year!). We just met JP at our neighbor's birthday party and she is a lovely person. I talked a good long time with her about organic foods, and where to buy them around here. She ran a restaurant in Memphis, TN and really wants to serve healthy food at there B&B...she even mentioned VEGAN dishes!

Our other exciting news is that we have a new DISHWASHER...AKA the DYNAMIC DISHWASHING DUO, starring Reeve & Kyle!!

They BEGGED me to do the dishes the other night. Believe it or not, I was hesitant at first. I had visions of the boys sopping wet, sponge throwing contests, and a water-soaked kitchen. I think my reluctance actually did the trick, because when I finally said YES they were sooooo excited. I told Reeve that I'm very picky when it comes to dishes. I can't stand it when people do a half-arsed job and leave food or soap scum on the plates.

He really took my warning to heart, and really took his time to make sure the dishes were totally spotless. It's nice to know that I can count on these two to help me out in about 6 MORE WEEKS!

Reeve scrubbed the dishes, and Kyle rinsed them, and Tommy put them away. I didn't have to do a thing, but smile, smile, smile.

Here's a really bad picture of me that Kyle took. These overalls are really the only comfortable thing I have to wear around the house. My belly is so big that I can't even do the side buttons up!

Bathroom Renovation Project

Our bathroom has been bugging me for years now. The flat paint we had on the wall was impossible to clean, and the walls were severely "loved" by two growing boys. Both are guilty of marking the walls. Here is an "R" that Reeve put on there...actually not too long ago.

The Christmas snowflake stamp that Kyle put on in December didn't really show up well...it's kind of hard to take a good pic of a wall, but you get the idea. In January we bought some no-VOC paint, and in February we put the first coat on.

Kyle's face has spaghetti sauce stained on it:

Reeve had fun with the roller:

It looks wonderful, and we still have another coat to go.

I also wanted tile floors in the bathroom (and the rest of the house, but we gotta start somewhere) and this weekend my hero set up "Brutus" and went to town cutting tiles.

By Sunday at midnight it was all complete...it still needs to be grouted, but isn't it beautiful?


Prego update: All is good, baby moves, moves, moves. My midwife listened to the heartbeat last week and she really thinks it sounds like a girl. She was taken back by how much the baby moved during the visit, which was mild. I told her at home I feel like there must be some wild child in there doing the jig. I've been craving capers lately. The other day I actually ate a whole jar! Kyle was bummed because recently he's discovered that he LOVES "kippers." We've told them they're called capers, but he likes to call them "kippers." Okay I've just made myself really hungry!

Snowboarding Reeve, Sledding Kyle, & Laura's now 29wks

Thanks to our neighbor tending our fields for his organic dairy cows we actually have some okay downhill slopes.

They're not steep by any means, but good practice grounds for Reeve, and pretty fun run on the sled.

The thing about the sled ride is you have to bail out right at the end...otherwise you will go over the cliff and into the very steep valley.



All in all good fun. Just wish it was a little warmer for them to enjoy it. Well...not too warm. We're actually going to be 36F today and in the 40'sF tomorrow! All that and we still had a -10F windchill this morning.

Don't ya just love those rosy cheeks?

Well here it is...my pregnant belly pic.

Kyle really gets a kick out of feeling the baby kick. We have a fiesty little one inside me. Everytime it's Kyle's hand on my belly I swear the baby kicks (or punches) twice as hard as normal. We now have less than 11 weeks to delivery day! YIKES!!!

We're still here

Well this winter hasn't been as fun as last winter. We did have a lot of snow in December (the most on record), but hardly any in January. It's just funner when it snows...it's also warmer. It's been bitterly cold, temps 15 to 40 below with (and sometimes without) windchill are a regular thing now in the morning. If we want to go anywhere first thing in the morning we have to make sure to plug the battery charger on the car just to make sure it starts.
The house has been nice and warm though...well, I should say 1/4 of it is nice and warm. Also it's supposed to be a balmy 31F here tomorrow...can't wait.
We have our first spring flowers: Paper White Narcissus

They have an intoxicating beautiful smell that has been cheering us all up. The days are also getting longer, so that's a good thing. Now it gets dark just before 6pm...much better than 4pm.

I finished my Four Seasons Chairs Cross-Stitch...this project was started in May 2006 at my folks house in Indiana when they hosted an Indy 500 Race event with a house full of family & friends. I remember parts of that weekend well...it was actually the worst I have ever felt in my life...self-induced with way way way too much tequilla on top of beer, rum & coke, and then red wine...WHAT was I thinking?

The sad story about the 2.5 year cross-stitch project is that when I was ironing it, to smooth out the wrinkles I did not put anything between the cross-stitch and my iron. I had ironed it many times with no problems, but this time Tom suggested I use steam...I'm not very experienced with ironing and actually didn't even realize that I wasn't use steam in the past. Well I BURNT SUMMER!!! I was crying and so upset with myself, but there was nothing I could do. I learned that lesson. I framed it up and shipped it out to my folks...a very late Christmas present...I actually thought I'd have it finished for Christmas 2006...where does the time go?

I'm now working on a smaller project, but no pics for awhile. It's almost done, but it's a present...top secret. After I give it away I'll post a pic. After I get that one done I'm actually going to stitch something for us...something I've NEVER done. Every single thing I've stitched in the past I've given away. I want to make a Birth Anouncement for our baby. I made the design myself, borrowing heavily from a design that my friend Dana stitched for us for our wedding.

When do I find to stitch you ask? I set my alarm to go off at 5am and I can usually get in an hour or so in the morning. Then I can fit 30min to an hour in in the evening when I need to get off my feet and rest my aching back. It only hurts at night...especially after doing the dishes, which I thought would convince Tom to do the dishes, BUT that didn't work and the dishes didn't get done...it was kind of like Shel Silverstein's Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out. I couldn't stand it! In his defense I think Tom has a wonderfully unique perspective and attitude toward life where mess and clutter just don't bother him. He's very much an absent minded professor type. Tom has been WONDERFUL about cleaning the litter box and putting dinner away at night, and I do get a back massage when I whine about it.

You know how we got a snow plow, so we wouldn't have to shovel anymore? Well Tom thought he'd really push the limits of the 4x4 Geo Tracker and decided that he was going to use it to plow a path to the front door...there is a slight downhill incline from the driveway to the front door and...

he got STUCK! In the grass. Another lesson learned...sometimes you just need to use the shovel.

We do have some cute pictures of Reeve snowboarding in our field, but they're on Tom's camera and he keeps leaving it in his vehicle. When I think to get it I'm too chicken to go out in the cold to get it, or he's gone working...like now.

Monday I visit the midwife. I'm now in my 3rd Trimester and still feeling great. The first 9weeks were miserable, but ever since I got over that hump I've been feeling great. We have a very active baby...much more movement than I ever remember with Reeve or Kyle. The baby is also pretty good at keeping a beat. The other night he/she had a pretty good rhythm going on with either a foot or a hand...I can never tell what's what. Soon I'll get Tom to take a picture of the baby belly. Ah, the baby belly, yet another reason to stay inside where it's warm. I just can't find any thermals that are comfortable.