Mallards, Petenwell, and Alex, OH MY!

I've tried updated this blog from my laptop about 50 times now, no joke. It is like a bad case of the movie Groundhogs Day. Usda. Well I've gotten this far, we'll see how far we get! July was filled as I'm sure you can imagine. Heather, who had been watching the kids, started looking ahead at the beginning of summer. She realized that come fall, she would need to find something different, since the kids would both be in school full time. She put her feelers out and found something right away. So we decided to make it through the summer between sitters. Between Kelly, Hannah, my mom, Dan's mom, and us parents, we have had quite the schedule from one day until the next!

We haven't been playing volleyball this summer, instead we've been going fishing, and just spending time just the two of us most Wednesdays. Jenny Hendricks has still been coming over on Wed. nights to watch the kiddels.

In late July, Alex came for a visit. His first "Lone Visit!" Tuesday night we went to the Mallards game in Madison (A BLAST, by the way). Alex chose to sit in the furthest front seats we could and after I left to go get some drinks, I came back and here everyone had drinks already. We had our own staff person, catering to our every whim and need! After the game, Dan got each of the kids a ball and they had the team sign. At the very end, there was a really fine young man who must have a soft spot for kids whose mom's embarrass them by making them take pictures with baseball players!!

Whew. What a nice boy! The next morning, we headed out for Lake Petenwell. A place that we wanted to get a permenant camping sight earlier in the year, but Uncle Sam did not allow it.

We had a great time, but only ended up staying one night. The lake was absolutely disgusting. It had layers of algae, bright green, that looked like it was toxic. We thought maybe we could boat to a better place on the lake, but no such luck. Despite that, we did have a fun time, and it was Alexs' first time truly camping.

Pudgy pies, cooking over the campfire, and 4 minute showers! Ahhh, nature at it's best. Well...other than the smell of dead fish and toxic lake!

I've edited this about 10 times now again, so I'm going to put my patience at rest by adding one other memorable event about our trip camping...

LOOK MOM! NO TRAINING WHEELS!!

(and that's the third try for that, so that's all for now!!)

June in August?!?

Not exactly in chronological order, but oh well. Above, Mal and Christian are on the carousel at the Town & Country Days in Lake Mills, it was the first year in many that Alex wasn't here with us. We all missed the Sheffermans, wasn't quite the same without them.

We were able to take some weeknights and Sunday nights to go for boat rides on Rock Lake. Christian has been posing with his imaginery friend. We don't really know his/her name, just usually shows up at camera time!
And then there's Mallory who had this habit of biting the skin around her fingers when she was nervous, anxious, or just bored.

On top of all of this, both of the kids attended summer school (well, Christian missed quite a bit, but he went when he could). Mallory took some fun classes and is still talking about dance class with Mrs. Stilling. She sure loves dancing.

One of many gorgeous sunsets on Rock Lake this summer.
We found out, as you may read on a "later" update that we are so blessed to live on such a clean lake. I've got some photos on our laptop that go next from July, so I'll leave that
for another day (soon, I hope).

What is one to say about June, the time of
perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and
with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever
fade. ~Gertrude Jekyll

Surprise!! An update!

It's as though I've got an audience to perform for here today!! It's as though there are people just waiting to see what is new in our lives over the past two months and I'm just not even sure how to start!! I guess I'll pick up where I left off and go from there-we'll see how far I get!

It's not what you think! On the left is Christian's mouth. The thing hanging down is that little "punching bag thing" in the back of our throats and to the right is one of his huge tonsils. The photo on the right is him mustering up a smile for me post-surgery. It was a tough day, but I have to say he was a trooper.

They had to wrap his entire arm so that he didn't know there was an iv in it.

After the surgery, Dr. Lindstrom told me that he did great and that his adenoids that they took out were quite large also. I waited a bit longer, then they called me back. He was a hurting unit when I first saw him, before the pain medication set in. The nurses had me get right onto bed with him and that was comforting for both of us. The hospital was the easy part. I would highly recommend Oconomowoc Hospital to anyone. They were wonderful from beginning to end, then sent a Thank You card to Christian with signatures from each of the nurses, with little notes from some of them.

Once we got home, he HATED his liquid Tylenol with Codeine and was quite a bear. Finally after not eating much, getting up every 4 hours and massive arguments over taking the yucky medicine, and losing some weight, (6 days), but fortunately no bleeding or any complications, we were able to give him Motrin. Much better...but it still took much longer than I had planned for him to get better. THEN...after getting pretty much everything he wanted for two weeks, we had to start all over teaching our strong-willed Christian exactly who was the parent and that the patient-phase was behind us! Not fun. So that's the much awaited surgery which happened on June 26, 2007 (it is still 2007, isn't it?).

Ahhhh...summer vacation

I am just here at the shop. It is 1:25 am and I am waiting for my software to "upgrade." Otherwise, there is absolutely, positively no way I would be updating this right now. It is one of those times in life when you are in too deep, buried beneath all of the wreckage of life and you know there's no getting out any time soon. As much as you'd like to hop on the next train to Clarksville, it just ain't happenin'. (Because when you get back, your work piles have doubled, and your dirty laundry is still dirty-and stinkier.) So if you haven't heard from us lately, or have called, e-mailed, or sent a carrier pigeon, just know that we are thinking of everyone in our lives right now in our prayers. We are doing well, all things considered, and we will be in touch in a moon or so. Christian has his tonsils removed next Tuesday (don't tell him, we aren't going to until a day or so before-not something to look forward to). Prayers would be great! Especially about keeping him down for almost a week. TV "OD" here we come! Hope all are doing well.

Lots goin' on, not much time!

Hey Jude! That is Christian and his buddy, Jude, from preschool at St. Paul's. They are two peas in a pod and I believe they give their teachers a run for their money...and patience! The photo was taken at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison a few weeks ago.

Here's where the Topel family is at:

Two weekends ago, we hung out, cleaned the garage, and had "Kiki" over to our house. Kiki is an 8 month old who is being taken care of by her Foster parents, who are also our customers and friends. We had a great time with her. She is such a wonderful spirited baby and took a long nap, then crawled around, played, we went on a short walk, and she wasn't trying, but made Brady jealous since he wasn't the baby in the house! I think he was glad to see her go, but we were not!

Dan and I have been working quite a bit during the week, so when the weekends come, I hit the door running!

Last weekend, we went to the library and out for lunch with my mom on Saturday, then went over to the Selck's house for a yummy supper. Man, Kathy can cook a mean prime roast and garlic butter potatoes!! It was a great incentive to get moving this week on some walks!! We had so much fun playing with Ethan, and once again, I got my baby fix-snuggling Barrett! We also got to catch up with our friends, Jason and Stacey Forest, so that was good, too. The time was too short!

On to Mother's Day! We went out to the Sand Bar for brunch and YUMMY YUMMY, more food in my tummy! We saw Jason and Stacey, again! My mom, my Grandma Vitense, Cliff, Vi, and our family all were together. How wonderful. After that, we changed our clothes and headed over to Topel's. Vi said not to get her anything, but she wanted Dan's time. So we cleaned up some of their yard and got a nice big spot for the Topel Family Garden! We are so excited!! Everyone pitched in and you know they say many hands make light work!

Dan is off this week to help our friend, Tim Pulford move some things from his place in New Richmond, WI up to his mom's in northern MN. Tim is going to be making a major career change, as he was an engineer and is going to Florida to learn how to be a pilot! We will be heading down to move the rest of his things on May 29th, the whole fam damily! He has a condo on the Oceanfront near Daytona Beach. Man is that the life! As for this trip, Dan will be taking a few days to partake in his new found obsession: fly-fishing! Believe it or not, things are actually pretty quite here and I'm not going crazy...YET! Shelli is helping with that, I know!

Mallory's dance recital is on Sunday, so that makes her rehearsal on Saturday. This is Mallory's 5th year in dance at the Main Street Dance Studio in Fort Atkinson. The recital is at the Irving Young auditorium in Whitewater at 2 on Sunday. She surprised me this year on Mother's Day with her dance which is going to be the Nutcracker. She is a soldier! Which is ironic because we have been growing her hair long so it could be extra pretty for the recital...she is wearing it in a low ponytail (he, he, he!)

Next week: Christian's last day of school on Wednesday with a program on Wednesday night at 6:30 at school. Mallory's last day of school is on Friday which is actually the day of the school olympics. Every year the classes divide into different colors, participate in events around the outside of school, then at the end, they have an all school relay race-every team has a few from each grade!!! It is always a blast!

The kids are doing very well. Mallory is feeling the stress of the end of year activities and the nice weather. She has taken a special liking to her scooter and was riding her bike until the training wheels fell off...if we just had some TIME, I'm sure she doesn't really need them anyway!! Christian has been sweeter than ever and it just takes a few extra patience and some reasoning power and he puts his brain into good use by making good choices! Still not usually a few days in-between bumps and bruises! Boys will be boys!

Two posts in one month...AMAZING!

Okay, so I still have some catching up to do!

Here's what the Topel Family was up to this past March:

The Sporting Show in Milwaukee. I was still recouperating, but REALLY needed to get out, so we packed up and headed to the sporting show. The "kids" caught some trout in the trout fishing pond and we checked out all kinds of places to visit in our "spare" time this summer! The fish had a cool ride home under the hood of the Jeep!

Had some warming up to do in March! We loooove our hot cocoa!

Sharing is caring, right guys?!?

SPRING BREAK:

Some people go to the tropics, we go up north. It is hard to tell, but at the top of this photo is where the water turns to an ice chunk!

We went up to Wood County (about an hour and 3/4 up north) and delivered a vehicle to Nekoosa. Lucky for us and for them, we were planning on going up anyway to visit a possible permanent campsite. It was a relaxing day, just the four of us.

Christian played in the water and got VERY sandy, while Mallory...just hung out!!

There were some beautiful camping sites and we were all gung ho until Uncle Sam came around and I don't know how...after all these years, we had to PAY money in. And did you know, by the way...that if you underpay, that they expect you to make "estimated" tax payments on top of what you already have to pay-quarterly. UNBELIEVABLE...I'm starting to understand all of those rantings about taxes and the government that my grandpa used to do.

Back onto family business...sounds like we'll have to stick around Lake Mills this summer and enjoy what we've been given in our own hometown!

And onto Easter...

Heather Bachmann came over and spent the night on Friday before Easter. The girls had a great day playing, then we colored eggs at night. It was one of the best egg-colorings yet! Easter was a very special one! We had a jumpstart for a U-Haul in Madison and went on another family outing. I know it sounds like a real bummer, but we had a very relaxing morning, including breakfast at Burger King while the kids played in the play area. Our travels took us onward to the Johnson Creek Outlet Mall to unlock a damsel in distress at Tommy Hilfiger. Thennn, back home for a delicious dinner with my dad and Dan's parents. It was a great weekend, but I was glad the kids had Monday off from school!

I think...I'm almost caught up, as far as photos go. So much in between, never enough time, we'll TRY to stay current (stop laughing!!)

Lots of catching up to do!

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like
dirt. ~Margaret Atwood

Christian has decided for some crazy reason that he likes to wash dishes. Which is a great thing considering our dishwasher sounded like a garbage disposal and we were unable to use it for weeks. For some reason, though his interest in washing peaked just before it broke. Gotta love those dishpan hands!

A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the
same time. ~Anne Taylor Fleming

Our friend Kyle Lehr got married this past weekend. Dan was the best man. It was a weekend full of fun and excitement. Kyle and Cara went to Chicago and I hope they are having a great time. Thanks to Hannah once again for being our saving grace! Hannah even made a new friend while she was there!!! Shelli also stood up in the wedding and we had a chance to see lots of our friends there as well. Our best wishes to Kyle and Cara!

We had a great time with everyone and Sunday came all too quickly!

While there's so much more to report, my six o'clock whistle is going to go off, so I must return home!