Next up for my blog is our Wisconsin leg of the trip, but first I must say that yesterday's blogs had a lot of errors! For the record, they did not sell my grandmother -- they sold her condo LOL My Uncle told me I wrote that wrong and I did. But the reason it was such poor writing is because I have not been feeling well. I had been coughing for a few days and just feeling icky. Headache and tiredness. I just thought that I would overcome it and most of it was from traveling and just being exhausted while pregnant. I kept putting off the inevitable -- getting checked out. But today, I decided it was time. I ran over to the hospital on base as they have an urgent care in their ER. Apparently, I have pneumonia in my lower lobe of my right lung. They sent me home with some meds and the prescription to rest. So there is that -- please excuse typos :) And if you see something really silly or outlandish, send me a message and I will try to correct it! I just feel like I am in a fog!
First up -- our trip on the SS Badger. We weren't planning on taking this trip, but when we learned that grandma's condo was being sold, we decided that we should take this old ship across the lake because we may not have the opportunity in the future. So the Badger is what we did. We even opted for a stateroom for $49 for the trip. Kurt explained it as "a room with two gurneys and a toilet" and that is basically what it was. But it was necessary, I had not slept that well the night before. I was able to grab a 45 minute nap on the cruise. There was a kids room and such but I feel like this trip would have been more enjoyable without children because we could have relaxed more, but the kids enjoyed it immensely!
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| We had to get sweatshirts for the kids because it was quite chilly on the water! |
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| Welcome to Wisconsin! |
The rest of these photos may not be in chronological order as last week is a bit hazy as to what days we did what but I will keep stuff grouped together the best I can!
We went to the small Manitowoc Zoo and spent a little time there while we were waiting for Aunt Kathy to get to Manitowoc from work!
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| There were some cute wing spans of different birds and we decided to find one for each of our arm spans and amazingly enough, there was one for each of us! Even a little bird for Piper! |
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| Remember this photo later -- they were checking out a snow leopard. |
After the park, Aunt Kathy met us at Beersten's Confections to get our
chocolate fix. They make their own chocolates and candies and also have
a little deli type menu and soda fountain where you can have some
floats made! Then we went to lunch and rode in Kathy's mustang
convertible back to grandma and grandpas!
Next up, photos from the cheese factory. We always order cheese from
this factory and Kurt even ordered it to be sent to the Middle East when
he was deployed. So if you want some yummy cheese sent to you,
Hennings Cheese
can hook you up! We love going there to see cheese being made and to
eat fresh warm squeaky cheese curds!!! We have also taken the tour and
Kurt has known everyone that works in there since he was a child! It is
a wonderful business and the cheese is better than any cheese you have
ever had!
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| Weston has to be a cheese-head every time we go to hennings! |
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| On this day they were making white cheese curds and their delectable string cheese. |
There is this little place called the Whispering Orchards that we always have to go to when we visit Wisconsin. Call it a tradition. This place has the best breakfast and they use all natural, local foods (like local eggs, fruits, homebaked bread). It is one of my favorite stops on the itinerary!!
Naturally, when you think of Wisconsin, you have to visit a cheese factory, but more importantly, you have to check out the dairy farms that supply the milk to the factory. Luckily, Kurt's cousin has a very large dairy farm so we got to go on a tour. He has expanded in the recent years adding a new barn, parlor (they can milk 50 cows in 10 minutes!) and some other interesting projects such as a water purifier and a machine that converts the heat energy from cooling the milk to heat water to clean out the parlor parts. Its a pretty amazing -- check them out!
Robinway Dairy
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| The kids love checking out the baby cows and having them lick their hands. |
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| This is the milking parlor where the cows are hooked up to the machines to pump their milk. I felt oddly at home in this area-- afterall, people call me a cow when I am pumping breastmilk. I usually get somewhere around 85-90 ounces a day-- if I really push it, I can get 100 ounces every now and then. This worker was able to hook up the cows so fast -- I wish I was that efficient at pumping. And the parlor was so clean considering it has cows that use the bathroom where they please |
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| Moo! |
Weston loves baseball games -- he plays every day in the yard (Actually the kids and Kurt are outside playing yet another baseball game in the yard). So naturally we had to go to Miller Park and check out an afternoon ball game!
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| We were pretty stuffed into this car on the way to the Brewer's Game!! |
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| Weston and his dad's twin-- Uncle Kraig. Uncle Kraig is Weston's godfather and they are great buddies. When we are at home, Weston skypes with Kraig all of the time. He was so afraid that Kraig wouldn't be his buddy anymore now that Kraig just had his first child, a daughter! But Kraig assured him that he could still be his buddy! |
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| Uncle Steve and Weston are pretty good buddies because Uncle Steve flies to visit us often! |
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| Daddy is my first buddy! |
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| Belly Shot! |
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After the game, we had to go to the Kiel Picnic. Something that the whole county goes to. Basically they play some music and have some overpriced food, games and rides.
So there is this one tent where you throw a ping pong ball into a fish bowl. If you get the ball in the fish bowl, you get your very own feeder gold fish that may or may not live through the night. It is probably the 4H club or the science club or something at the high school that puts on this booth. Well Kurt talks the kids into wanting to play this so we get a bucket of balls for $3 because 'none of the kids will win anyway' Leah sinks a ball right into the bowl -- kerplink. So there she is, excited that she just won a goldfish. Except we still have 1000 miles and more than a week until we get home. So she is trying to talk Aunt Kathy (her godmother) into taking this gold fish. Then she called grandpa to see if he wanted to take it. Needless to say, no one wanted Goldie. So Leah thought we should get the fish and put it in a Mason jar and it would make it home that way. I had to break it to her that it wouldn't work and that we needed to find another family to give this ticket to. She was a blubbering mess. So we had to promise her some fish when we get home... so we need to work on that too. Ugh! So we go back to the fish stand and there were some little girls playing but they did not win so we gave them our fish ticket. The mom was so sappy sweet talking to leah. The little girls already had 5 fish and this one would make #6 so the girls were excited. The mom kept talking to leah asking her what her name was... telling her it was a life lesson. Leah lost it and really started crying. Like sucking snot, can't catch her breath, crying. So naturally, what do I do in all of my pregnant glory? Yep start crying because my daughter is crying in front of a perfect stranger. Had to regain the composure there! So Goldie is happily living with her fishy family but we have to figure out what kind of fish we will get... Fish was not in my future until that fateful night.
Remember me saying to remember the snow leopard? So there was a lady that was making balloon animals. Leah wants a poodle with a leash, Piper wants a dog and weston wants the thing that is in the snow. You know and he puts fingers up like ears. Umm? A polar bear? A penguin? A what? Finally we figured out that he wanted a white snow leopard like he saw at the zoo earlier in the week! SO the lady made him a white cat and drew spots on him!
Here are some random photos of the cousins too
We went to our second parade in 2 weeks in Kiel for the end of the Kiel Picnic. (We also went to one in Grand Haven for the Coast Guard Festival)
One of the last things we did was actually go to another Brewers game.
What can I say, Weston and Kurt both love some baseball! This time, there was more Cardinal's fans than there were Brewer's fans but they were great!!
So our next stop is Chicago, then Plymouth Michigan for the night and finally Canada, but that will have to come tomorrow!!! I am going to shower, kill some time holding down the couch and hit the hay and hope that I don't hack all night!!!!!
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