Birthday Girl

In August my baby girl turned 5. Can you believe it, 5?! Where has the time gone? Since we had just moved into our new house in Virginia it was just the 4 of us for her celebration. Ryan didn't think he would be able to be home for dinner on her actual birthday so we did her birthday dinner the night before. She requested tacos for dinner and then I made a homemade Chocolate Angel Food Cake for dessert. (My Granny used to always make that for us growing up)

From Alayna birthday

Both kids LOVED the cake, so I think we are going to make it a tradition.

Alayna got some wonderful gifts

From Alayna birthday

How hilarious is this?!

From Alayna birthday

And she LOVED this Barbie.

From Alayna birthday

Then on her actual birthday she requested Blueberry Muffins for breakfast.

From Alayna birthday

and then I took the kids to go see Toy Story 3 in the morning and to a park in the afternoon. Overall I think she had a pretty nice birthday.

Feeding the Horses

Just a couple miles from the cottage is a farm where you can stop and feed the horses for a quarter a cup.

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Papa had been collecting his quarters for a while so the kids could feed the horses till they ran out of cups!

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Both of the kids had a blast

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but Alayna LOVED it!

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She can't wait till next year when she can feed them again.

Look how far we've come

By the end of the summer both kids were swimming like fish! Even Alayna who was NOT swimming at all in the beginning was doggy paddling her way around. Here is a little video from the end of the summer. I have no idea what stroke Calvin is doing, but he is staying afloat I guess.

Can't wait to see how they do next year!

Back to the City

We did head back to the great city of Milwuakee a few times over the summer. We fit in quite a bit in our little time there. Calvin showed Grandpa how he can ride a 2-wheeler now.

From big city

The boys went to a Brewer's game.

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And us girls got pampered

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and then went shopping to buy Alayna a few new things.

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We also had Auntie Keri's baby shower.

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And Ryan got to have a night out with his Dad and his best friend Mike and Mike's Dad.

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We didn't spend a lot of time in the city, but we sure fit a lot into the little time we were there.

Stuck

One of the fun things Calvin likes to do at the cottage is go 4-wheelin' with Papa in the back 40. Calvin gets to steer and they drive around in the woods, a boys dream really! Well this year we were running out of time to fit this in, but planned for them to go one Saturday afternoon. Well, when it was time for them to go, we were also in the middle of a Thunderstorm Warning! But can anyone tell my Dad what to do? Of course not! He said "We're Going!" So I got Calvin all ready to go and sent him off with some final words of advice:

"One rule Calvin......Don't get Stuck!"

Now I was just teasing him and thought I was being funny, but as it turns out it was not so funny!

Just after they left it started to hail, and we thought they would come right back. But they didn't. And it kept on storming!

A while later they come walking in the door and they are all soaking wet! "What happened?" They got STUCK and couldn't get out so they had to run home in the rain! Oh and that is not the worst of it; while trying to get unstuck they smashed up my Dad's truck as well. They had to have a friend come out and cut down a tree and pull him out!

Here is where they got stuck

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And here is the damage to the truck

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check out the mud and the scratches down the side

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That storm was the first of several that dropped a ton of rain in short amounts of time. The lake rose at least 7 inches, higher than anyone can remember it ever being. Our pier was actually under water!

From stuck

And here is what my parents shoreline looked like

From stuck

It was a crazy summer! But man we had fun!

July 4th

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend at the cottage this year. It started with the parade 'in town'. This was my kids first ever parade so they were pretty excited.

From July 4th

And we were pretty excited to be back in the good old USA standing proud for the stars and stripes.

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The kids got a TON of candy

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and got pretty good and grabbing it up.

The adults favorite part of the parade was that the "B-team" of the UW marching band came complete with all their high stepping.

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But the kids favorite part was this....

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What is it about poop that is so funny when you are 6???

The next day brought us yet another parade, but this was just the small one in the little town on our lake.

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It was so nice to just walk there and walk home when it was done. And the kids got LOTS more candy!

From July 4th

Then of course there were fireworks that night! Again this was my kids first year to stay up late and see all the fireworks. We weren't sure if Alayna was going to make it!

From July 4th

But she did, and I am so glad she did. We took the boat out on the lake and anchored along with about 40 other boats so that we could watch the show that one of the guys who lives on the lake puts on. He and his son do it all on their own, and it is just as good as some small town's fireworks that I have been to. Here is a little video of the action. Calvin was SOOOOO excited and screamed and jumped up and down for the first several minutes. He Loved it!

We Had Guests, Guests, and More Guests

That is how Calvin described our time at the cottage when he was asked what we did there this summer. And he's right! I think we had 13 entries in our guest book this summer! We LOVED every minute of it and hope to have everyone back again, and add a few who didn't make it this year. Here is some of the fun we had with all our visitors.

Grandma and Grandpa were our very first guests this year. And were able to make a few return trips after that.

From Guests

From Guests

My sister Brooke came for the 4th of July weekend.

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Then on the 4th my Mom's whole side of the family was able to come up for what was hopefully our first annual family reunion.

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The cousins had to pose for a quick picture before we did our big sychronized dive. HA!

From Guests

The next guests were my Friend Sarah and her 3 boys, unfortunately her husband was deployed to Afghanistan and wasn't able to come up. Sarah and I became friends while we were stationed in Illinois together and it was so nice to see her and her boys.

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Our kids enjoyed playing together again as well. Here is Calvin and William being goofy!

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And the 4 big kids enjoying their marshmallows.

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The next guests were Uncle Mike, Aunt Cindy, and baby Jake.

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Mike and Ryan have been friends forever and are really more like brothers.

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Jake had a great time this year and enjoyed the water and loved playing with my kids.

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Mike and Cindy have been coming up north with us for I think 7 years now and we always make sure to get a photo of all of us together. This is the first one at the new cottage!

From Guests

The next guests we had were the Storch Seven. We met Steve and Michelle in Turkey when we were all childless, but now we have 2 kids and they have 5! They were only able to stay for one night, but we sure made the most of it and the kids had a blast. Here are the 6 big kids all on our raft.

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(their youngest was under one at the time so she just hung out on shore)
And of course we had to do marshmallows!

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This is what 11 people having fun at the lake looks like at the end of the day.

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Then my girlfriend from High School Erika and her son Zion came. My kids adored Zion.

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And our final visitor was Aunt Keri.

From Guests

Unfortunately Uncle Brent couldn't come, but hopefully next year they will visit with new baby Darren.

For some reason I don't have a picture, but Aunt Louise and Great-Grandma Elda also came up for an afternoon.

And I think that is it! To all who came, thank you so much for coming and we hope you will come again soon. And to all those who couldn't make it this year we sure hope to see you next summer!