Lianna's Life

Wisconsin 2009

I've decided this will be a yearly event in our lives. There is too much fun stuff to do there, I can't even remember everything that we did. First of all, we love walking in the woods and seeing all the trees, Dean especially liked exploring and being more free to run around. Brandon really enjoyed the manual labor. He and Steve spent hours cutting down trees and clearing trails in the woods. He even took it upon himself to trim a grove of pine trees to make a "tree tunnel" for Dean and my mom. This picture shows Dean's appreciation, he said, "Thank you Daddy for making my tree tunnel."

And then of course Dean wanting in on the action so he helped us cut down some smaller trees. Notice his little gloves, "glubs" he called them, and then he proceeded to wack Brandon with one of the branches.
Dean went on many tractor rides, this is him trying to decide which one he wanted to drive that day. He had his first driving lessons and I'm afraid he learned too much, I'll be sure to keep my keys far far away from that kid.
We had a one special walk through the woods with all 5 of us where we found wild strawberries in the middle of a meadow. Once we told Dean he could sample them, he was hooked and I had to bribe him to leave. They were tiny little things, but tasty.
"Papa Steve" was Dean's new playmate, he spoiled him with piggy back rides, bites of his food, and story time. He is a busy farmer, so we had to track him down to watch him move cattle, bail hay, and feed pigs.
We actually took him to Marquette University one of his 3 days teaching and then ventured to the Milwaukee Zoo and Lake Michigan. My mom was surprised how nice the zoo was. I told her if I could I would go to every zoo in the country, especially the smaller ones. Dean's favorite part was the miniature train, of course. Lake Michigan was also entertaining for us to see.
Back to the farm... Dean rode "Lady" twice and loved it. He would say, "Walk Lady. Go faster Lady" and wanted her to jump the barrels. I even hopped on for a lap around the arena. I could barely lift myself onto the horse though, I think my belly doubled in size while we were there.

A few of my fun activities, which were also firsts for me, I weed wacked the yard, shot bows & arrows, and cooked porter house steaks. I also enjoyed planting flowers, riding bikes, and watching the birds. That may sound silly, but the birds there are so much more exciting than our stupid crows and pigeons. We saw turkeys, blue jays, red cardinals, woodpeckers, and these cute bright yellow birds. Some of Dean's other highlights were going to the library, a children's museum, playing with the cat, and splashing around in his inflatable pool. Brandon spent an entire day shooting a video for a local dairy since they loved the one he did for my mom's farm so much.
Well, I could go on and on some more but basically we had a nice vacation. Dean was a good traveler, we had great hosts and wish we could go back more often. Thanks for reading about my last vacation before my life gets more complicated with baby #2.