May 28: Yesterday was a perfect day. It started with Andrew sleeping until nearly 8 am. Andrew normally wakes up at 6:15, and I think he has slept past 7:15 a handful of times in his life. That meant that I got to read Cricket in bed (one of my favorite activities ever) for 45 blissful minutes. When Andrew woke up, he was as sunny as the day, and the two of us made hash browns as a breakfast surprise for Daddy. After our slow and cheerful morning, we headed outdoors to plant the rest of our vegetable garden (summer squash, butternut squash, cucumbers, herbs, and beets in addition to the tomatoes and peas we planted last month). We weeded and gardened, and Andrew did a great job helping us dig and water the plants.
After Andrew’s nap, we headed over to Michael’s house for a Memorial Day bash. This time two years ago, mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and we are all so happy and relieved beyond belief to be able to celebrate this milestone together. Last year we had a Carpe Diem party for mom (see pictures here). Next year on this weekend, Maretta and Kyle will be getting married!
Michael and his two roommates, Lisa and Alice, each got a kitten in the last couple weeks. Alice has Portia, Lisa has Small Horse, and Michael has Xaxxon. Pictures of the party and of the sweet kitties are in the gallery. Carpe Diem!
Phase III of website retrieval – CHECK!
May 28: While Bryan and I watched the start of season two of the TV show The 4400 last night, I was able to upload the bulk of the missing photo albums to the gallery. All the data that was on this website prior to the crash of 2006 has been restored (see here for the back story). You can now look back at all baby Andrew’s pictures from 2005 and 2006 including the ones that were previously missing. Any interruption in website access that you may have noticed the last day or so was due to the picture restoration process. My next (and hopefully final) step will be to go back to all the entries from 2005 and re-connect them to the appropriate gallery albums. Stay tuned!
Vacation in Bayfield, Wisconsin
May 21: Bryan, Andrew, and I just got back from a great family vacation to Bayfield, a fun little town at the very tippy top of Wisconsin, right on Lake Superior. Gathering Waters hosts an annual retreat for the staff of Wisconsin’s 50 land trusts. Last year, we went to Door County (see last year’s post), and this year, it was Bayfield. The drive was long (about 7 hours including some stops), but Andrew did really well. We got a little beautiful outdoor time in before a cold front blew into town and removed some of our recreating plans.
Pictures of apple orchards and a cute little boy running here and there are in the gallery.
Owl Sagas
May 1: I think I mentioned several weeks ago how much we have been enjoying hearing our neighborhood owls hooting in the evening. There was quite a bit of speculation about the presence of chicks, and last week, we all go to see them for ourselves. Three chicks tumbled about forty feet from their nest in a pine tree across the street from our house. Two of the chicks, fuzzy puffballs on the wet, green grass, seemed to be feisty and healthy. In the wild, owls that fall out of the nest are taken care of on the ground. But in a neighborhood, an exposed owlet doesn’t have much of a chance. We called over to animal control, and they picked up the chicks with a promise that they would bring them back when it wasn’t raining and try to return them to their nest.
On Friday evening, Hooter and Howie as they were dubbed returned along with a new basket/nest. Howie suffered a concussion and perhaps other injuries from his fall, so they are going to raise him in captivity. Hooter, however, got hoisted back into the pine tree, while one of his parents looked on. Tonight we could see one of the parents sitting in the basket along with the baby. What a neat experience this has been! Pictures of the saga taken by Nancy are in the gallery.
Oh, sweet spring!
April 22: It seems hard to believe that my last post was ten days ago. I was working really hard on a grant application for work from the moment we returned from Wichita until last weekend. Then I’ve spent the last seven days riding the crest of new spring activity. I’m finishing up a four day weekend. Today was an amazingly beautiful Earth Day, and we spent nearly all of the last three days outdoors. Andrew’s not so into napping these past days, but other than that, out time together has been great fun.
I took off Thursday and in a fit of self-possession, I sent Andrew to daycare and spent the day doing my own thing. I cleaned and gardened and went to the library, and ate ice cream outdoors in the sunshine while reading a book. It was delightful. We dug up a flower bed in front of our house, and I supplemented the soil. Pictures of the new garden are in the gallery. On Saturday, we went to Madison’s first farmer’s market of the season, and we got cheese curds, tomato plants, and several perennials for our garden. This afternoon, I planted peas and radish and two tomato plants. Andrew helped drop the peas into the soil. However, after we covered them, he really wanted to “dig, dig!” them up again:)
Today we went to the zoo, and the little guy did not want to walk. Silly boy. So we ended up carrying him all around the zoo. It was packed with people and kids getting outdoors to enjoy this amazing weather.
We saw our neighborhood owl a couple times this past weekend. There’s speculation about which tree holds its nest and whether there are chicks.
Loads of pictures are in the gallery!
It’s a rainy day
March 31: We had a really quiet Saturday today, which was a nice thing. Yesterday Andrew and I visited Olbrich and saw the conservatory in its newly pruned loveliness. Andrew has the best time running around, looking at the fish, pointing out the water falls, and navigating the stairs.
I was hoping a bit for sunny, warm weather so we could work on some new garden beds, go biking, and in general play outside. Mother Nature had other plans in mind, though, and a soft rain has been falling off and on since morning. So we hung out around the house. Andrew helped me set up a new composting bin that I finally acquired, and he got to wear his new froggie rubber boots for a quick romp around the yard between showers. April is here tomorrow, and it really feels like spring. Speaking of April, this will be our first April without our pooch April. It’s been 10 months since we put her down. I was thinking about her with all the storms tonight. Sweet doggie. We sure had fun having her in our family.
Pictures of Andrew playing in the back yard are in the gallery.
A day at the farm
March 25: The weather today is stunning! The temperature is in the 70s. Wow. Yesterday we pulled out bikes out of storage, got them ready for the new year, and took a little trip down to a playground. I put away all my snowmen and winter decorations, and now bunnies and eggs fill our home.
This morning we went to the Pancake House for breakfast. Andrew loved his blueberry pancakes. He also ate most of my sausage patty:)
We took advantage of the lovely weather today by taking a trip to the A-Z Farm just outside of Madison. Andrew has been on the somewhat fussy/unhappy side recently, and I wouldn’t say that he had a terrific time at the farm. It was packed, and he was very overwhelmed. Sometimes he wanted to get down, but as soon as he was on his own, he would start sobbing. I took lots of pictures and video, and I imagine that we’ll spend a lot of time in the next week reviewing al the animals we saw in the safety of our own home. One perk of our visit was seeing my friend Lucy and her daughter Isobel while we admired the sheep. Pictures of all the adorable animals and of a worried Andrew are in the gallery. What a great way to spend some time. I LOVE the farm!
We’ve passed the equinox
March 23: I have a hard time believing a week has gone by. I’ve been so busy, having fun and hanging out with my siblings and cranking away at work. I hope this weekend gives me a few moments to find some quiet. I’ve just uploaded two new photo albums to the gallery. The last one in the Winter 2007 album, and the first one in the Spring 2007 album. At some point here, I also hope to find an easy way to post video. I take lots of video clips of Andrew with our camera, and I’d like to share those too.
A quick synopsis of some of the fun activities in the past week: Last Sunday, I helped host a baby shower for my good friend Liza. She’s expecting a baby boy in early May. I finished knitting her baby blanket just in time for the shower! Maretta and Joe watched Andrew on Monday morning, and Monday afternoon, I took off work to hang out with Michael, Maretta, and Joe. The five of us (including Andrew) celebrated Michael’s birthday at Pedro’s, and then we went to a walk down to our neighborhood park. Andrew was just delighted to get to play on his beloved swings and slide again! Pictures of the baby shower and the park fun are in the gallery.
The rest of the week has been an utter blur, but today Joe and I took Andrew to the Vilas Park Zoo for the first time since last October. We met up with my co-worker Vicki and her son Alex as well as Budgie and Wyatt, along with their dad’s, Benson and Steve. Andrew loved the rhinos, we got to hear the lions roar, and I was happy to see some active polar bears. Pictures of our time at the zoo are in the (spring!) gallery.
Phase II of website retrieval complete
March 15: To my great delight, the gallery photo albums I made prior to August 2006 have been restored to the Dotzour Family Website. Now the “Peak in the Gallery” images you see on the left may pull from Andrew’s early days. As you may remember, in August the server in which our website had been living met the end of its life. We started a new website from scratch. In January, our wonderful brother-in-law, Ben, was able to retrieve the database that housed all the posts I had made since I launched our family website in May 2005 (see the post from that happy day). Then this past weekend, Ben helped me pull the photo albums from my old site into the current gallery. A handful of the albums didn’t make it, but I now feel like this iteration of my website is running at full steam. Many thanks to Ben for hosting our website for the first year, and special appreciation for helping retrieve our data from the defunct server. Let me know if you have suggestions for how I could make this site more fun or friendly!
Neighborhood shovel-out
Feb. 26: About 15 inches of snow fell in Madison over the weekend. When we woke up on Sunday morning, we discovered a world full of very wet, very deep snow. In shoveling ourselves out, though, I was reminded how much I love our neighbors, and how fun it can be to do hard work when you have friends to help along the way. The prospect of removing the snow from our driveway was quite daunting. Plus the snowplow had created a mountain about four feet high at the end of each driveway. In barn-raising fashion, though, our neighbors came over and without a word began to use their snow blower to clean up our driveway. Those of us without snow blowers worked on the end-of-driveway mountains. It’s been months since I have seen much of my neighbors, but on Sunday we spent several hours talking and shoveling and helping each other dig out. I have been feeling happy ever since. Photos of the kids playing on the snow mountain at the end of the street and of Andrew and Alivia are in the gallery. Happy winter!