July 29: It feels rather unfamiliar for me to be sitting down with my laptop to do a web posting. Our days have been packed full this month, and I’ve spent almost no time online. Our Netflix movies are from June… Summer is a good time to unplug. I thought I’d give a little update, though about what we’ve been doing with out days. Since my last post twenty one days ago, we’ve had lots of activities going on. Bryan had his wisdom teeth pulled earlier this month. His wisdom seems to be intact, and he even went back to work the same day.
Andrew’s day care provider, Karen, went on vacation from July 11-19. Fortunately, Bryan’s mom came to our rescue by flying up here to Madison to watch Andrew for a week. She and Andrew had some great times together playing with homemade play dough, going to the park, building towers, and spending a lot of nice time together. LuAnn is so great, and it was just fabulous to have a three-adults-to-one-child ratio in the house. I think back fondly on that week…
Bryan has been on a sand volleyball team this summer. They’ve been playing every Tuesday night, and Bryan really has enjoyed it. Hard to believe summer activities like that are more than half-over! While Bryan’s mom was here, Bryan and I went to a local baseball game hosted by Widen (Bryan’s work). It was a lot of fun to spend an evening watching the Mallards play ball, hanging out with friends, and enjoying a summer evening together.
I’ve had a couple travels for work. Last week, our summer board meeting was up in Minocqua, and while I just drove up for the day, it was lovely to spend a few hours up north. What a wonderful part of the state! On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, my Gathering Waters office had a summer retreat at Jack’s house down on the Wisconsin River. We camped and ate good food and jumped in the river to cool off, met for business for a while, but generally had a fun time together.
We head back to Jack’s with my family this weekend, and I’m looking forward to that. We’re planning on attending the neighborhood summer picnic this afternoon. These summer days sure are full!
Pictures from the last three weeks are in the gallery.
Two-year-olds in DC
July 8: We just got back this afternoon from a wonderful five day visit to visit our friends Grace and Tim and their son John in Washington DC. It was so relaxing and so much fun to hang out and enjoy summer days while watching our little boys play and explore. I’m John’s godmother, and you can find pictures from our past recent visits in the gallery (October 2005), (July 2006). Amazing how much these little guys have changed!
We arrived on the 4th, and Andrew and John did a good job of negotiating their own set of rules and procedures about how they played together. John is an amazingly verbal little boy. Bryan and I were pretty stunned at how much he can carry on conversations. The rest of the week we did pre-nap field trips. Thursday we went to the National Zoo to see the elephants, pandas, and hippos. Friday we took a bike ride through a beautiful forest to a playground near a creek where the boys had a blast splashing and throwing rocks while wearing their green froggie boots. Saturday we took another bike ride to a different park where the boys climbed and slid and ran and had a great time. Our friend Lara from graduate school lives in DC, and she watched the boys on Friday night while the four parents went out to indulge in a wonderful dinner at the Black Market Bistro. I highly recommend it to anyone living in or visiting the DC area. On Saturday night, Lara came over for a yummy supper cooked by Grace and Tim, and afterwards, Lara made crepes and we enjoyed a late-night dessert of warm crepes, cold ice cream and Nirvana Chocolate Spread (Nutella only better).
The flights to and from DC went really well, Andrew and John did a great job of getting along and even sharing, and I think we’re all feeling happy and rested and full of fun memories.
June flew by!
July 8: Here it is, the end of the first week in July, and looking back at my web posts from the last month, I realize that there is only four. Seems like we’ve been jumping from one major activity to the next all month long. What a nice month June was! We had fun with friends, I got to go to DC for work and a visit with Kacy, Andrew turned two amidst the loving support of his family and friends, and I turned 30! I have pictures in the gallery from the last week in June. They include some quiet time we spent with Granny Lu, Grandad, Ben, and Melanie, pictures from a photo shoot of kids we did at Indian Lake for Gathering Waters, and a few pictures from my birthday party on June 29. I have a table filled with wonderful birthday cards from my friends, and it makes me so happy to think of how lucky I am to have my life filled with such supportive, loving, and positive people.
Happy Birthday to Andrew!
June 23: Andrew has been going around all day singing, “Happy Birthday to Andrew!” Yesterday we went to Olbrich gardens with Vicki and Alex and a couple of their friends. Andrew had great fun trying to throw rocks into the pools (not allowed) and running up and down the paths (very encouraged). Afterwards, we went to Michael’s Custard for a yummy lunch. Granny Lu and Grandad arrived in town in the afternoon, and we had fun planning for Saturday’s party and playing together. Dinner at Ella’s Deli ended our fun day together.
This morning, we had Andrew’s second birthday party at the zoo. Andrew had nearly his entire immediate family gather together to celebrate. After a romp through the zoo, we had a picnic and a Noah’s Ark shaped cake. Loads of pictures are in the gallery.
June days
June 23: I can’t believe that it’s been two weeks since I last posted. I guess that being out of town for five days makes that more likely:) We have been really enjoying the weather and the flowers and the outdoor activities these last weeks. I went to Washington DC for a fun/work week, and Bryan and Andrew held down the fort here in Madison quite well while I was away. I put together Andrew’s second year album, and it was a lot of fun to look back through all the changes that have happened over the last year.
We got a troubling phone call recently from my mom’s sister, Aunt Kate (also known as Dear Sweet Great Aunt Kate or DSGAK). Her husband, my Uncle Greg had kidney cancer several years back. Just last week a scan discovered a new growth in his lung. They are looking into treatment options, and they are close in out thoughts these days.
While I was in Washington DC, I got to spend a couple days with my dear friend from high school, Kacy (now Kate). She, her partner Rueteger, and I enjoyed eating some delicious meals, hiking at Great Falls, and having lots of time to catch up. While I was in DC, I also got to have lunch with Grace and Lara…friends from graduate school. For dinner on Monday night, I was able to see my good friend from Carleton, Andy, and his wife Anne Marie, and their little kids, two-year-old Kasha and one-month-old Ciaran.
On Tuesday, I headed up to the Hill and met with five of Wisconsin’s representatives. Afterwards, I headed over the the capitol for a tour, and I was lucky enough to see a vote in the Senate. It was pretty cool to see a lot of the Senators including Clinton, Kerry, Lieberman, Obama, and Kohl, as they did their politicing. Earlier in the morning, I walked within a couple feet of Hilary Clinton. It was pretty cool!
Pictures from these days are in the gallery.
The Bambino Babies are Two!
June 9: We had a party for our Happy Bambino group at Tenney Park Beach tonight. As always, it was wonderful to get to see all the parents and to marvel at how amazing and adorable all the little ones are. Their birthdays range between mid-May and late-June, so this was a birthday-partyish beach party for them all. Pictures from the evening of lots of adorable kids are in the gallery. For a comparison, see the pictures from the winter party, and their 1 year birthday.
Andrew had a wonderful time playing in the water and with the sand. It was his first time at a beach, and I think we’ll be heading back again soon. We all shared a delicious potluck dinner and fed the little ones cupcakes. Andrew had his first bite of chocolate cake, and it appears that he was quite happy and would like to eat it much, much more often.
Caves and local produce
June 9: It’s been a good week. My work has been really hectic recently, but coming home in the evening to hang out with Bryan and Andrew is lovely. Last weekend, we had plans to go camping, but they fell through due to rainy weather. So instead we tried to go hiking out at Blue Mounds on Sunday. As we arrived, the skies opened up with rain, so we had a change of plans and decided to head underground. The Cave of the Mounds was a fun outing. Andrew did really well in the cave. In the last week, we’ve also gone biking around Lake Monona with Andrew a couple times. Pictures of our caving experience, of Andrew picking radishes from our garden, and of us biking are in the gallery. Our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share also started this week. We’re so excited to get produce straight from a local farm every-other week for the summer. For more information on our great CSA, see the Vermont Valley Community Farm’s website.
New baby on the way?
June 6: I’m not going to publish this until we make our news public, but it appears that Andrew may be a big brother! I took a pregnancy test on Thursday, and it came back negative. However, when I tried it again on Sunday, June 3, there it was. A faint blue plus on the pregnancy test. In a stunned state, I said, “Oh my god!” Andrew then jumped around on the bed proclaiming, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” Good thing I hadn’t exclaimed anything more colorful!
The rest of our day was a great one. We went on a trip out to Blue Mounds/Cave of the Mounds, to Mount Horeb (where I poked around in a bookstore for books on siblings and having a second child), and then over to the Mustard Museum. I’ve been a little surpised how this new develoment has created within me a new, fierce wave of love and devotion for Andrew. I find myself even more tender and loving toward him, and I think he’s just the best little person around.
Starting a new pregnancy is really different this time. I still have feelings of disbelief and shock and find myself saying things to bryan like, “apparently we’re going to have a new baby. ha!” It just seems so odd that everything feels just the same as it was last week, but a little plus on some random stick that I bought at Walgreens foretells some major changes on the way. This time, however, I have seen and felt first hand how a pregnancy progresses. If it’s at all like last time, I’ll have zero symptoms until late July.
According to my caluclations, the baby’s due date is February 3 or Feb. 8 (depending on how I calculated it). That’s just not too far away! At this point, I think we’re going to wait until we’re close to 12 weeks before sharing out news. I just made my first appointment with my doctor for July 3 Now that I’ve gotten used to the idea for a few days, I sort of want to start telling people. But last time, I really enojyed (especially in retrospect) having that period when it was just a secret between me and Bryan. A wonderful little secret.
Amidst my flood of thoughts, I have several fears. What if this pregnancy terminates? It happens a lot of the time. How do I tell Heather about this? She so wants a baby… Then there are more practical concerns. We were supposed to go skiing with Bryan’s family in February. Gosh darn it! I don’t think that will happen! I wonder if we should tell them earlier so they can change plans. And then there’s my concern about February in general. That’s a cold, illness-prone month for a baby to be born. I don’t think I’ll get out walking much like I could with Andrew. Oh well!
I’ve also started sending out feelers to the baby. I feel like a mama whale singing down into the deep waters for her little one. “Hello! Is anyone there?” I felt Andrew’s presence so strongly while he lived inside of me. It took a while, though. I mean, at this point, the baby is just mostly a bundle of cells. Maybe by late this summer, I’ll start to get a sense for who this new little person is. It feels good to open up my heart to the new little wonder growing in my belly. There’s a channel of love and contentment that’s started flowing from me to the wee one. Now, no bigger than a sesame seed, I hope it already feels loved.
So that’s my update. Big news! Big changes! What a wonderful time.
~Althea
Parties and parades
June 1: We had a great time tonight at a birthday party for one of the little girls with whom Andrew goes to day care. Sonora turned three, and it was so fun to watch Andrew’s little friends all playing together.
The evening was a little bittersweet, though, because both Elyse and Sonora are leaving Karen’s day care this week. They are both moving on to preschools, but that leaves Andrew and Peri as the two big kids. How does time move so fast!? Pictures of Sonora’s birthday party are in the gallery.
Elyse gave Andrew a note that she had dictated that said:
Andrew,
I like your curly hair. I love you Andrew. I am going to miss you.
Elyse
A few other pictures of the Memorial Day parade and a trip to the zoo are in the gallery.
Website retrieval – the final chapter
June 1: I’m happy to report that all the albums and story links from 2005 have been fixed and are now working. I had a lot of fun going back through all my posts from two years ago. What an amazing time that was! The back-story on the website fix can be found here.