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Our 4th of July (eeks, that was over a month ago!) was full of low-key fun.  Andrew, John, Bryan, and Tim all played a lot of soccer in the yard with Andrew’s new soccer goal and ball.

There was some fancy footwork going on out there!

It was Boys against Dads, and those boys were really hustling.

Meanwhile the moms were engaged in other 4th of July pursuits..

 

After soccer, it was time for some water play.  Slip and Slide!

 

Tim cools off:)

 

Now the boys are holding onto water balloons.  These water balloons have the unique ability to not pop when thrown at a person.  They only seem to pop when they hit the earth.   Makes for interesting, bouncy game of water balloons!

Kids in the tree.  This is the little volunteer maple that’s starting to become a substantial tree!

 

Dinner on the picnic table.

For dessert, Red, White, and Blue (with hot fudge and sprinkles).

 

Yummy, yum, yum.

 

After a long day, Tim reads the kids a bedtime story.

 

I like how they’re all snuggled up together:)

 

After the kids were in bed, Grace, and Tim and Bryan went to Monona to watch the fireworks.  I stayed home and photographed sparklers.

 

I put the camera on a tripod and ran about the yard…

Hope your July was a good one!

There’s nothing like some frozen custard on a summer day.  When Grace and Tim and John were visiting, we all enjoyed a treat from Michael’s.  The kids really got into their food.

That’s one contented girl!

Me and Grace!

 

Andrew and John got cones.  They are a messy, messy way to eat ice cream!

 

Notice that in this picture, Andrew’s ice cream is still in his cone…

Here’s my favorite 2011 picture of John and Andrew.  They look a little like they have chocolate pirate beards!

 

What cute boys:)

When our little buddy John was visiting, the boys did quite a bit of biking.  John rode Andrew’s bike (sans training wheels), and Andrew rode on the tag-along behind Dad.  Off they went for adventures in Madison!

 

Two boys, ready to hit the road.

 

Did I mention that they are goofy boys?

 

Boys and Dads, ready to roll.

 

Grace, Sylvia, and I picked up the boys at Tenney Park and then we all drove over to Michael’s Custard on Monroe Street for lunch.

 

What a big guy he is, doing a long bike ride on his own legs!

 

Yummy hamburgers.

After lunch, we went and got ice cream.  That, my friends, is a mess for another post.

We have a standing visit with our friends Grace and Tim and John over the 4th of July weekend ever year.  Here’s some pictures from the past: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and now 2011. Whenever we get together, we eat lots of good food and have lots of fun.
Here we are sitting down to a meal inspired by the trip Grace and I took to Arizona in the spring.  It’s Bandera’s Macho Salad (recipe here) and cornbread (recipe here).  Please note, that Bryan has asked me never to make a different corn bread again, ever.  This recipe is as good as it gets.

I made strawberry Shaum Torte for dessert.

Here’s the recipe from my mom and before her Tekla Loeber (that’s my mom’s maternal grandma…I think).

The kids had fun chasing fireflies in the yard.  Sylv got dressed in her firefly costume from Halloween last year.

This is one of my favorite pictures.  He’s about to catch a firefly…and it’s even lit!

There’s Grace and Tim, looking relaxed:)

Summer evenings are just the best!

Here’s Andrew with a firefly on display.

Sylvia the firefly hunting for her brethern.

John and Sylvie intent on the capture.

They were all very gentle with their insect prey.

Two buddies in 2011.  I think we need to start feeding them!

She’s so cute!

 

Can you see the little firefly above her outstretched fingers? 

So cute:)It’s been over a month since our visit, but the memories are still fresh and bring lots of smiles to my heart.  Thanks, Grace and Tim and John for coming out to see us!

On a bright and breezy June afternoon, I pulled out Sylvia’s fairy canopy and hung it from our front yard tree.

Here’s a picture of me in December 2007 getting the canopy for Christmas just before Sylvia was born.  It hung over her crib until she was old enough to pull on it, and since then, it’s been in storage, waiting her her to be old enough to hang it again.

I loved seeing theses kiddos enjoying a quiet lunch  under the purple gauze of the canopy.  We sat still and listened for the sounds around us, and we all went around and shared something we’d noticed that day that made our hearts glad.

So pretty!

Here’s pretty Celia.  Sylvia looked at this picture and noted that she looks kind of sad.  I just think it’s hard not to get lost in those big brown eyes.

Here’s a picture I love of my Eli and Celia.  I printed it as a float wrap and gave it to Jessica for her birthday.  Such beautiful little people!

A couple days later, it was my 34th birthday!  Bryan and I went to American Players Theater and saw a great production of Taming of the Shew.  Thanks to Bubba and Lisa for watching the kids while we had a great night away.

One of my favorite parts of a play at APT is the pre-dinner picnic.  Bryan got us set up with some delicious cheeses, wine, hummus, bread, and fruit.  It was a great birthday!

Bryan’s parents were in town the weekend of Andrew’s birthday party, and we all had such a nice time together!  We played ball in the yard, played Quirkle in the evenings, ate some good food, and went on an afternoon outing to Olbrich playground and gardens.  Here’s a few of the pictures from our time together.  Thinking back (it’s been a month), I just have a contented smile come to mind when I think about our weekend.

Here’s cute Sylvie…

Me and my sweetie.  We’ve been married 12 years!

Looks like Sylvia’s having Rodan fight the new dragon.  

Here we are at Olbrich park.  We enjoyed a picnic (compliments of the left over birthday party food), and we lay on our backs watching the sun shine through the trees.  Andrew and Sylvia climbed all over the playground, we played frisbee, and even tried out Andrew’s new purple soccer ball.

There’s me and my birthday boy.

There’s me and my strong girl.

Grandad and Sylvia walk through the gardens hand in hand.

Andrew and Sylvia love to play on the hosta leaf sculpture at the entrance to the gardens.

If we had unlimited funds, I’d have something similar created in our yard. It can be a slide or a ship or a cave or a snail.  The perfect play area for kids.

Here Andrew and Sylvia sit on top.

Love those kids!

Sylvia walks on Bryan’s feet.

There was a patch of sunlight shining directly on this hydrangea.   So beautiful with the dark and the light.

We took a tram ride around the gardens (I learned a lot from the tour).  En-route, Andrew took a couple pictures of LuAnn.  Love that he got her from his perspective:)

Thanks for a fun visit!  Today (July 27), Andrew and Bryan are heading down to Texas for the week.  It’s Andrew’s summer visit to Texas, and this year, he requested that it be a boys week.  So Bryan will be working remotely during the days and hanging out with his sweet parents in the evenings.  They should have a blast!  Thanks for a fun visit, Granny and Grandad!

Greetings all!

I’m writing to you from my couch in the early hours of the morning.  Sylvia woke up at 4:30, and by the time I got her back to sleep, I was feeling pretty awake myself.  I considered going to the Y or for a run, but instead, I crawled back to my familiar nest on the couch with my friend the laptop.

A couple nights ago, Bryan and I sat down to watch a couple episodes of Parenthood, and I figured I’d do something on the computer while I watched.  36 hours later, I’d completed a massive photo-uploaded campaign.  I didn’t go to bed until almost 3am, and then I worked on it constantly most the next day.  Why do I do these things?

I started this blog in May 2005, and since that time, I’ve shared about 10,000 pictures (that averages out to about 5 images a day).  But I’d got to thinking that I have all these pictures on my computer from 2000-2005 that aren’t available for sharing.  What good are they doing me on my computer when they could be available to family and friends and the wide world?  What if I’m away from my computer and wanted to know what year I visited Yellowstone?  Now I can find out (it’s August of 2002).

Before uploading the photos, I had to pick my favorites (fortunately, they’re all organized on my computer into folders by activity and season).  Then I uploaded the photos into Flickr using my new version of Lightroom.  Each album (known in Flickr lingo as a set) gets put in a collection, which I list by season.  Ridiculously, the sets had to be dragged one by one into the correct order.  It took hours.  However, I’m happy to say that all 608 sets are now in happy chronological order.  My heart is at peace.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the collections:

In the last day or so, I’ve uploaded about 4,000 images from my early digital camera years.  It was a little like being in a mind warp to spend a solid day immersed in the images of a time long gone.  I’d forgotten how many photos I’d taken of my plants and my house and my cats and of April.  Pre-kids, I had to unleash my photographing needs on something!

I loved looking back and remembering some of the best times of my married life pre-kids.  Good visits with friends, camping and weddings and holidays with family.  I liked seeing all the many pictures I’ve taken of our apartments and homes, and I can clearly remember the potent mix of feelings I had when we left our friends in Ann Arbor to come move to Madison.  It’s sad to see pictures of us with people who are now gone…especially my mom…but it’s also lovely to revisit some of the times we were all together.  For me, photographs take me back to the moment the shutter clicked.  I can feel the breeze and smell the air.  I can remember how a moment later, I reached over to touch the person.  So spending a full day processing all these images makes me feel a little like I fell down a rabbit hole.  “When are we?” I want to ask.  Then my kids clamber about, and I remember:)

You can see all my photos organized by:

• Collection (season)
• Set (album)
• Tag (although I’ve only tagged about 1/4 of the pictures)
• Calendar (see the image below).  I think my camera’s date information wasn’t working for much of the early 2000s, so most (but not all) pictures before then don’t show on the correct date.  However, it’s really cool to flip through the months and to see a pictorial journal over time.

OK, I’ve had 14 blog entries (all drafted and waiting for some attention) and a few photo sessions to finish, so enough with this obsessive photo archiving business.  Enjoy taking a trip down memory lane:)

~Althea