Wisconsin!!!

You should only detect a mild amount of sarcasm by the exclamation points in the title. I'm from MN, and live in NYC, so I have to make fun of the midwest a little, or I wouldn't get by with my day to day nyc encounters.

Ryan and I attended a wedding last weekend in Milkwaukee, and then stayed on in Neenah/Oshkosh Wisconsin for a week, renting a lake house with Ryan's family. My family also drove from Mpls to Neenah for the weekend so fay Got to see ALL of her grandparents during our midwest vacation along with her Uncle Andy.



We were a little unfortunate to have overcast and rainy weather during the first 1/2 of the week. That stumped us at first because we were thinking of spending much of the week swimming and boating on the lake.

BUT we were happily surprised to find tons of fun little activities for Fay to do around neighboring towns. Fay's favorite activity by far (besides playing with Brody, the Yorkie) was picking fresh raspberries! She couldn't manage to get more than one or two past her mouth into the collection basket. I think she thought she had died and gone to raspberry heaven, and she told us so with some whining/crying when we finally had to leave.



Grandma Sandy also found just about the best city park for toddlers I've ever seen. This park had a petting zoo, a merry go-round, a mini-train for toddlers and paddle boats (not to mention some really strange looking paddle-tricycle things). The zoo was free, and the rides were $1 or less per ride. So it was not only a find, but a bargain too!



[Insert joke here about feeding toddler to the cow]

Fay loved the train, but she wasn't entirely sold on the merry-go-round. She held tight to mommy and looked around skeptically the entire time. Of course when she returned to nyc at the end of the week and saw another merry-go-round at the park, she instantly wanted on it.

By the end of the week, we were swimming in the lake, canoeing in the lake, and had a relaxing 4 hour pontoon boat ride. Fay LOVED the boat because she was able to run around from end to end. She was also introduced to chex mix for the first time on the pontoon and that put her in a pretty good mood as well.



[Fay having "fun" on raft with daddy]

All in all, a pretty good vacation. It was fun to have everyone together and see Fay get so much attention. As we all know, Fay can be a little slow to warm up, and she was clingy towards her mommy for the first couple of days while all her grandparents were vying for her hugs and playtime. But it was amazing how quickly she fell into a comfortable family rhythm.

I'll leave you with this.....