Milwaukee in July of '08

Cole finally learns why she's called the "pudding grandma"
Moments before Carson tosses the camera into the pool.
Our test picture after the camera spent 2 days in the rice bag.

The boys and I went down to Milwaukee for a few days this summer.  We had a BLAST!  They are really very good travelers, and they loved the attention they got from family.  We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Walczak, and the first day we were there the whole Walczak clan came over for dinner.  It was so much fun to see them all, and man, the cousins are getting old!  Unfortunately, Jesse was in Cali, so we didn't get to see him :(.  Also, Carson threw the camera in the pool the first day there, and we thought it was a goner!  Luckily, Grandpa had heard that sticking the camera in a bag of dry rice will suck all the water out of the camera.  We all thought he was nuts, but what do you know, two days later it was working again!  That man's a genius! ;)

We visited the children's museum, the zoo and Lake Michigan.  We met up with the "Pitzo girls" and their kids at the zoo.  We were quite a sight, us and our 10 (yes, 10!) kids.  It was so good to see them and catch up!  It's funny how there are some friends you can go years without seeing, but as soon as you see them it's like no time has gone by.  The camera was still in the bag of rice during our zoo trip, so we didn't get any pictures.  SAD!

The boys and the cousins had fun at Lake Michigan.  Alyssa and Jake  were really good about playing with the boys.  Jake even let Caden and Cole wreck his sand contraption.  Carson attached himself to Alyssa, and she was his swimming buddy.

Caden was in heaven because we stayed at the "pudding grandma's house".  She let him have pudding in the morning once, and he never forgot it.  I don't know if they'll ever invite us back though, Cole dumped a whole cup of milk down their laundry shoot and Carson broke one of her angel statues.  Cole also gave Grandma and I a fright by sneaking out of bed, while we were watching tv, and falling asleep in the front room.  We thought he had escaped from the house!  Luckily, he had found her candy bowl and left a trail of candy wrappers to where he lay, sound asleep!

We were sad to leave, but there's always next year.  And maybe it will be a longer trip....