Mike and Katie Bleckwehl

Most of you that read this know that Mike and Katie got married on Aug 14th, and many of you were there. Daniel was very excited to be part of the wedding as the ring bearer. Here's a few shots of him trying on his suit the night before. He sure thought he was hot-stuff.

Fixing the Tie

If only I could hug myself....

Friday the 13th was the rehearsal out at the Mendakota Country Club

Daniel not paying attention to the rehearsal

Then the big day on Saturday the 14th. The wedding was beautiful, and the weather couldn't have been much better for an outdoor wedding. Daniel and his cousin Brooklyn were supposed to hold hands walking down the isle, but Brooklyn got a little distracted I think. Daniel ended up walking down by him self most of the way, and we sure were proud of him.

Nate and Jen were both in the wedding and were paired up as a couple

Our beautiful family

Jen and Daniel watching other groups getting their pictures taken
Mike and Katie trying to keep Brooklyn from running away.... this was a tough picture..
This is about as good as we could get. What a good looking wedding party.
Nate with his three beautiful sisters

Here's Daniel and Lydia doing what they do best together (and Brooklyn trying to follow along).

Congratulations again to Mike and Katie, and Mike, welcome to the family Brother!

Nite to Unite

The neighborhood participated in the Nite to Unite event again this year down the street at our neighborhood park. We had an OK turn-out, but not everyone was able to make it. We had quite a few new families this year, as construction in the neighborhood has begun to pick up a little.

Here's Daniel and Andie in the wagon as we're getting ready to head down to the park

And the wagon puller.

Daniel, Sierra, and Gracie playing Ring Around the Rosie at the park

Daniel sure has a good time with his "girl" friends in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, they are the closest to him in age. He's had a chance to play with the 4-year old boys a few times however though, so he gets his share of "rough and tough".

Some Grandpa Q Time

This past weekend, the girls had a bachelorette party for Katie, who was unaware of what events were in store for her. They whisked her off to Chicago Friday afternoon, stayed at Amy's in Madison Friday night, and headed to Chi-town to paint the town.

While all of this was happening, Nate was trying to figure out how to be a single parent for the whole weekend..... Fortunately Grandpa Q didn't have anything to do Saturday (yea right) and offered to come hang out with us for the day. He arrived just in time for some morning coffee on the deck.


We had a great day together. Grandpa let Daniel try on his special Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses that he got from his dad. Maybe someday they'll be his.


It was a pretty warm and sticky day out Saturday, so we didn't spend too much time outside. After nap, Daniel and Nate decided to take Grandpa Q out for dinner. Daniel decided on the Space Aliens restaurant so he could play the games after he was done eating. One of his favorite things is to fly in the space ship.

All in all it was a nice day. The kids sure loved spending time with Grandpa, and I think Grandpa had a good time too.

Andie's Growing Up Fast

Our little girl is now mobile! She started crawling about a week and a half ago or so now, and just like Daniel, her favorite place to go is straight for the cold air returns grates on the wall. She likes to strum them like a guitar. Daniel used to cut his fingers on those things, so we're doing our best to keep her away from them. Here is a video of her last week. She has sped up significantly since.

When Daniel first got his bike for his 3rd birthday, he fell a couple of times while turning corners a little too fast. Ever since, he's been very scared to ride, and we've just lately been able to get him back on it as long as we were holding onto him. The last two nights he's wanted to get out riding again, and he's been flying down the sidewalk all by himself. Last night Daniel, Nate, and Andie stopped by his friend Gracie's house down the street and she came for a little ride with us. For some reason they wanted to switch bikes, so Daniel was cruising around on a little pink bike while Grace was riding Daniel's lightning bike. It was pretty cute.

And a picture from the ride...

5 Year Anniversary Trip

On Friday, July 16th, Jen and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. We knew we wanted to take a trip somewhere, and up until about two weeks before, we had no idea where we wanted to go. We decided on Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We found a deal on a travel website at this all inclusive resort called the "Riu Palace", and just went for it. We met Jen's mom in Wisconsin Thursday afternoon, handed over the kids, and stayed the night at Nate's parent's. Nate's mom dropped us off at the airport early Friday morning, and we were on our way. Smooth travels; a quick layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, and on to Cabo. We were there in time for a swim, dinner and a few drinks.

When we arrived at the Cabo "airport" (airstrip?) we were greeted by a bunch of commission hungry locals trying to sell you activities, such as para-sailing, horseback riding, boat cruises, ect. This one guy said he was representing our travel agency and conned us into scheduling a "tour" of another hotel that they work with, and for doing that, they would give us vouchers for three different activities during our stay. Sounded OK since we hadn't been there before and wanted to see what some of the other hotels were like anyway. Well, that tour turned into a two and a half hour high-pressure one-on-one timeshare presentation (with an American sales guy), which basically wasted the first half of one of our limited number of days. Stay away from "tours" at the Playa Grande resort!!!! (unless of course you want to "buy a condo" there).

This first picture is from the balcony in our room at the Riu Palace. It's technically an "ocean view" room, even though you have to lean out over the railing a bit to really see the ocean.
This is our resort from down the beach about 100 yards.

There is a rope fence about 30 yards out from the hotel, that the local "vendors" are supposed to stay behind. Many locals set up their little stands and harass you to buy their stuff as soon as you walk onto the beach. On more than one occasion did we get offered drugs to smoke or snort, after politely declining their legitimate products.

They had two pools at the resort. One was an activity pool with a volleyball net, and water aerobics classes. The other pool (which we hung out at) was reserved for "quiet". Both of the pools were identical in size and shape and had an "endless" wall overlooking the ocean.

The pools also had a number of these built-in lounge chairs. We soaked in a few rays on these things.
Aside from the near 24/7 buffet food access, you could make reservations to one of their four specialty restaurants for dinner. We were able to get into the "Steakhouse" restaurant, and the Japanese restaurant called Mikasi. The picture below is our sushi-tizer at the Japanese restaurant.
This is a picture from the patio overlooking the ocean at one of the other restaurants, which also had a lunch buffet.

Nate checking out the waves... The conditions in Cabo are not very swimmer friendly. Every once in a while you'd see a guy or two test their luck, only to get pummeled and flipped upside down inside a crashing wave. We stayed out of the ocean for the most part.

Jen with the famous Cabo rock formations in the back ground

On our last day, we took a water taxi over the the rocks and famous arch. The water was pretty rough, but our taxi driver Leo got in there pretty close. There was also a couple of giant sea lions hanging out on one of the rocks.
All in all it was a nice trip, however we both got sick. Nate got the brunt of it with respiratory cold/flu symptoms (Swine flu?) to go along with the typical Mexican gut-rot, but Jen wasn't able to hide from the gut-rot herself. All of this started around our last day, and made for a less-than pleasant travel experience home. We both enjoyed ourselves, but would definitely try someplace else before we head back to Cabo.

Thanks again to Grandma and Grandpa Fedie for watching Daniel and Andrea while we were gone. They had a blast, and Daniel keeps asking to go back to the Farm. And thanks again to Lynette and Katie for helping us with logistics.

4th of July Weekend

We spent the 4th of July weekend at the Fedie cabin in Chetek, WI again this year. The weather was marginal, and Mom got sick Sunday night during the firework show, and was pretty under the weather all day Monday. It rained most of the day Sunday the 4th, but it managed to quit in the evening which offered a break for the fireworks.

This first picture is a picture of the kids at the top of our stairs at home as we're getting ready to head out for the cabin Saturday morning. They were both very excited.

Daniel and Daddy got out for a little tubing behind the boat. Daniel wanted to go really fast this time. We even fell of a couple of times.
Grandpa Fedie babysitting Andrea...... HEY, what is she drinking?

Daniel helped mommy work on a little crafting project. Daniel ended up getting more paint on himself than the project I think.
He even managed to get a tattoo of a heart on his arm

Lastly, Grandpa was blowing bubbles with the kids. Andie especially loved watching Daniel chase after them.

John and Amy's Pool

Yesterday we spent the day at John and Amy's house playing in the pool. Daniel and Will played great together and loved hanging out beside the pool watching their goofy parents splashing all over.

Daniel giving the camera a "gun show"

Jen and the kids cooling off. Andie loved the water today

John showing off his aerial acrobatics

Nate had fun diving for sunken treasures which the kids kept 'sinking' for him

This was one of Wills first times jumping off the diving board. He saw Daniel do it just moments earlier which gave him a little extra courage.

Nate and John played a game of "PIG" in the pool with the basketball hoop that hooked on the diving board. John came out victorious, but this was one of the trick shots Nate came up with that John wasn't able to repeat.

And this was the shot that sealed the deal for John