Last Day of Summer Vacation!

Ethan and I were lazy. On our last day of summer vacation, we unpacked and then we went to the park. We lounged around for a bit.

The Long Drive

We headed out bright and early for our long drive home. Remarkably, we ended up stopping at a place we had stopped on our way home the last time we all went to NC. It was a really fun nature center w/ picnic tables where we had lunch. We took a few minutes to look around before heading out.

Last Day

For the last day of our visit, we decided to stay close to home. We had a leisurely morning, Pa and Ethan played Sorry! then we went outside to catch some critters in the pond. We headed out for mini golf when it opened, and then we had some lunch at Everything Under the Bun, and went to the antiques mall. Ethan and Elise helped Grandma model hats. We stopped by a new cupcake bakery to pick up dessert. We went back and Jeannie had a craft she did with the kids. We celebrated birthdays after dinner- one late, one early.

Lots of Adventures

We started the day with a visit to the Greensboro Science Center. It was quite a change from our last visit. They added penguins and sharks, not to mention a much updated hands-on play area. They also had a peek-a-boo area under the otter habitat. That's where we finally located Ethan and Elise who wandered off during the middle of a presentation at the shark tank. We took off after them almost immediately, but they had vanished.

After a discussion about staying with grown ups, we headed outside where they have this lovely outdoor space with more animals. We had our picnic lunch and walked around a bit, then headed out.

It was relatively early, so we decided on one more adventure for the way home- a trip to Pa's favorite ice cream place, Homeland Creamery. They had cows to pet this time!

As we headed back from Homeland, Pa noticed this little historical marker he had been meaning to stop at for a while, so we did. The kids didn't want to get out of the car, so of course once they had, they didn't want to get back in. It was a pretty spot, though a bit buggy.

When we got back to the house, it was time for some water fun.

Grandma and Pa decided to dig potatoes. Their equipment might be a little out of scale for the job. But it wasn't long before they decided to join in the fun.

NC Zoo

Of course we spent our first day at the NC Zoo. It was a beautiful day, and they had a special event to celebrate Pa's gorilla family. They were giving everyone books about the zoo, and they had people on hand to talk about the gorillas. There was cake, too. We left at lunchtime to go have lunch with Grandma who had to work. We enjoyed some lunch, then headed back to see the rest of the zoo.

North Carolina!

Jeannie, Elise, Ethan and I headed out early in the morning for the looooong drive to NC. We stopped along the way for lunch at a park where we were delighted to discover an historic site. We were rather horrified by the event, but pleased to have the opportunity to share with the kids that the right to vote is not to be taken for granted. When we finally arrived at Grandma and Pa's, we had dinner and headed out to feed the fish. We began a nightly ritual of fish feeding and frog catching, then we headed for bed early.

Mine Hill

We went on a cub scout den hike to the Mine Hill preserve in Roxbury, a 19th century iron complex. It was a really cool place to explore, even if we got a little misdirected and were in the woods for what seemed like hours.

This is what we did when we got home.

Camp Oakasha

We went to family night at Camp Oakasha. We got to see Ethan's pirate flag, his was one of the winners hung on the wall. He played some music, gaga and basketball. We're lucky to have a great camp, it's his favorite.

Party Prep

This year, Ethan helped with the party invites. He was in charge of stamping "Top Secret" on classified documents.

The Farm & A Visitor

We were up early to go visit Gramps. When I looked out the bathroom window, I had to rub my eyes and try again. There was a raccoon drinking from the pool. We watched him for a while as he scratched at a tree, sniffed around looking for food, and played with a branch. We headed out to spend the day with Gramps. We got to check out the work he was doing at the barn on some furniture he was making. Ethan was happy to catch a ride to the barn. While we were there, Gramps help him cut out the shape of his soap box derby car. We took Gramps to lunch in Callicoon only to have him pay. We were waiting so long for the waitress to come pick up the check and run the credit card through that finally we just let Gramps pay cash so we could leave. He quite enjoyed that we made him pay and probably won't let us live that down for a while. When we got home, we found the raccoon there again.

Spy Party Prep

We're getting things ready for a spy party for Ethan's school chums. That's a marshmallow shooter on the right, James is in charge of that. The invitation includes a secret message to decode.

Before & After Fun

Ethan checked out the camp at Flanders for a few weeks. That meant he got to ride almost all the way to work with me. This morning, we left early and stopped at Dotties to enjoy a donut. After camp, we went to March Farm in Bethlehem to spend some time at the playscape and checking out the goats. I don't think he'll go back to Flanders next year. Despite there being many counselors around, they didn't seem to pay much attention to the campers and it was rather chaotic. He did enjoy being in the barn with the animals though.

Last day

We spent our last day in Wisconsin lounging at the hotel pool for a bit. Then we headed to Kopp's Frozen Custard for an early lunch prior to heading for the airport. After our giant burgers, I had creamsicle. It was delicious. Ethan had chocolate, but you knew that. We said our goodbyes at the airport and headed for home. It's always so sad to leave the Alexanders, but we had a great time together.

Mader's

We had to go to a German restaurant called Mader's. Everyone said so. Various presidents, celebrities, etc. had eaten there over the years. My favorite was Cary Grant. But the real appeal was the promise of a giant pretzel. It wasn't on the menu, had we not been in the know it wouldn't have happened. All that research paid off. We all loved it. Oh wait, there's one more chair picture.

Wisconsin State Fair!

 We had quite a lot of adventures at the state fair. The giant slide came highly recommended, and it didn't disappoint. Daredevils Naomi and Vivian also had some trampoline fun. I can't believe how high up they bounced.

 After that, we had to stop by the pig races. Because really, how could we miss that? We grabbed some lemonade and headed for the animal barns. Vivian and Ethan milked a fake cow. I guess it must cost too much in insurance to let them milk a real one.

 We also learned that people in Wisconsin are hard core about the photo props. Grown ups were shoving the kids out of the way for the bugs bunny shot. We heard the cream puffs were fantastic, but honestly they were pretty much the same as the big E. I still prefer the Betty Crocker version with homemade vanilla custard. Mmmm... maybe I should make some. We also went to see what we thought was a magic show. It turned out to be a poodle show. The schedule online was different from the print schedule. The kids enjoyed the poodles regardless.

 We also took a ski-lift style ride so we could get a birds-eye view of the fair. We also spent more time in a tent than we probably would have if it hadn't started to rain. There were some good shows though, including a very funny ventriloquist.

 We also went in one of the craft tents and saw this amazing John Deere made of tin cans. And don't worry, we took full advantage of the fried and on-a-stick offerings, particularly Barbara. I think she was intent on trying nearly all of them. My favorite, by far, was the Hot Wisconsin Cheese. It wasn't fried cheese curds, it was cheddar. It was delicious.

There was also bacon wrapped tater tots on a stick, but those were disappointing. We tried the flavored milk- a quarter a cup- and I think we got all the flavors except one. I enjoyed the root beer the most. Ethan liked the chocolate. The orange was also pretty good. We finally made it to the Houdini tribute magic show, and guess who got picked to go on stage and help the magician? Yep, that's right- Ethan and Vivian. They did a great job. After that, we headed out to get some dinner.

Dells & Milwaukee

Wednesday was the last night in our rental house. We weren't too sorry about that. It was definitely a step down from the Mine Company House in South Dakota. I don't know whether they didn't do a thorough cleaning because the people before us checked out late, or if that's their usual standard, but it was sub-par. Anyway, we left the house and headed out for our final dells activity, a boat ride. We anticipated that it was probably under an hour, but none of our tickets listed any times. So we were surprised to hear the tour guide announce that it was a two hour tour when we started pulling away from the dock. This resulted in near mutiny in the children, who were already cranky at the idea of a boat tour (weird, right?). They finally rallied and had fun (I think). Ethan took about a million pictures of water with my camera. We got off the boat to walk through a gulch and got to see some really interesting formations. We got off again to see a dog jump from one to another, where a local photographer who invented a technique to take shots of motion had his son jump in the early 20th century. They don't let people do it anymore. 

We grabbed a quick lunch and hit the road for Milwaukee. Now *that* was a long ride. We were relieved to exit the car upon our arrival at the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear, Jonathan's find. It was really fun. The collection of one man, of local history from the early 20th century. They made their early telephones operational so the kids had a great time calling one another. They also had a movie theater where we could watch popeye and a number of other films they had made. 

After that, we went down to the riverwalk and found  the Bronze Fonz. We had fun giving him the thumbs-up. Then we went to what may have been the most fun dining experience of the trip, the Safe House restaurant. It was a spy themed establishment, and it was unmarked. You had to know which door to knock on. Then, when we were permitted in, the kids (much to Naomi's disgust) were forced to behave as gorillas in order to gain entry to the restaurant. Once we ordered, we were given a secret mission. We paused to eat our food, and then headed out again. Naomi was the one who figured out how to exit the place. The key was the payphone, and that's all I'll say in case you ever go. 

Before heading for our hotel, we explored a little more of the art around the riverwalk and then went to Leon's to check out this frozen custard thing. Everyone told us to get butter pecan. I shouldn't have listened. I mean, for butter pecan it was good, but who likes that? I should have gotten chocolate like Ethan did, he liked it. From there we checked in to our hotel- it was quite an experience. The most hilarious part was driving into the parking lot to see people tailgating. No lie, a mini weber and they were all set for dinner! It went downhill. Jonathan booked through expedia or some third party site, and they somehow lost his reservation. Luckily, they managed to get a room although the hotel was sold out. I guess someone who arrived later was out of luck.

Circus World & So Much More!

We started the day at Circus World in Baraboo. We saw lots of posters and optical illusions, and then headed for a magic show. We played on a playground that had an acrobatic circus theme, and rode on a carousel. We even saw an elephant getting a bath, and put on a little circus of our own.

Our second stop was going to be the Mustard Museum, but we were hungry. We stopped at the nearby diner for lunch, and of course some pie. They had amazing pie. Ethan tried oreo, I tried coconut cream. Then we went to the mustard museum, which was so much fun. It does not take itself too seriously, and I enjoyed the mustard-themed art, such as "The Persistence of Condiments" based on a Salvador Dali painting. They claimed to have the world's only mustard vending machine. I have no reason to doubt this.

From there, we went to the House on the Rock. We had heard various things about this, but still wanted to check it out. The verdict, it was cool, but the criticisms that it was filthy and not maintained are not without merit. Given the cost of tours, I can't imagine why they don't work harder on upkeep. We only saw one section of the house. We arrived too late to do the extensive tour anyway. There was a cantilevered part of the house that extended way out over the rock, and it moved. I did not care for that, but Vivian was doing carwheels so it was just me bothered by it I think.

We needed to get dinner by the time we returned to the dells, so we opted for the tater tot restaurant. I kid you not, everything was covering a bed of tater tots. It was amazingly delicious. It had potential to be terrible, but the kids loved it and so did the adults. The only fail was the dessert. We started off really well, but then they got busy, and they were short on kitchen staff, so we ended up waiting forever for dessert, which was really not very good. Tater tots and whipped cream with chocolate sauce makes for soggy tater tots.

When we finally made our escape, we headed for Pirate's Cove- we wanted to squeeze in a round of mini golf. It nearly turned into an all-out brawl, however. We had to golf in two group because they had a six person group limit. So we decided to do our family and the Alexanders as our two groups. There was someone slow in front of us, so they kept catching up and we had the nerve to talk to each other, so some kid who worked there came over and told us that other people complained we were a large group. Barbara set him straight. That unpleasant incident was soon overshadowed by holes in one. First Naomi got one. Then Ethan. Poor Vivian was starting to get really sad, thinking she wasn't going to get one. Then, on the last hole no less, she hit it in on the first shot. Three kids, three holes in one!!! Not the adults so much, I believe at one point Barbara declared, "That's how you get a hole in three, people."