14 months & 4 years

wow - during the beginning of june charlie turned 14 months old and bill & i celebrated 4 years of wedded bliss :).

here are charlie and lily. it is harder and harder to get a picture without charlie moving. thankfully lily is obedient and just lays there!

i had to post this picture of charlie pointing at a picture of my mom (nana). ever since coming back from staying at my parent's house he has continued to go over to the book case he is not supposed to touch and carefully remove this picture frame and point at nana and repeat "nana nana nana". it is so sweet that he misses her and wants to point her out.

june 10th, 2006 i married my best friend. these past 4 years have been wonderful and we have been so blessed. i look forward to what God has in store for us in the years to come!

this year, we sat on our deck with charlie and enjoyed a glass of wine while admiring the new pot and flowers bill got me for our anniversary. i just have to say...i am hard core - no gifts for our anniversary. but my parents helped bill out so he could get me something because they knew he wants to give gifts and that i would return anything he bought me from our funds. thanks mom and dad and bill for being so thoughtful and loving!

our littlest trying his hardest to "pet" the flowers and not pluck them off.

a gorgeous hanging basket!

lindsay & rob's wedding!!!

on june 4th, lindsay and rob got married!!! it was a wonderful celebration and focused so much on God's faithfulness. i was so emotional! here are just a few pictures. i will post more when i get them :).

lindsay and me at her shower.

lindsay dasher and me at the wedding.

on thursday night, bill and i were able to stay with our friends bekka and jordan. it was great to catch up. we had so much to talk about it was hard to go to sleep! lucky for me, bekka is a crazy runner and was willing to get up early the morning of the wedding to go for a run with me. even when she saw it was raining and cold she was still game. here we are after our run - soaking wet! thanks bekka!!!
us looking much better at the wedding.
tom, laura, me and mary at the wedding.

me and weyam after a night full of dancing.

door county

sunday morning, we got up and drove up to door county. we completed our own little schmitt triathlon on saturday because after each activity we still had time for more. we swam/walked in lake michigan (it was too cold to really swim!), biked around peninsula state park and hiked.

we started off the day at the sand dunes. it was actually quite chilly so we just walked down the beach and played in the sand. lake michigan was beautiful, but freezing. charlie, however, would have loved it if we had let him swim in it. he insisted on walking in the water and wanted to go deeper, but he would have needed heated blankets to warm him after coming out.

charlie preferred to sit on the towel because the sand felt weird on his legs.

on our way to fish creek we stopped by cave point to have a snack and then headed to peninsula state park to bike. the bike ride around the peninsula is short, but it was nice to cruise around. we stopped to get some candy at the confectionary (i always have to stop and get some salt water taffy) and had coffee at a cute coffee shop then checked into our little cottage. after we got settled, we decided to climb the eagle tower and hike before dinner. i have spent so much time in door county throughout my childhood it is fun to go back and revisit things i did so many summer weekends.

after the bike ride.

charlie loved being pushed on bill's bike.

being a goofer at the coffee shop. he does so well when we do stuff all day - he is such a champ!

at the top of the tower.

we had dinner at the cutest pizza place. it was delicious. i love this picture because i leaned over to take a picture with charlie and he leaned in to give me a kiss! so sweet!

thankfully we were not camping because it was extremely cold. our little cottage had a gas fireplace for heat. as we were going to bed i started to get nervous about a freak fire breaking out and being in a fire trap of a cottage with charlie in the room next to us so i turned down/off the heat....my first BIG MISTAKE!!! charlie ended up getting up around 2 am because he was freezing (and so were we) so i brought him into bed with us....second BIG MISTAKE!!! in my delirium i forgot that charlie usually wakes up around 5 am but rolls over and goes back to sleep because we are not laying next to him. charlie was delighted to find us next to him....PARTY TIME!!! we were exhausted and still trying to sleep as charlie was having the time of his life hitting us saying dadada, mamamama, and squealing. we wanted coffee so bad. bill and charlie were out walking the streets at 6 am looking for a cup of joe, but nothing opened until 7. let's just say we were the first ones at the coffee shop.

so happy to be at the coffee shop!

outside our cottage.

one of the little bedrooms. charlie was already getting tired and it was just a bit before 7 am!

all in all it was a great trip, but definitely not a vacation. as bill said....to the untrained eye it would seem like we are on vacation. also - even though we timed the driving great because we drove from door county to green bay during 1 nap and then hung out at my parent's house for a couple hours to let charlie unleash some of his energy before starting to drive to rochester (about 4+ hour trip). the last 2 1/2 hours when charlie was awake in the car were exhausting! trying to entertain a toddler or listen to him whine/cry is hard. i was trying to sell bill on a portable dvd player that we would use for the last hour of the trip just so we can have some peace and quiet (i am not a fan of using them all the time or for the majority of the drive). maybe next time.

best week of charlie’s life

last week was full of adventures. my best bud/soul mate lindsay was getting married in madison on friday, june 4th to a wonderful guy named rob who is from new zealand! we planned a fun week and weekend around the wedding.

it started off on sunday, bill was post call so when he arrived home we headed off to sparta wisconsin to meet my parents to bike for the afternoon. it was also a way for charlie and i to get to green bay for the week because bill had to work through thursday. it was super hot and we were covered in sweat and dirt when we were done, but we had a fun couple of hours biking before leaving bill and heading to green bay to hang out for a few days.

this is before one of the tunnels on the sparta trail. you need flashlights (and should have jackets) because it gets super dark and "rains" on you when you are in the tunnel. as a kid, my family biked this trail a ton. it was great to have our family doing the same thing. after dinner we went to a park and had a picnic dinner. it was so hot we had to strip charlie down to a diaper!

this picture is just to remind me never to pack with a toddler again. i thought that i could at least start to pack his suitcase the day before, but no. charlie thought it was the best toy ever! he would pull everything out - spread it throughout the living room and then go in and out of the suitcase. at least he entertained himself for about an hour!

in green bay, charlie and i were able to hang out with nana, pops and auntie suzanne. we were went to visit my aunt dianna’s horses and charlie even got to ride! he was a bit afraid of the horses at first, but definitely warmed up after a bit.

i am here riding rj who is 34 years old!!! my mom actually trained rj when she was starting her first year at college. my aunt bought rj and has had him ever since. i have grown up around rj and it was great to see him again. i couldn't believe i was going to ride him, but my aunt insisted he was still kickin and doing great so i did. it was fun to have charlie get on a horse because so much of my life was spent around and on horses.

i love this picture.

on wednesday morning, suzanne drove me down to madison so i was able to be part of the wedding festivities without charlie :). before i left for madison charlie learned how to say "pops" and he significantly increased his usage of "nana". it was precious for me to watch charlie love on my parents and call them by their names! i will post wedding pictures later, but here is the rest of charlie's week.

he ate tons of good food and nana let him make a mess!

he made smoothies every day with pops and was able to drink smoothies constantly (he loves them!). could my dad have a bigger blender??? he is so proud of it :)

nana and pops set up their new tent and he was able to play with it. as you can see he loved it. how adorable are these pictures!

he played outside with hoses, pools, bug catchers, etc.

they went to the wild life sanctuary to feed the geese. he learned how to drive the boat and watch pops drive his harley (no charlie - you will never have a harley!).

my cousin monica loaned my mom a ton of toys charlie doesn't have. he had a blast playing with the toys (and loved this train) and helping nana swiffer up lily's hair. bill and i love that charlie is trying to swiffer with his mouth. he does this all the time with toys...where he tries to push the toy with his mouth. too funny.

on saturday morning, they took charlie to bay beach. they had to get one more big activity in before we arrived. bill and i drove back from madison saturday afternoon after enjoying the farmers market together. we were eager to see charlie, but as you can tell from the pictures he didn't even realize we were gone! we all stayed in green bay on saturday afternoon and enjoyed just playing together.

on sunday, our little family took off to door county to enjoy sunday and monday together (i will post that separately). thanks mom and dad for taking such good care of charlie. it was a wonderful get away. i had anxiously anticipated being away from charlie and was worried i would miss him too much or be really sad. surprisingly, i had a blast! i only called a couple times to check in on him (my mom was definitely surprised at this!) and i really enjoyed my time alone (especially with bill). it was great o be able to enjoy the wedding festivities without worrying about diapers, food for charlie, etc. thanks again!!!