Grandma & Grandpa X 2

Last Sunday was Camden's blessing day. We were so lucky to have both my parents and Jared's parents make it all the way out here for the special day. It was so much fun to have everyone here and gave us an excuse to do some of the things we've talked about doing before we move to Detroit. We had an action packed week and were going going going. Too bad Jared had to work and missed out on most of the fun. My boys absolutely LOVED having their grandparents here and loved that their trips overlapped so at times they had 4 extra adults doting on them.

Camden's Blessing:

Jelly Belly Factory:

After the tour Grammy got conned into buying lots of yummy Jelly Belly delicacies.

Maders:

Milwaukee has a large German influence and boasts many great German restaurants. Some friends had told us that Mater's has fantastic German food. Since my parents used to live in Germany and Jared served his mission there we decided to give it a whirl while they were in town. While I am not the hugest fan of German food I have to admit it was pretty fantastic. Sooo if you're ever in Brewtown with a craving for something German, Maders is the place. It was fun to get a sitter and have a night out with my parents.

The decor of the place was great, everyone said they felt like they were really in Germany. I on the otherhand wouldn't know because I've never been there. Someday...

Yum Diddly-umptious Frozen Custard:

Milwaukee has a Frozen Custard place on every other corner and boy is it delicious. I'm sure all of that heavy cream went straight to my arteries (not to mention my hips and thighs) but it was worth every bite.

Mitchell Park Domes:

We were told by some friends in AZ who grew up in Wisconsin that the Mitchell Park domes were a must while in Milwaukee. Basically it is a horticulture conservatory with 3 seperate domes which are all different climates. There is a Desert Oasis, a Tropical Dome and a Floral Garden. It was beautiful and there were a lot of amazing plants. To all my AZ friends: Come visit... we can go see the cacti!

Miller Brewery:
Can you live in Brewtown without visiting the Miller Brewery??? Well I didn't. I corrupted my children and took them on a tour of the Miller Brewery with Jared's parents. When Carter saw all of the beer bottles moving along the conveyer belt he said, "Wow! Look at all those Root Beer bottles!" That's my boy! It was pretty impressive... some useless facts you will never need to remember: The Milwaukee Brewery packages 200,000 cases of beer per day. Their warehouse is the size of 4 football fields holding 1/2 million cases of beer. In one year they produce enough beer to fill 17,500 olympic size swimming pools. Now that's a lot of beer!! (Information I'm sure you always wanted to know.)

Milwaukee Public Museum:

My boys love the Public Museum (and I love that it's free on Mondays). Their favorite is the dinosaur exhibit and I love the butterflies. They were excited to take Grandma and Grandpa Robbins to see the dinosaurs and Daddy was glad to have the afternoon off so he could come along.

Yes this is Jared attempting to eat the butterfly.

Taking a stroll through downtown Milwaukee

While at home they played and played and played and played with Grandma and Grandpa times 2. It was so much fun to have you all here. Thanks for coming to visit!

Dr. Robbins giving free exams.

Sock Hop

This week Carter's school held its annual Sock Hop. Jared had to work late and I wasn't too keen on the idea of taking 3 little boys by myself so I decided to get a sitter and take Carter on a date. (Shhh don't tell him I called it a date... he really didn't like that word... am I really that embarrassing already?!?)

So, for our little Mom & Me night we got decked out in our make shift 50's duds, went to McDonald's for a cheeseburger and headed to the Sock Hop where we enjoyed root beer floats, a hula hoop contest and lots of dancing. I think Carter may have had more fun running around with his friends than dancing with his mom but I managed to steal several dances.

I'm not sure what Carter thought a sock hop was but when we started getting ready he was really apprehensive. He didn't like the idea of getting dressed up and when I made a comment about it being a dance he broke down. He said he didn't want to dress up and he didn't want to dance because he would be embarrassed. Well it didn't take long for him to change his mind once we got there. It was so fun to be able to spend some one on one time with my little monster, something I intend to do more of!

Detroit?

We are gearing up for our upcoming move to Detroit. (Jared will do his residency there so we will be there for the next 4 years.) I am not excited to move again - I feel like I am just starting to get settled here, but such is life. What can we do but make the best of it! At least I know that after this move I won't have to move for 4 years!! (That will definitely be a record). We went to Detroit this weekend to get a feel for the city. I had never been there and I haven't heard great things about it. So in order to get a better feel for which suburbs we would like to start looking for a place to live we decided to make a quick trip there. (Although we can buy a house downtown for five hundred dollars we decided our safety is probably more important than being able to pay cash for our home.)

I have never felt so self conscious about my car then I did while I was driving around Detroit, and this coming from a girl who drove a raper truck in high school. See exhibit A:

I'm not sure the picture does it justice... it really was a hideous little pick up truck.

I think the entire time that we were there we only saw like 20 foreign cars... they were all American made!! Really?!? I didn't know people still bought American made cars... jk. It was interesting to see so many American cars. I guess it's because the economy of the area is built up around the American car industry, it only makes sense that people would want to support it. Jared said he felt like people were glaring at us in our Toyota Sienna. When someone wouldn't let him into a lane he commented, "it's probably because I'm driving a foreign car!" Perhaps if the economy were different we wouldn't have been so self conscious but pretty much I felt like I was driving around with a big banner on the side of my car that said, "I don't give a darn about you and your failing industry." I imagine it will only be worse when we move there and have to put Michigan plates on our Toyota! Looks like we might have to buy a new car...

We also decided to contact our realtor to see if he would be willing to show us a few homes that we had found online. There are quite a few foreclosures in Detroit so we thought we would take a gander at a few to see if this is something we would be interested in. Jared's pretty handy so we thought maybe we could fix something up... Two words: Absolutely Not!! The houses we saw were sooo nasty... rotting roofs, mold, animal urine, human feces... I can't even describe how awful these houses were, and the smell that eeked from them was something fierce! When we got to the 4th house Gage turns to Jared with his nose plugged, "Daddy, is this one going to stink?" Well at least now we know. Foreclosures aside, Detroit isn't as bad as it is made out to be. But then again we spent the majority of our time in the suburbs, pretty far from Detroit proper.

Not Irish!?!

So St. Patty's day was probably the warmest day we've had here since last October (I think it got to 60 degrees, not to worry it quickly fell back to the 30's). Our neighbor came over in the morning to see if Carter was wearing shorts to school. Carter's response: "Um, no. But I'm wearing green, are you wearing green - it's St. Patrick's day." The neighbors response, "No, I'm not Irish, I don't celebrate St. Patrick's day...pause... just Christmas and Easter." I think Carter was a little confused because we celebrate Christmas and Easter... and a lot of other holidays in between. I thought it was pretty funny, who knew you had to be Irish to wear green on St. Patty's. We don't go all out for this particular holiday (or do much at all for that matter). We didn't have green milk or pancakes like a good mom would have done, I didn't make corned beef and cabbage (I've never even eaten the stuff)... But we did wear green. Carter had fun at school talking about Leprechauns and rainbows and gold... Carter and Gage have since had to hide all of their treasures for fear that the Leprechauns would steal them.... we've even had a couple Leprechaun sightings while driving around town... oh to be a kid again!

Just For Fun...

Here are some recent pictures of baby Cam. He'll be 8 weeks on Tuesday, where has the time gone?!? We sure enjoy having this little guy around, he is such a good baby. He is the only one in this house that doesn't talk back! He gets more than his fair share of loves and kisses... although Gage has taken to abusing him as of late... yesterday he socked him one right in the stomach! It looks like Gage needs a little more one on one time this week! We wish we were closer to home so that we could share Camden with all of you!! He's getting big fast (not that he was ever that small)... I'm sure he's at least 13 pounds by now, what a little chunker (he weighs in with all of the 4 and 5 month old babies at church). He is smiling a ton and has started "talking" to us - so much fun! I'm even surviving with 3 boys... as long as I don't try to go anywhere with them!!