I love May!

May is definitely one of my favorite months! While we do get a taste of spring in April, and sometimes even a teaser in March, May is when we can be fairly sure that spring has really arrived.  I know, I've heard about ice storms as late as May in Wisconsin, but I'm kind of in denial about that type of thing.

Reason #1:  Orioles

I think this is the second year that I have tried to attract orioles to our back yard by putting out an orange and some grape jelly. And we had visitors again this year, although I don't think there was quite as much activity as there was last year. Maybe it's because I had it in a different spot this year. I may have to go back to the original spot next year.  They sure are beautiful!

Reason #2:  Mother's Day

This bouquet was a nice surprise on our doorstep a few days before Mother's Day, from Matt and Cheryl. The roses were beautiful and lasted for over a week. Those buds are lilies, and they started opening about the time that the roses were wilting.

Here are the lilies in bloom, with a few lilacs from our bush to add a little color.

We enjoyed Mother's Day brunch with the Brassers and Jane and Steve, which was very nice.  Phone calls and/or FaceTime sessions with all of my kids and grandkids made my day very special. It's simply a joy to be "Mom" and "Grandma" to all of them.

Another surprise a day or two after Mother's Day was a sock subscription from Ben. Aren't these socks the greatest??  I love the colors!  (Bob also got this for his birthday---I think his socks are wilder than mine!)

Reason #3:  My birthday

Ben asked me once if it made me feel bad that I have both of my "special" days so close together. Very sweet of him to think of that, but really I don't mind. It just makes the month of May all the more special.

The people at Kopp's must have know about my birthday, because the flavor of the day on the 21st was Heath Bar, my favorite!! OK, they were off by one day, but close enough. Maybe next year they'll get it right. :)

Yum Yum!!

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year, and we were invited over to some friends for coffee and Kringle after church  and it was a lovely day to sit out on their patio while enjoying some delicious Racine Kringle. Abby and Neil drove up in the afternoon, and we had dinner at Cafe Hollander (outdoor dining, of course!) The Brassers came over after dinner for birthday cake, purchased, with love, by Bob.
Cards, phone calls, FaceTime sessions, birthday songs from the grandkids--all made me feel very much loved.

A free birthday drink from Starbucks

the day after my birthday

Reason #4: Lilacs and other flowering bushes and trees

One of our white lilacs

A nice surprise the first spring that we lived here was to find that we have two lilac bushes.  I love lilacs!! I just wish that they lasted longer--I think that I may have to look for a new variety that I heard about--it's called "Bloomerang" because it blooms a second time later in the summer.  Two years ago we also added a white lilac bush.  Last year I think we had one blossom on it, and this year we had about 6.  They are so pretty, and I brought one of the blossoms in to enjoy in the house.

In addition to the lilacs, we also have another flowering bush, and I never knew what kind of bush it was.  It was exceptionally pretty this year, and I was really curious to know what it is.  So I posted a couple of pictures on FaceBook and asked if anyone knew what it was.  I got a couple of different answers, but the most likely one seemed to be Weigela. You can always count on your FaceBook friends!!

Brought one sprig inside to enjoy

I can't really say that baseball is one of my reasons for loving the month of May, but we did have a baseball outing with Roger and Sheryl. They drove up on the 18th for a game between the Brewers and the Cubs. I think that there were as many (or maybe even more) Cub fans than Brewer fans in attendance that day, but the Brewer fans went home happy. 

Sorry if you missed seeing the grandkids again in this post. I'll try to do better with that in the next one.

April in Wisconsin

Anyone who lives, or has lived, in Wisconsin knows that April in Wisconsin does not mean that winter is over.

I mentioned in the last post that Molly came for an extended visit. She was still with us for the first 10 days of April.  As  you can see, she has a very exciting life here with the old folks.

Actually she was probably all worn out from protecting us from all the dangers in our neighborhood---bikers, joggers, walkers, other dogs and of course the occasional deer.

Adam and Rachel made an unexpected trip to Northwest Iowa the first week of  April because Adam's Grandma Wissink passed away. This is the Grandma that Hope Caroline is named for. It's very sad that Grandma Wissink never got to meet Hope. They decided to break up their trip a bit, with an overnight stop at our house.

We're always happy when these two stop by.

When they came back from Iowa they stopped by again, this time for the whole week-end. This visit had been planned as part of Jeremiah's spring break week. 

 Who could resist that face?

Watching the wildlife in the back yard

She still can take a bath in Grandma's kitchen sink!

Hope was very interested in GooGoo

Gorilla's pacifier--she made a switch!

It's pretty much become standard procedure to have lunch at Panera after church when the kids are in town. Hope is a HUGE fan of their macaroni and cheese!

She really gets into it!

Jeremiah is more of a PB&J guy--

not quite so messy.

One nice thing about April is that even though there might be snow, we usually also see some signs of spring. 

Daffodils--my favorite sign of spring, on a good 

day, with no snow. 

Someone very special has a birthday in April, on the 20th.  And I am not referring to Adolph Hitler, even though he does share that birthday.

Free birthday "Monkey Bread" 

at Blue's Egg

On the 25th we had an outing with Roger and Sheryl at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It was a gorgeous day and it is a wonderful place. The tulips and other early spring flowers were beautiful.  We had a great lunch outdoors at the Garden Cafe there. We will definitely be going back there again. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. :(

This pesky little rascal is still around and is very determined.  He is not deterred by Bob's little tricks, like putting WD-40 on the pole to make it harder for him to climb up. 

Nice to see the green grass!

And that's about it for April---stay tuned for May!

Random stuff from Feb. and March

 Warning: No pictures of grandkids in this post!

For the last two weeks of February and all of March, we pretty much stayed close to home.  We also didn't have any visitors of the human variety---only one canine. We did do a day trip down to Chicago for an outing with Roger and Sheryl.  We went to the Dreihaus Museum, which had a special exhibit of costumes from Downton Abbey.  It was very interesting and it made me very sad that the show is not on anymore. We walked from the museum to Quartino's for lunch. This was sort of a repeat field trip for us---we had gone to the museum before for a different exhibit.  And we liked Quartino's so much the first time, that we decided to go back. All the food was great, but the dessert would have made the whole trip worthwhile--little donut-like things, served warm, with a chocolate dipping sauce.  My mouth is watering just thinking about this!

We must have been a bit bored during these dreary months, because we decided to make a few changes in our technology.  When Bob started to do the taxes on Turbo Tax, he got a message that he needed to update to Windows 10 or some such thing.  Well, we didn't think that this would even be possible on Abby's old hand-me-down Dell.  So we went shopping for a new laptop.  This was a bit of a learning curve for both of us, and I really haven't gotten into using it much---I rely on the iPad and still use the old Dell for stuff like this blog. (Because I haven't taken the time to figure out how to do it on the laptop.)  About that time I also got a notice that I could upgrade my phone, so I decided to take advantage of that.  So I went from using Abby's hand-me-down iPhone 4, to an iPhone 5s.  I could have gone to a 6, but I didn't really like the bigger size. Fortunately not too much of a learning curve with the phone.

Then I also noticed that our AT&T bill had taken a bit of a jump--again.  So I decided to gather all my patience and make a call to see what I could do to bring the bill down.  I got a very nice person on the phone who actually seemed to have English as her main language!  After looking at our situation, she said that the best deal for us would be to switch from U-verse to DirecTV for our cable service. I had been told this once before, but Bob was not excited about doing that. So this time I put him on the phone with the girl at AT&T and she was able to convince him that it would be a good thing to do. That's been a pretty easy transition--Bob was worried that we would lose our service every time we had bad weather, but that really hasn't been a problem. It certainly hasn't happened any more often than it did with U-verse. So I think it was a good change. And we brought our bill down about $40 a month.

Last year for my birthday the kids gave me a "Plant of the month" type of thing for six months, and I really enjoyed all the plants that I got.  Unfortunately, I was not able to keep them all alive, but a few of them are still with us.  One of the plants was a mini-orchid, and it was blooming when I got it.  There were directions for what to do with it to get it to bloom again, and it seemed simple enough even for me.  I had to put it by a north-facing window, and give it a quarter cup of water every 2 weeks. Lo and behold, this is what happened:

An orchid blooming in February!

March is still a winter month, at least it is in Wisconsin.

And we have frequent visits from the neighborhood deer in the winter. They somehow seem to know when Bob has filled the bird feeders, and they just trot right over to help themselves.

If Bob catches them, the tries to scare them away by knocking on the window. Sometimes it works.

One highlight in March was going to see the live broadcast of "Prairie Home Companion" with Garrison Keillor. Since he is retiring, this was the last chance to see this in Milwaukee.  We really enjoyed it!

One day we decided to take a little drive up to Cedarburg--I could hardly believe that it was Bob's suggestion.  Maybe he was jealous that he usually misses out on our Cedarburg outings.  Of course Creme and Crepe was a must for lunch.

The dessert crepes are the best!

This next picture was taken a bit later in the month--notice the snow is gone. The deer are not the only uninvited guests at our bird feeders.  This little rascal got pretty good at making it up that pole to get at the feeder.

Oh, I think I mentioned a canine visitor--yes, Molly came to spend a couple weeks with us!  The Wissinks went to Des Moines for the Easter week-end, and so we drove down on Good Friday to meet them in the Chicago area and brought Molly home with us.  They had plans to come to Wisconsin during Jeremiah's spring break in April, so that's when they would pick her up again.

 Hard to say no to that face!

A man and his dog :)

Well, that pretty much takes us through March.  I promise that there will be some grandkid pictures in the next post.

February Birthday Boys

When I arrived home from California on the 13th, I came home to a houseful of company.  The Wissinks had arrived the day before so that we could have an early birthday celebration for Jeremiah.  Ben joined us on Saturday, so we could also celebrate his birthday a bit late.

Cheryl and I had done some shopping on my last day in California.  She was actually looking for shoes for Josie, but didn't find any. She did, however, find a pair for Hope that she couldn't quite resist.  So she sent them along home with me, along with Jeremiah's birthday present.

Hope sporting her new shoes from Aunt Cheryl

What's a birthday without presents when you're 6 years old?  Jeremiah was pretty happy with the things he opened--he loves Legos!!  

He was also pretty excited about the Dizzy Fun Land building set, and he was a little disappointed that he couldn't start building it right away.  He had to wait until he got back home, and then he and his Daddy tackled it pretty quickly. 

Jeremiah's choice for a birthday dinner was Red Robin, so that's where we went. Sorry, no picture of that.  But when we got back home it was time for cake, picked out at the store by Grandpa, since Grandma wasn't home to bake one. 

6 years old!!

The Birthday Boys

We're not sure about this, but we suspect that a certain little girl was a bit of a "draw" for Ben to drive up from Chicago. Hope has definitely worked her way into her Uncle Ben's heart in a big way!!

Uncle Ben and Hope reading stories

It was a fun time celebrating the two February birthday boys!

California trip--February

We really were not planning to make a trip to California again this soon, but Cheryl's diagnosis sort of changed that.  And at first I was sort of waiting to find out if her Mom was going to make a trip out there, but I found out that she was going to go in March so that she could be there when Matt took his trip to D.C. with his students. So when I found that out, and when I found out that Grandparents' Day at Redlands Christian was going to be on Feb. 12, I got busy checking on air fares.

Cheryl had her first (of 6) chemo treatments on Feb. 1, and I flew out on  Saturday the 6th and came back on the 13th.  By the time I got there, Cheryl was getting past the nausea that came with the chemo, but she was still feeling pretty wiped out.  She also had picked up a bad cough from the kids, and also dealt with a headache that lasted a few days.  So she was not feeling really great the first few days I was there.  So I was happy that I was there to get the kids to and from school, and to spend time with Evan when he wasn't in school.

That Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday, and I went with Matt and the kids to a party with a bunch of their friends. (Cheryl decided to stay home and rest, and I think she enjoyed her quiet day.) The party was in Palm Springs at a home where their friend's parents were spending the winter. The pool was a much bigger attraction than the game for the kids, so I spent a lot of time sitting out by the pool watching the kids.

Josie, with Maddie and Kenzie

Evan with Katelyn

Of course there was lots of good food at the party, and once the kids were done swimming they found things to do in the house.  Evan was pretty outnumbered by the girls in this group, so while all the girls were playing "girl stuff" in one room, he found something to entertain himself in another room. 

He thought this keyboard was pretty cool.

He was checking out all the different buttons

for the different rhythms and beats. 

I really didn't do a very good job of documenting this visit in pictures.  I should have gotten at least one of Evan on his bike, because that was one of his favorite things to do. I did catch him doing some work with his tool bench, though.

Putting on his safety goggles

Hard at work

While I was sitting outside one day, I noticed a hummingbird flitting around near their empty feeder, so Evan and I decided that we'd better take care of that situation. So we made some hummingbird food and filled the feeder. 

Cooking up some sugar water for the hummers

One nice warm day we met Matt after school at a place that sells Icy treats.  Now I know this place has a name, and if I had done this more promptly I maybe would have remembered the name of it.  But......no such luck.  It was a nice treat on a warm day. I think Josie and Evan's lips and tongues showed the color of their treat for quite a while.

The parasols are a cute touch :)

By the middle of the week, Cheryl was feeling a lot better and was up to getting out and doing some things.  On that Wednesday we all drove down to Temecula to meet up with Matt's friend Aaron, who was in San Diego for a conference. We met him for lunch and then spent some time at a park.  We had brought cupcakes along, because it just happened to be Aaron's birthday. (no picture of Aaron, though.)

The cupcakes were pretty amazing!

Friday was Grandparents' Day at Redlands Christian.  Evan doesn't go to school on Fridays, so it was just a Grandma and Josie thing. 

School was dismissed at noon that day so that grandparents could take their grandkids out for lunch.  So I took Josie and Evan to one of their favorite places--Chick fil A.  Seems like it must be a favorite of a lot of kids, because there were lots of grandparents and kids there.

Oops, I almost forgot to post this last picture. Evan sometimes naps in the afternoon, and sometimes he doesn't. When he doesn't nap, he sometimes has trouble lasting through dinner time.  I think this picture was taken on a no-nap day.

 Evan and Puppy--all worn out

And that was my week!  I had an early flight back to Milwaukee on Saturday morning. 

Next post:  February birthdays

January, 2016

I obviously needed a bit of a break after all those blog posts about our time in California.  But I'd better get back on task here, and get caught up before summer!

We arrived home from California on January 7, with 3 overnight stops on our drive again.  Our last day was a shorter day and included a stop in Chicago at Roger and Sheryl's for a little visit. And we also picked up our Honda which had been parked at their house for a couple of weeks after Ben was finished using it.

We adjusted to the cold weather and got back into the swing of things with our normal activities--Bob's tutoring at Cross Trainers Academy, his church meetings, my MOPS nursery volunteering, some work in the BCS library, and for both  of us our Friday morning coffee with the senior group from church and Friday evening dinner at Panera with the Brassers.  We are definitely creatures of habit!!

We also got a couple of difficult phone calls to receive in January.  On the 20th we got a call from Laura Szotko informing us that Carl had passed away.  This was pretty much unexpected---in spite of the health issues he has dealt with over the past few years, he really had been doing quite well and was recovering from his most recent bout in the hospital. So that was very sad news to get. It made us very thankful for the wonderful time we had with him and Cora Mae at our last Waanderfest, celebrating his 87th and Cora Mae's 85th birthdays.

Then a few days later, on the 23rd, we got a call from Matt telling us about Cheryl's diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  That was really difficult news to get--at that point they really had no information except for that diagnosis and they were both pretty much devastated.  We got that call about an hour before we were leaving to go to Michigan for Carl's funeral and the visitation.  So that was a pretty hard week-end.  But it was wonderful to be with all our family as we celebrated Carl's life, and it was also helpful to share the news about Cheryl with everyone, and to be assured of everyone's prayers for her.

There was one more event in January---Derek Buikema's wedding in Chicago on the 29th..  We drove down that morning and picked Abby up at school at noon, had lunch with her and then went to Orland Park for the wedding. Neil joined Abby after the ceremony, and we all attended the reception.  Then we spent the night with Abby and Neil at their apartment.  On Saturday morning we had breakfast at a restaurant near their apartment, and Ben joined us there.  Then we spent a couple hours at the Garfield Park Conservatory with Abby and Neil before heading for home.

That pretty much covers January, and I don't have a single picture to share.

Next up:  My trip to California in February