Janna's Visit

In July my sister-in-law came to town to visit.  I always love seeing her.  This time it had been quite awhile since our last visit, so I was loving it!

We went out to Lake Geneva for some dinner at the Sprecher Restaurant (one of our very favorites).  I don't think I've ever had better broccoli soup.  Wow.  And then we walked around and enjoyed the beautiful evening.

Showing off her little purse that she got.

Since Janna loves baseball, we just had to go to a Brewer's game.  Emma didn't mind either. =)

On our last day with her we went down to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.  It's always fun there.

I enjoyed every moment of her visit, and can't wait to do it again!

Father's Day

I just wanted to share Emma's Father's Day gift to Eric.  She saw this and knew it was what she wanted to give him.  It definitely is along the lines of our humor.  When Eric opened it he loved it.  He now wears it very proudly and says it's one of his favorite shirts!

Emma's Birthday Party

We decided to have Emma's birthday party early this year so that she could invite one of her best friends.  This friend is moving this summer and will be gone before Emma's actual birthday rolls around.  So Emma got to celebrate already.  Lucky girl!

She wanted to do something similar to last year, and only invite a couple girls.  This allows us to be more mobile with our activity.  We took the girls down to the Legoland Discovery Center in Illinois.  We had never been, and thought it might be fun since Emma loves Legos so much.  The girls did end up having a lot of fun.

There was a big jungle themed area with lots of huge lego animals all over. 

I think the girls had the most fun building their own cars to race down the tracks.
They each made several different cars.

About the let their cars go down the track.

Listening to the girls in the car on the way down and back was almost the best part.  They were all so crazy silly and just giggly and having such a good time.  Since we're a little over an hour away there was plenty of car time too.  I love seeing (and hearing) Emma enjoy herself so much.  I definitely think this party was a success!

Sheboygan

Earlier this month the state had a "free" day where all the state parks had free entrance and no fishing license was required for fishing, and a few other things, along with several programs and events all over the place.  We decided to drive to Sheboygan to go to the Kohler Park Dunes State Natural Area just for fun because they were having a kids fishing thing, and Emma likes to fish.

It was a beautiful day to be outside.  Probably the most perfect weather day so far this year.  The sun was shining and the temperature was wonderful.  On our way we drove past the world's tallest flagpole.  It was dedicated last June.  The pole is 400 feet tall.  On the flag itself, each star is three feet high and each stripe is four and a half feet wide.  It was pretty impressive.

Fishing was fun.  They had activities for the kids to do before or after they went fishing, including decorating a t-shirt and learning how to clean a fish.  They also gave each kid a tackle box and some tackle.

On the way home we passed a shopping area and decided to stop and wander around.  The weather was so perfect we didn't want to be inside.  They were even having an event there with a free climbing wall.  Emma was very pleased - she loves these things.