Goodbye Madison

Enjoying a fantastic brunch at a place called Sardine, overlooking one of the lakes.
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Late dinner

Here we are in Mad Town (talking like
a local already) doing our part to save
the US economy. Tonight we're headed
out to dinner at L'Etoile, one of the
country's top "farm-to-plate"
restaurants. They specialize in locally
grown ingredients from the heartland.

Our reservations are for 8:15, which is
9:15 our time. Ok, that's not really that
late, except that we're usually wrapping
dinner up around 6:00 to keep the
hungry little chickens back at home happy.

Obligatory visit to local Irish pub

The Guinness isn't quite as dark in Mad Town
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Cheese curds

Ok eating our first batch of cheese curds and loving them. Did I mention they were fried cheese curds? Yum
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Off to Madison!

Ali and I just boarded a tiny plane at National airport, bound for Madison
Wisconsin! This trip was a surprise birthday present for Ali. I know,
Madison isn't exactly Paris, but the Forward Music Fest is this weekend and
the Detroit Cobras and Dexter Romweber (along with two dozen other bands)
will be playing.

The kids are looking forward to their sleepover weekend at Mimi and
Grandpa's, and we're slowly adjusting to a kid-free weekend. While waiting
for our plane at the airport, we had coffee, read the whole paper and I
refinanced our mortgage over the phone. With kids, that all would have
taken three or four days.

Ok, ready for takeoff!

Three Musketeers Outing

We had fun yesterday catching up with Jake's buddies, Rachel and Jocelyn. After a snack at Rachel's house, we all went over to Cabin John Park to play and ride the train.

Here they are on the engine. The conductor was very focused on keeping his train on schedule and finally agreed to let us take a quick picture as long we agreed to "make it snappy."

Sadie loved the train ride! Big smiles and lots of pointing. And, we saw a deer!


I'll be sad when the kids are too old to be convinced to make any pose for my amusement.


More pictures...

Back to School Night

Last night was Back to School Night at Merritt Academy where the kids have been going for two weeks now. It was fun to hear stories about the kids and to talk with their teachers (without the kids running around or crying or jumping or talking or screaming or....) We learned that Jake takes his weekly jobs very seriously -- this week he's Door Holder. He loves to make and play with Gak, and to build with blocks and play with trains. And he's in love with a little girl named Grace. Hee hee!

In Sadie's class, they talked about how she's still adjusting, but doing much better and feeling more comfortable every day. It was nice to hear that for someone like Sadie who had never been in daycare, she was doing great. To help with the transition, they've been letting Sadie wear her backpack all day. Apparently, it's her security blanket and she tries to put it back on if they take it off and hang it up. We knew about this, but didn't quite know the extent of her addiction. Her teachers showed us some pictures of the kids finger painting. They were all in just diapers so their clothes didn't get custom paint jobs, except for little Sadie, who was wearing her diaper.............and her backpack. It was too cute. But, they said yesterday was the first whole day where she didn't wear her backpack!! So, we're making progress!