Extended Family Gathering

In mid-July, Lynda's uncle Jack passed away so we headed out to Milwaukee for the funeral service. On the positive, it gave us a chance to see many members from Grandma Czar's family that we don't see too often. After the funeral, we all went out for a nice dinner at Olive Garden and later went swimming in the nice pools at the hotel. Pictured with Kayla are her second cousins who she had fun running around with outside the restaurant.

Company Picnic

We continued our busyness in early July by heading up to Mt. Olympus in the Dells for the American Family company picnic. It didn't start out too well as Kayla was crabby and didn't like being splashed (tough in a water park) and that made Daddy crabby too. Luckily Mommy forced us to just chill out and eat lunch and things went a little better in the afternoon.

Little Amerricka

The day after we got back from the cabin we took the kids out to Little Amerricka amusement park in Marshall, WI with LeAnne and cousins Tiara and Emry. It got off to kind of a rough start as we had a brief torrential downpour but once it cleared up it turned out to be a really nice day. Kayla had a lot of fun on train ride and going on rides with her cousins. Amber enjoyed sleeping on the train and relaxing in the shade.

Cabin - Part II

Kayla was a big fan of going out on the boat at the cabin. She went out a couple of times and had a ton of fun - hence all the big smiles in the pictures. She actually kept yelling at Uncle Bryan to "go faster!" She also tried her hand at fishing for the first time. She had fun holding the fishing pole in the water but didn't seem to have too much interest in the fish after she caught it.

Wilderness Walk

While up at the cabin we took a day trip up to Hayward to go to the Wilderness Walk. They have a big area where the kids can walk around and pet animals, other animals in zoo-type enclosures, and a few other fun play areas for the kids. Even with all the fun animals there, I still think Kayla's favorite part was the fake outhouse that she could hide in. The only negative was lunchtime - there was a completely obnoxious kid belting out repeated ear-piercing screeches in the lunch building (and of course no parents trying to stop him) and the food left a bit to be desired, to put it nicely.

Cabin - Part I

At the beginning of July we headed up to Northern WI to visit G&G Czar's cabin. It was Amber's first time up there! We had a lot of fun up there swimming in the lake, going fishing, boating, lighting fireworks, and even a side trip up to the Wilderness Walk. Here are some random pictures from the trip.

Family Pictures

Grandma and Grandpa Czar came to visit for a few days on the way up to the cabin and Grandpa was excited to get a cowboy picture with his little cowgirl. A few days after G&G Czar headed out, the family ventured over to Grandma Ferris' house to celebrate Emry's 3rd birthday. Nothing like trying to get a picture of 4 kids altogether when 3 of them are 3 or less...

Amber - 2 Months

Amber is 2 months old!!! We took her in for her 2 month check-up and every thing was great, other than watching her suffer through 3 shots :( She is growing very well and is 70% in weight and 80% in height.

More importantly though, she started sleeping through the night!!!!!! Such a good little girl :)

Safety Saturday

Every year all the safety organizations (police, fire, etc.) around town put on an event on the square to educate people about safety. Daddy took Kayla downtown to check out the firetrucks and other safety equipment. Kayla actually didn't get too excited about the firetrucks but I did get her to sit in one. Other highlights were watching MedFlight make a landing, Kayla spontaneously dancing to music in the street, randomly running into daddy's cousin Kristina and her family (including newborn Eve who was only a few days old), and getting a special elephant balloon hat.

Amber - Weeks 6 & 7

Amber has started to make some of her first smiles :) Tough to get pictures of them but we captured a few. Kayla also likes to jump into our picture taking sessions to be with her sister. Amber is sleeping pretty well at this point, sometimes 5-6 hours at a time but not quite through the night yet - we are anxiously waiting for that point!!!

Summer at the Pool

We finally decided to join our neighborhood pool this year. It opened a week early before Memorial Day and we have been there several times already. Kayla loves hanging out in the kiddie pool and playing with the assorted water toys laying around. We had pizza and movie night at the pool and although we ended up not watching the movie, Kayla had a lot of fun playing with her friend Simon from Milwaukee.

From 3 Days to 30

How Amber has grown from her birth announcement photo to her 1 month pictures.