Halloween

We love our neighborhood.

One of it's charms is Halloween, when the neighborhood has a party and as the sun begins to set all the children leave the party to go trick-or-treating together. They spread out as the hill our circle is on gets steeper, with the littler ones falling behind, but the whole thing is over by 7:30 and the candy mania is kept to a minimum. It's awesome. Tack on the fact that the fire department came last year with their fire engine and passed out candy and it was basically perfect.

The fireman's visit left such an impression on Jon that he's known what he wanted to be this year since July: "A firefighter, so when they come with their firetruck and give me candy I will be a firefighter like them."

So obviously Ben would be a dalmatian.

Jon was so sure he would see the firemen on Halloween that I dressed him up that afternoon and took him to the fire station, just to be sure since I knew they didn't go to every neighborhood every year. As we walked in the door to say "hi" to the volunteers on duty (they have an open door policy that any children can come and visit anytime they're not at a call), the fire chief walked past, saw Jon in his costume, and stopped to say hello to him. Jon was thrilled, and told the fire chief all about his costume: the walkie-talkie, the hatchet, and so on. The chief was so touched that Jon wanted to be a fireman for Halloween, and wanted to show the firemen, that he and another firefighter took Jon into the room with their gear, where he proceeded to put on all of his gear to be matching with J. Then he took him around to see the firetrucks and let him "drive" his favorite one.

And after I took a picture, they firemen pulled out their phones for a pic with Jon too. Then they filled all of his pockets with candy. And when I say all of his pockets, I mean all of them. And in a fireman costume, there are a lot.

Jon was so happy he could have been done with Halloween then and gone to bed completely satisfied. But we added trick-or-treating with all his neighbor friends, and it was basically a perfect day. One in which he went to bed a half hour after his usual bedtime.

I'm choosing to forget the fact that it was below 

freezing with a 30 mph wind the whole night.

It's days like these that I really, really, really love living in a small midwestern town.

29

My big and little boys really spoiled me this year--

I woke up to Jonathan climbing onto my bed at 7am, snuggling into the crook of my arm and saying, "Mommy, today is your birthday. Are you so excited? You get a birthday hug!" Then he gave me a giant squeeze and began his stream-of-conscious morning ramble on topics ranging from "good airplanes and bad airplanes" to "Quentin L. Cook" to kitchen fires. Love him.

I came downstairs to find a house decorated with birthday banners and my sweet, happy Ben already up with his Nay Nay who'd taken the night shift because she's an angel. We got everyone dressed, and challah french toast with creme anglaise and fresh berries at La Brioche was followed by a trip to a local farm and corn maze.

We went on a hayride, picked a pumpkin, and pumped water. In the barnyard, one of the baby goats escaped from the goat pen, and what followed was pure birthday magic: I caught him! All those hours of chasing a little boy paid off in an unexpected life skill.

That's right--I spent my 27th birthday sunbathing in Thailand, and for my 29th I caught a goat in a barnyard! The satisfaction of actually catching the evasive little bounder combined with the repeated "Mommy you got him!"s amazingly made both activities equally satisfying. I have fully embraced the "when in Rome" philosophy.

My beautiful beads necklace

 My loves showered me with a carefully-wrapped macaroni necklace ("beautiful beads" in J's words), dollar-store fuzzy socks, and...

Possibly the greatest gift ever: a Roomba! Or in Jon's words, "Mommy's robot, Gooey."

Gooey vacuums the entire house while I run to Costco or rock babies to sleep. My floors have never looked better because they get vacuumed every day. And Jonathan will tidy up any room for the promise of Gooey "waking up to clean". I marvel each time it finishes a floor of the house, sings a little song, and then scoots on back to mount itself on its charging dock. I seriously love our little Gooey.

Fabio surprised me after dinner with Ella's other-worldly sour cream chocolate cake and coconut almond chocolate chip ice-cream. And that night, as cuddled my boys to sleep, I reflected on my blessings and my goals for the upcoming year while Gooey swept up cake crumbs off the floor.

Yep, 29 was a good birthday.

Danelle

Sometimes there are people in your life that become soul mates--the kind you only have to talk to for a minute for both of you to know that you were born to be friends; the kind that make you a better version of yourself every time you talk; the kind when the hardest you laugh together is when no words needed to be exchanged at all. It doesn't really matter how long it's been between visits because you pick up right where you left off whether it was a couple hours or a couple years. And sometimes those friends surprise you with a week-long early-birthday-present visit.

And when they do, it's magical.

J was a little disappointed when she came off the plane and she wasn't "Daniel Tiger" (a cartoon character he loves and thought was coming--"Danelle" vs "Daniel" easy to confuse). But it didn't take him very long to figure out Danelle was way, way better; even if he did call her "Daniel" the entire time.

We, of course, washed down fried cheese curds with Sprecher's rootbeer.

We spent an afternoon at Lake Mendota, kicking back in Adirondack chairs while Jon played in the sand and threw rocks into the water.

We went apple picking, obviously...

 

And when we realized we'd pick WAY more than we could ever eat, we baked delicious apple-y things all day.

And then we ate them.

We stayed up late solving the world's problems and laughing at our own problems, and scheming elaborate plans for realizing our dream of being next-door neighbors someday. We cheered for Jonathan as he tackled his self-made "inja popsicle courses" (translation: ninja obstacle course). We snuggled Ben and diagnosed his reflux. 

And then we cried at the Madison Regional Airport when we had to say goodbye. 

But amidst all the fun, best part for me might have been sharing people I love with each other. It was so fun to watch Jon embrace and love Danelle and realize she is one of the funnest people alive today, and it was just as sweet to see her fall in love with the boys as Jon crawled up onto her bed or tried to share his food with her and Ben fell asleep in her arms.

It was a perfect week--but man, I already miss that girl.

Oshkosh

In a stroke of serendipitous destiny, it just so happens that one of the world's largest air shows is in Wisconsin. So we really had no choice but to make the two hour drive north to Oshkosh so our little airplane boy could see the formation flyers, aerial stunts, and the hundreds of airplanes on display on the ground.

"He did a corkscrew! Did you see that, Daddy?

And that one did a falling leaf! Wow! That's amazing!"

What we didn't realize, is just how thrilled Jonathan would actually be. It turned out to be a kind of Disney World for him, where he got to meet in person the characters he'd grown to love in shows and books. He ran from airplane to airplane saying, "Mommy! B-17 is here! It has four c'pellers. And there's B-25, he has 2 c'pellers." Or, "Daddy, can we see the Corsair? Pleeeeease??" Or, "There's the Ospry--it's a helicopter and an airplane."

As we walked up and down the rows and rows of airplanes, Jonathan gasped and exclaimed, "It's DC-3! It's DC-3! Mommy, DC-3 is here! Come, Mommy! Hurry!" DC-3 is one of his favorite planes, he has a little one that he sleeps with sometimes. I looked where he was pointing, about 500 yards away, and it kind of looked liked his little plane. So we walked over, and when we got there I looked at the sign and realized it really was a DC-3! He had recognized it from so far away, and to me it looked like any other 2-prop plane.

And they were giving tours. We climbed in and walked up and down the aisle. The owner was there, and I pointed him out to Jonathan. J said, "Thank you so much for letting me see your DC-3." 

When I told the owner it was J's favorite airplane, he laughed and said he needed a picture of the little guy. After posing for the picture, the owner suggested J sit in the cockpit, which was roped off. He said, "I don't let everyone in the cockpit, but for a fellow DC-3 lover, I'll make an exception.

It was a dream come true for J-man. He couldn't believe his good luck.

We also saw another of J's favorites: the Stearman, which he also spotted from far away and could differentiate from the rest of the bi-planes.

When he saw an airplane he didn't recognize, he'd ask us, "What's that airplane's name?" Of course, we had no idea, and we wished Dap was around to tell us! Maybe next year...

But it didn't matter. Jonathan had an amazing time, and so we all did too.

Including B, the ever-supportive little bro, who slept almost the whole time.

Our First Badger Game

Right after J's birthday, BYU played UW.

I never thought I'd wear red to a Cougars game, but... when the Badgers put food on your table, you dress accordingly! (But we did bring a BYU blanket.)

Camp Randall Stadium is massive

Our expectations were pretty much zero as to how long Jonathan could stand to stay, so we were pleasantly surprised when he actually had a lot of fun, even in spite of the cold! He clapped with the crowd, and kept saying, "Watching football! Go Badgers!"

We made it all the way to the third quarter before J looked at me and said, "We go home now. Jon's tired."

Go Badgers!

Katie's Paradise

Every time living in a foreign land far from family and all things familiar would begin to wear on me, I would visualize every aspect of the ideal future that I believed we were "paying it forward" to have someday... some far, far away day. Knowing that of course, it would probably be different than I imagined, but it still helped. In that distant future life, I would live in a beautiful house with a walk-in closet, a window at the kitchen sink facing our backyard, complete with a swing set, a vegetable garden, and deciduous trees to tell me when my birthday was coming. In this fantasy world, I would buckle my kids into my cute SUV and we would run to Costco, Target, farmer's markets, and an occasional thrift store or craft store to get the supplies for some adorable Pinterest-worthy home decor project. I would have friendly neighbors, who had children Jonathan's age that were respectful, moral, and kind. It was place full of good drivers, friendly cashiers, very little traffic, and plenty of wide open spaces.

I had no idea that this fantasy actually had a name: Middleton, Wisconsin. I'm serious. This place is perfect. The drivers are courteous, the traffic is light, the trees are big and beautiful, there are parks and lakes everywhere, and everyone is SO NICE!

We joined Fabio in Wisconsin at the Extended Stay America the first week of July for a marathon one week house-hunt. If we didn't find a house we loved that week, we'd have to sign a lease agreement and start the hunt again in 9 months. So we prayed, jumped in our realtor's car, and searched, and searched, and searched. We found ourselves comparing every one of the 20+ houses we saw to the third house from our first day. So we scheduled a second showing and knew it was our house. It was the place where we would raise our family for the foreseeable future. Once they accepted the offer, Jonathan and I went back to Utah to live with Nay Nay and Dap while Fabio slept in a colleague's basement for a month. We finally reunited in mid-August to sign the papers and on August 16, 2013 the house was ours. We drove up, opened the garage door (with a remote opener!!), and ran through every room in complete disbelief that we actually found (and now owned) our perfect home!

With 0.64 acres, five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a dishwasher, and cornfields for neighbors in three different directions, it could not be a bigger change from our little concrete-jungle-high-rise slice of heaven in Singapore. We even have our own well and septic. We are such city-slickers that we didn't even know that was a thing! The water is really yummy, though.

It is my perfect paradise, everything I had envisioned and hope for. I get dressed in our walk-in closet, and go down stairs to empty my dishwasher that has magical powers to wash off baked cheese and caked-on chili with the push of a button. Then I stand at my window at the kitchen sink--in a kitchen so beautiful I wouldn't have even dared to dream for--to see rolling hills of cornfields speckled with red barns and silos as the backdrop of Jonathan's treehouse and swing set. In August we enjoyed the tomatoes and peppers the last owners planted in our vegetable garden, and in September we watched our maple and oak trees tell us fall was coming in red, orange, and yellow. The ceilings are tall for Fabio, even in the basement, the carpet is soft, the water is hot in every faucet, the windows are big, the grass is soft, the neighborhood is quiet, the hallways are wide, and a family of bunnies lives under our deck.

I answer our front door to find three sweet little neighbor boys (10, 9, and 7) asking to play with Jonathan (almost every day). They teach him how to pedal on his "bike," how to throw and kick the ball, and most importantly, how to be a good sport. He loves his new friends, his bright-blue room, the sweet old golden retriever that lives across the street, and having plenty of space to run and run and run (inside or out, rain or shine). He calls the house "Mommy's house."

So while my dishes and laundry wash and dry themselves, Jon and I climb into our little SUV (it's own story for another day) to pick up a couple things at Costco (3 minutes away), then a few more at Target (5 minutes away), and then we grab some groceries at Metcalfe's (6 minutes away) that cost a fourth of what I'm used to paying and drive on home with the rest of the day ahead of us to play and unpack. And as we pull up to "Mommy's house," I can't help but feel the urge to pinch myself--because this is just way, way, way too close to what I've always dreamed of.

I am one blessed little girl.