Letters to Jack & Audrey: July 2009

Jack,

You have discovered Webkins.... AND HOW!

Good lord! You have greatly increased your abilities to play around on the computer and till now it was confined to educational games, but you have received your first Webkins Stuffed animals from Daddy and myself and have fallen deeply in love.

Your animals, a guinae pig which you named Jack Rose and a puppy that you named Bridget (Awwww - thank you!), are your most prized possessions now and you take them everywhere you go and gush about Webkins to your friends and whenever you see them in the store or on the computer.

I remember those feelings for my Cabbage Patch Dolls when I was young. They were as strong as the feelings I had for actual people and I can see this is the same for you.

You watch the scales of health and happiness of your Webkin online and are good about feeding him, taking him to the vet and even signing him up for classes and, of course, playing games with him.

It's really cute! Looks like you are getting the ideas on pet ownership virtually before we even encounter them in the flesh.

Love,

Mommy

Jack and Audrey,

Once a year, there is a family reunion down on the farms in Wisconsin. Good Ole Dodgeville, WI.

Your great Grandmother Jane is from Wisconsin and the family farm is still there - changed, but still there as well as the farms around that contain the extended family. A warmer and more inviting group of people you will never meet. I love our family in Dodgeville, Wisconsin!

We headed up to Wisconsin last Wednesday in the evening. Clay had a work meeting up there and we stayed in a very nice hotel. I had no idea that the pool they had would be so nice.

When we walked into the pool area - I was blown away - it was so full of fun things - pool, etc - that we were thrilled. It was like a swim park in the hotel and there was no one there but us while Clay was working.

Jack and I were so excited that we were going to get to play there all day. It was like stumbling on a winning lottery ticket.

It even had these KABOOM machines where you press them down and it makes explosions in specific parts of the pool! REALLY?!?! That's so cool!

And we were the only ones there.

I didn't think it could get any cooler and then, we saw this:

When we pushed it....

And saw this:

UNREAL! Who gets this lucky? Stumbles on a hotel with a water park inside of it and there's no one else there but you and your kids?

FANTASTIC!

This is a cute little crab that spit water that you enjoyed.

You called her "Girlie".

I brought Audrey into the pool with us once.

It was the first time that I thought I saw uncertainty in your eyes.

This is the best I could do with taking pictures because it was just me and you guys since Daddy was working and I couldn't get better shots,

but you can definitely tell you aren't sure about what is happening here.

I did get a cute smile - as you always seem to have one ready for me!

Ultimately, though, you have this possum reflex. I don't know if it's based in self preservation, but when you aren't comfortable or overwhelmed or overstimulated, you sleep. So you, Audrey, fell asleep anytime we were in or around the pool and would wake up the minute we left. Therefore, these are the only pool pictures I have with you in them.

We spent the rest of the morning at the pool together playing and it was fantastic.

Daddy joined us later that afternoon for a dip and you unwittingly put him in time out in the hot tub which he went along with. You felt the "burning water" would be punishment. I wonder why he look so happy about it?

That afternoon we headed to downtown Madison's Children's Museum and had a blast there.

Here you are planting vegetables in the garden.

BOTH of you.

You wanted to know what vegetable this was. Hmmmmm.... ???? Daddy said Green Onion?

You guys put on a puppet show for Audrey and me.

They also had a great block version of downtown Madison that you had a blast playing with.

We all had such a wonderful time!

Audrey - you are getting used to the camera by now and quickly get very serious when you see it focused on you.

You see the flash of the red eye feature before the camera takes a picture and your animated face gets very serious so it's getting harder to capture those smiles and expressions that you are constantly showing us at this age.