The Bodyguard

I've snapped several pictures lately of Kenny & Audrey that make me think one thing:

He looks like her bodyguard.

I'm sure I sound like a boastful mother, but with her sweet personality and gorgeous features she may just need one. :) I can't think of anyone better.

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Does anyone have a good explanation for the Easter bunny? If so let me know, because I answered a lot of questions this year about his purpose and what he has to do with the Easter holiday, and I'm just grateful that Nolan didn't push for better answers because they were pretty dicey at best. Thankfully we have the resurrection story down pretty well and it makes lots of sense to all of us, so we mostly focused on that since it is the reason for Easter anyway.

That said, we still had our share of Easter egg coloring, egg hunting and Easter basket surprises from said bunny.

Our Easter egg decorating techniques aren't very extravagant. Crayons, dye & stickers. That's all I can handle with two little ones participating!

As you can see a few end up getting eaten before being decorated as well.

Easter Morning!! We love the looks on their faces when they see their surprises.

The E.B. was notified of Nolan's intense interest in Star Wars. Ever seen a kid so pleased with a box of Band Aids?

Mmm..Easter M&M's...

...and Goldfish of course.

Thankfully Kenny was available for those hard to reach eggs.

Nolan was given two foam swords to fill in for Light sabers. We do a lot of Light saber battles in our house. The one that Audrey is holding is what Nolan had been using-he pulled it out of our bucking bronco horse and so it's been without a handle for quite a while. This is a bit more fun, and definitely not as painful if you get whacked. Love how they are teaming up on Kenny.

I must say that I am proud to hold the title of "Better light saber fighter than Dad", Nolan informed me of that the other day. He said that I don't hit as hard, and I jump around a lot more like Yoda. Nice. I'll take that compliment any day.

Our Milwaukee pals

In about one month from now, we will be saying our goodbyes to a group of people that been our extended family for the past four years. I tear up every time I allow myself to even think about it longer than 30 seconds. That said, I'm truly grateful that you cannot see me while I am typing this. These kids have been my kids first and best friends. Their mommies have been like loving aunts and the same goes for their Dads. The husbands talk shop with mine and actually understand what is being said. The wives swap kids stories, get advice, laugh and occasionally cry together. We attend church together, have weekly playgroup, have date night groups, attend birthday parties, and celebrate new additions to each family as they come along. It has doubled in size since we first got here, and I'm sure that will continue even as each year a few of the families move away. These are great people. They deserve every bit of happiness that they will find in this life. We love them, are thankful for every single memory that we have made together and are thankful that Heavenly Father put them in our lives path to help us enjoy our time in Med school. I'm so thankful for blogs, and that most of us keep ours updated occasionally so that we can stay updated with what new and wonderful things are happening in their lives. Because I can't possibly think that we will be saying goodbye forever.

Nope. I won't accept that. So just in case our paths don't cross again at least we'll have all of these great memories, and a way to vicariously live them together through pictures!

Here are just a few from the last month:

Benson's 3rd birthday party at the fire station!

Playgroup Easter egg hunt

Date night group

Watching the thunder and lightning storm together instead of the movie.

So much fun.

To all of our friends here in Milwaukee, thank you so much for sharing your lives with us-it makes for some great pictures!

Betty Brinn

On April 12th I offered to drop Kenny off at his Alpha Omega Alpha induction luncheon (YAY Kenny!) which just happened to be held at the Coast restaurant which is also in the same building as the Betty Brinn Children's museum. That way, we have a great excuse to visit the museum, and we help cut down on parking costs. Which would have been great...except that when we returned to our van, I discovered a $35 parking ticket for parking in a loading zone!

(I guess I shouldn't have thought that I could beat a parking garage with the strangely open spaces nearby with a large truck blocking the NO PARKING sign...bugger.)

Regardless, we spent a good 3 hrs at the museum playing, exploring, laughing, and eating. This is definitely a top 5 destination for us! Meanwhile, Kenny was recognized for being the amazing student that he has been in Med School and got a tour of the Milwaukee Art Museum-so we all had some great culture that day! :)

The Domes

A few days after the visit to Discovery World we hit the Domes for a quick visit before preschool. Mondays are free for Milwaukee residents, which is always great-but this particular day was packed! Lots of school groups and people trying to trick their minds in to believing that the snow still falling outside was not really happening. It was still a nice trip though, they had a fairy tale theme in the show dome and even a few trains running around.

Kids tour of Milwaukee

With the comfort and stress of having Match day come and go, and learning that our time here in Milwaukee is now limited, I have been trying to go down the list that I made a couple months ago of things that we need to do before we are no longer Milwaukee residents. There really is a lot to do with kids here and I know we are going to miss it.

First up, Discovery World. We bought a membership last May for an awesome price and have enjoyed this museum, the Discovery Gateway in SLC a couple times and even OMSI in Portland, OR. It was a great investment.

The best part of this trip was that we had no where else to be, and both kids were very interested in seeing everything and were very well behaved. Gotta love it when that happens!

Audrey was hilarious when it came to crossing the bridges in the aquarium rooms. Portions of the bridge have glass that you walk over while the fish are swimming underneath or above you...she was really leery of that. She would walk around the border that still had carpet, or climb up on the stroller to get across but would not take one step on the glass.

Cheers!

Can't you just see the uncertainty on Drey's face?

She was completely enamoured with this box fish though!

Audrey wasn't afraid to take a rest on a bed of nails either. Nolan-not so much.

See they really do like each other!

How to pay back our Med school loans...

I think I've figured out a quick solution to pay off our Med school debt. I think I'll contact Nutella's advertising department and offer to allow them to use the following photos to advertise their delicious product. I think these photos should easily bring in a 6 figure amount!

Mmm...yummy.