Football, Wedding + Family Time

 This past weekend Max had a football game on Saturday morning. It was chilly out, but I snuggled up with a blanket and watched the Fire Dragons (their team name) beat the other team. Unfortunately, Max did not pull any flags this weekend or get a touchdown, but he sure had fun playing. 

Saturday night, Andy and I had a wedding to go to that was outside in Scottsdale at a friend's house. It was an absolutely beautiful backyard and we all had fun celebrating together until it started downpouring rain at 10pm.

We all huddled under the back patio during the downpour while we waited for our Uber to come get us.

Andy had some extended family in town this week, so we had them over for dinner on Sunday. It's family that we never get to see so it was fun to just hang out and catch up.

Here's Max hamming it up with Taylor and Abby.








Zoe just loves grandpa T. She will follow him everywhere he goes when he comes over.


Max and cousin Emily played hard in the trampoline together. Max had a lot of fun playing and says Emily is so much fun! He looks forward to hanging out with her again.

On Tuesday night we went to grandpa T and grandma S's house for dinner and to hang out with extended family while they are still here before they head back to the freezing temps Wisconsin is currently experiencing. While there, Max swam and showed off his cannonball skills to his cousins and their girlfriends. 

January Update

 We are more than halfway through the month of January and we have been busy. The first weekend we got back from our trip to Wisconsin, Max and I spent a day attending our annual Friends Christmas. It's crazy to see the picture of the kids this year and how much they have grown over the years.

Max has had a playdate with his best buddy Jake and Peyton.

Max had his first flag football game of the season and he pulled three flags. We are very proud of him for getting out there and putting in 100% effort. On top of that, he was having so much fun just playing football with his friends.

Max attended Owen's 9th birthday party. He had a laser tag party at their neighborhood park. A company came in and set up laser tag and organized all the games. Max had so much fun and the kids were exhausted at the end of the party. It was a win-win for everyone.

WI Xmas: Part III

 Part three started off with an early morning drive north to Watoma to visit Great-Grandma N. We hung out for a couple hours visiting and Max loved playing with grandma N.'s dog Murphy before we headed back to Madison to see Grandpa T and Grandma S.

Once we arrived at Grandpa and Grandma's house we opened presents and Mas was definitely excited about more presents. 

Once all the presents were opened we started the NYE festivities and this would be another annual tradition for us that Max liked to point out.

Max helped grandpa pop a bottle and shot the cork right into the snowy golf course.

Max set up teams to play against each other in shuffleboard. His teammate was Mark and they beat me and grandma S. I kind of think Max carried that team though and Mark agreed with me on that.

The final tradition for our family is the annual NYE pinata. This year the pinata was a video game remote controller and Max had fun smashing it open.

It was another cold, but fantastic, trip to WI for the holiday season. We had an early flight to catch so Andy and I went to bed pretty early. We didn't stay up anywhere close to midnight to ring in the new year. Until next year!

WI Xmas: Part II

 Part two of our trip took us to Grandma L's house on the west side. We got there late, but Max couldn't go to bed until he got to see Uncle Ryan and Aunt Emily's new puppy and of course Barb. Unfortunately, I didn't take photos of the meeting because I too was very excited to see the new puppy. She was so cute and full of a lot of hair. Barb, of course, was crazy like she always is. It kind of reminded me of our dogs.  Here is a picture of Max and all of them on New Year's Eve.

In the morning we opened presents.

Grandma L got Max a chef's coat with his name on it. It's pretty neat and I am sure he will get plenty of use out of it. 

That night we went to the Badger basketball game. This would be Max's second basketball game but the first one that he really remembers. He got snacks and he was a happy boy watching the game. 

In keeping with traditions, the next day Grandma L took Max to Dave & Buster's for some video game playing while Andy and I went to lunch and the post office to ship back three boxes of gifts. The next morning we moved on to Wisconsin Christmas Part III.

WI Xmas: Part I

 In keeping with traditions, we spent the first part of our Wisconsin Christmas in Sun Prairie at my parents house. We opened presents in the morning followed by a Christmas breakfast. Grandma Marge came over and we hung out all day chatting.

Notice Max is almost as tall as Grandma Marge!

It snowed that night and Max was excited to watch out the window, but only for a bit because it was pretty late. The next day it was exciting for him to get out in the snow.

We kept with traditions and headed to Cascade to go tubing. Due to COVID they required us to schedule a two-hour time slot and they only allowed a certain number of people to purchase tickets in each time slot. This kept the attendance down and we never had a line. This allowed us to go down the hill many times in that two hours. So many times that I was ready to leave after 1.5 hours and Max was pretty exhausted too. I guess that's one good thing with COVID, it keeps people away and reduces crowds. 

We got to see Tayler, or Tee-tee as Max would call her. 

Max took his grandparents to see Spiderman at the movie theater while Andy and I spent some time playing pull-tabs at the local bar. This is another annual tradition for us to do while we are in town. Another tradition brought us to the local bowling alley for some fun and cheese curds. I will have to say that I did bowl a turkey and that was pretty exciting and allowed me to beat Andy in the first game. 

It started snowing pretty hard while we were bowling so once we got home Max was pretty excited to get outside and play in it. As many know, I am not a fan of the snow or cold but I got outside and had a snowball fight all for Max. 

We played a hand of Uno because this is what we normally do when we get together. Grandpa J won Uno for the night, which never happens. 

We took our family photos in front of the fireplace before we packed up and headed to the westside of Madison for more family fun time.