Photos from Grandpa Bill

When we saw Grandpa yesterday, he took these photos.

More Waterpark photos

 

Grandpa C. thinks JP look like a pirate in this one.


Blowing Kisses!


Joshua and Cousin Aydin


Joshua and Daddy

Part I of Easter post

On the Saturday before Easter, all of Andy's relatives get together at a hotel in Madison, WI, to hang out and drink beer (I am serious about this, beer drinking is a required activity). We had a change of venue this year and went to a hotel with a small attached waterpark. It was little, but just the right size for the Studee clan kids. Below is a video montage of Joshua having fun with Mama in the waterpark. Excuse my super-white skin, what can I say, it has been a long winter!



More photos of the weekend will be posted shortly. We had a great time!

A few things about Joshua

Here are a few things I want to remember about Joshua at this age...(He turned 19 mo. old yesterday) Pictures will be posted soon, I promise!

1.) He LOVES bagels. Almost every morning he has a mini bagel for breakfast. It takes him a while to eat, as he gnaws on it, so I get a little peace and quiet either in the car on the way to Leslie's or at home.

2.) He high fives everyone and can say the word "five". He will go up to people and say "five" expecting you to high five him. It is adorable. This weekend, we were up in Madison with a lot of Andy's relatives and he had a great time high fiving everyone.

3.) I have played the Elmo keyboard game with him a few times and now he REMEMBERS that on the computer he can play with Elmo. If I forget to close the office door he goes in there, points at the computer and says "Mo?" If I don't let him play, he throws a tantrum. If I do let him play, he throws a tantrum when we are done. Ahh, the joys of parenting.

4.) He loves his family and get super excited to see any of the grandparents.

5.) He will not perform his tricks (like doing the animal noises) on command, much to mom's dismay when she is trying to show him off.

6.) He now LIKES the water. I will have photographic and video proof of this posted soon from our trip to Madison. Thanks Grammy Barb for the swim lessons that got him over the hump!

There are many more things and this is just a start. I will be posting photos from our crazy Easter weekend soon. I am still recovering!

It begins...

I went in to get Joshua up this morning to take him to Leslie's (our sitter) and asked if I could change his diaper. He looked a me and clearly said "No". Not in a mean or whiny way, just clearly stating his position on the matter. Until now, I have lucked out and only had to deal with head shaking for no. Ah, a new phase begins.

Our weekend

Who is that crazy guy in the picture above? Why it is Andy with the Fantastic Fuzzy of course. This past weekend, Andy had an "anniversary celebration" at his salon to entice new customers in. Despite the awful weather, God brought out a lot of folks to enjoy free eyebrow waxing (over 70 done in 2 days), free chips, salsa, and guacamole, the oldies station street team, and of course, the Fantastic Fuzzy.

On a side note, be glad your mom is not the regional director of a salon franchise. Dressed up in the suit is the 16 year-old daughter of Andy's regional director. Poor kid!

All in all it was a successful weekend, Praise God! We are praying that a lot of the people who came out come back regularly :).

What did Joshua and I do all weekend? Saturday, I went to a Women's Breakfast at church, which was awesome and a huge encouragement. I was even on a panel dispensing advice (scary, I know). Later on in the afternoon, my in-laws came over to see Joshua after checking out the scene with Andy. Sunday, we went to church, took naps, and even got a walk in despite the chilly weather (hey, I am desperate to get outside). Poor Joshua missed Andy all weekend (he didn't get home until after bedtime each night and was gone pretty early in the AM). He kept knocking on the office door going: "Daddy?". Luckily Andy was able to come home early last night and spend some quality time with the fam :).

Here is a picture my in-laws took of Joshua when then were over on Sat. They think he is ready to run for president. What do you think?

Mom and Dad go wild and crazy...in Milwaukee

On Friday night, we dropped off Joshua with Grandma and Grandpa Studee and headed up to have a parent's night on the town in Milwaukee. Why Milwaukee? We aren't sure, but here is the recap of our night.




We stayed at the Hilton Center City with Points. Gotta love the remnants of Andy's traveling days. It was a nice old hotel downtown, kinda like the Palmer House in Chicago. We had a fabulous dinner where we both ate too much at the Milwaukee Chop House, conveniently located on the first floor of our hotel. Then, we had our true adventure of the night, going to the Blues Festival. As an aside, the nice thing about Milwaukee is that is is so compact compared to Chicago, the concert was only 3 blocks from our hotel.



The concert was at US Cellular Arena, where the UW-Milwaukee basketball team plays. When I went in to get our tickets from Will Call, the agent said "Are you looking for the 'Lion King'? That is next door". It was then that I looked around and realized Andy and I were the ONLY white people in the lobby. This struck me as odd as in Chicago, you would see a more mixed crowd at a Blues Show. Don't white people like Blues Music?? Anyway, we had a great time at the concert. One nice, slightly stoned lady, told us that there is no color line in Blues Music to make us feel less odd, I guess. Another interesting thing was that as fabulous as Andy and I looked, we were underdressed by some people's standards. There were a lot of white three piece suits on the men complete with white fedoras and many of the women were dressed to the nines. Awesome! the other thing that struck us as funny that evening was after a song full of lyrics about sleeping around, etc, one of the singers got everyone all excited for Jesus!

After the concert we went back to the hotel and crashed and got to sleep in until 7am! Such crazy kids. All in all it was a nice night away doing adult things without constantly worrying about the little man :)