Wisconsin Slideshow

Here is a slideshow from our trip!

First Fish

We drove out to Birchwood to Anders' parents' house on the lake and did some fishing on a pontoon boat. Here is Kiefer and me on the drive getting excited to catch some fish.

Caught this pic while driving, I love the green grass and trees and red barns.


We pulled up to the dock in front of Anders' house and Anders' dad got a pole setup and Kiefer reeled in his first fish off the dock! He was so excited and it was so much fun!






The fish were biting like crazy so it was really quick and easy catching and tossing the small ones back. We ended up keeping a dozen and we're planning to cook them up later in the week.


I caught a few fish and here I am with my first one, notice I'm a little hesitant with the holding of the fish, Anders gave me a hard time and I'm going to need to work on that. What can I say, I'm an "Avid Indoorsman" so this is foreign territory for me.

Cooper really liked the fish and even gave them kisses!

The sisters had a great time on the boat relaxing and enjoying a perfect sunny day.

Cooper really loved being in the driver's seat.

We finished the day with an awesome fish fry at the Pine Ridge, so good!

Leinie Lodge

We made a trip out to Chippewa Falls to the Leinenkugel Brewery which is a fantastic beer made in Wisconsin since 1867. We toured the factory and had a great time learning about how it's made.




Kiefer got to try his hand at being a bar tender.

After that we went to Olson's Ice Cream that makes their own ice cream that is amazing!


Later in the evening we had a picnic in the grass with Sammy's pizza. Kiefer decided to put dirt on his face and be a warrior, pretty scary!

First Flight

We are heading out to Wisconsin for a week to visit Elisa's sister Emily and Anders. This was Cooper's first flight and he's at that age where you don't know what's going to happen. We gave him some "allergy medicine" in case he was allergic to planes (and to sedate him) and sure enough it knocked him out good but not before he screeched a little on takeoff.


Kiefer was great on the plane and had a great time, he just seems like such a big boy.

Cooper slept about 2 out of the 3 hour flight and was happy when he woke up, but then we had to circle an extra hour in the air because we couldn't land due to wind, so then it was pushing Cooper over the edge and he got a little cranky toward the end. For a little bit we watched movies on the iPhone with Snoopy holding it :)

He was happy to land and on the drive home Kiefer finally fell asleep, he sure can sleep at a funny angle.

We were greeted at the Helquist's with a fantastic raspberry pie!

Flight of the Conchords

Before our trip out to the Midwest, we went down to Tempe and had a nice double date with Aaron and Kiley to Flight of the Conchords. It started with Sushi and then we rode the new light rail into downtown Phoenix for the show. It was a great time and exciting to use Phoenix public transportation for the first time.

We looked like tourists taking pictures of our train experience :)

I'd never been to the Dodge Theater and it was pretty big.

Bike and Planes

Today Elisa went garage sale hunting and scored this awesome bike for Kiefer! He is just starting to get the hang of pedaling and it's amazing to see him riding on a bike!

Later in the day Kiefer and I went to "Aviation Day" at the airport and got to see all kinds of planes and helicopters. I think he liked the "helicopter ambulance" the best.




While we were there, we ran into Sam and Evan so Kiefer had a great time looking at the planes with them.

The airport fire truck was pretty huge!



The airport snow plow was also massive, they said it goes 60 mph while it's plowing and the blade was easy for Kiefer to walk under!

This plane is more Kiefer's size.

Lava Tubes

We made a trip out to the lava river cave outside Flagstaff with JT and he took some family photos of us after we hiked around the cave. Here are some of the fun ones or if you are a grandparent you can check out the whole gallery.