Miller Brewery Lights

So we decided we wanted to see some holiday lights, and we found out the Miller Brewery has weekend tours of the factory that include a light show. It was pretty cool, plus we got free lemonade. I got a sweet polo that has a miller light logo on it in a raffle, I will be wearing it often let me tell you. Patrick got an insulated sleeve to keep his cans cold. It was actually pretty cool, recommended for all of you that live in Milwaukee. I would say the show is about ten minutes long, and I think they said it has over 200,000 lights. Anyway, way cool, pictures of us freezing will be uploaded later, this video is taking way too long to upload. I am going to bed.

Fall: Not the Season

Natalie has developed a huge obsession with the word FALL. She won't go down the stairs because of "fall." If we are holding her wrong she yells "fall." Anything that she pushes off the table she yells "fall" as she is pushing it off. Fall, fall, fall she won't stop, seriously stop on by you will here it at least once a minute. I have been trying to teach her the word truck, for obvious reasons jk. Well here are some pictures of 10% of our recent adventures; more to follow of Diana and Lynsey's visit and thanksgiving.

This is Natalie unfolding all of our laundry because she lost a toy and was stressed about finding it.
This is Natalie and I on the Milwaukee River Walk, more pictures later on.

Natalie loves her hot chocolate, so much that she dumped the whole thing on amy seconds later. I laughed my head off, but Amy was mortified. She claims it was her first time being embarrassed in public by Natalie. Personally, making it 19 months without an public embarrassment is nothing to complain about.
Natalie and Amy in a phone booth on the river walk, apparently it smelled of urine. Notice they shut the door, must have liked the smell?
Amester and Natalie on a bridge.
Natalie
For all you older people who read our blog, I bet you can't guess who that is? It is a Bronze Fonze, I personally don't know who he is, but if it were up to me a statue of Homer would have been in place of Fonze.
Natalie is petrified by him, she does not like the fonze.

Natalie and I with a cool little tug boat in the back ground on the river walk.
Natalie has this obsession with cleaning out her toes whenever we take off her socks. At least she will always have clean feet.
Here is the leaf plow for all those who thought I was lying, it does exist.
We took Natalie to the Children's museum here, and Natalie loved all the golf balls that they have there. Basically everything they have there runs off golf balls, so those of you who know Natalie well she had the time of her life.
Natalie at the Chicago temple, we were able to go down after tests. Amy and I switched off going in it was great fun. Except I forgot that the state of Illinois makes you pay tolls the second you enter Illinois. Amy and I NEVER carry cash, but we were able to scramble up enough for the first toll, but I had to run the second because no cash. They let you pay online within 7 days of missed toll so that was good.

Natalie still loves her rootbeer for those of you who were wondering. It is snowing like crazy today, wish I could go skiing.

Halloween! Monkey style

Fall is here



There are millions of trees here in Milwaukee, our streets are lined with trees. To collect the leaves here all you have to do is rake them into the road and they have a snow plow looking thing that drives through the streets shoveling away the leaves.

This is just the beginning of the leaf drop our trees are still loaded with leaves. Regardless, Natalie loves playing in them, and throwing them in the air.

This is our sweetheart Natalie in her monkey costume, she loves it. We wanted to get her a butterfly outfit but she wouldn't have it. When we tried it on her she sat there looking at herself in the mirror and laughing. She, however, will not wear the monkey hood that goes with it.
She also loves pumpkins.

Trick o' treating here is kind of weird. Each city has certain hours of the day that they can trick o' treat and they were all on Sunday afternoon and they only last three hours. You also have to register your kid to trick o' treat, and pay. Messed up I know. Luckily the med school does a trick o' treat and Natalie loved it.

This is Natalie and Patrick walking through the portion of the medical school that looked like Candyland, everyone was dressed accordingly it was way cute.

Natalie only allowed candy in her bucket, some lady put some halloween stickers in her bucket and she promptly took them out and said "no" to the lady. Geez, to all of you who don't know you only give candy on halloween, Natalie even knows that.

Natalie loves stealing her dad's ping-pong balls that he has in his backpack, if she doesn't have enough hands she'll just stuff them in her mouth.
Natalie on our front porch with her pumpkins.

Natalie throwing rocks into a stream at a park near our house.

Oh and for all of you in places other than Wisconsin, I hope you are enjoying the cold weather. Here it is in the high 60's sunny and beautiful, and everyone told me it was going to be cold in Wisconsin, please. St. george doesn't even have that so why would we move there?

Taking Wisconsin by Storm

My family was here this last week and it was so much fun.  We packed a lot of fun Wisconsinite activities into a week.  We also spent WAY too much time sitting around and letting Natalie get spoiled and be the center of attention, by the time she left I had no idea how I was going to be able to entertain her while she got used to normal life again.  I was relieved to find out that she adjusted rather quickly and is now back to normal and can entertain herself for awhile without asking me every minute for Ada, Daddy (grandpa) and mommy (Grandma).  We had so much fun while they were here and can't wait until we see them at Christmas.  Also I am horrible with pictures so even though we did a lot, we did not take pictures at every activity, so here are some of the fun things we did.

These next pictures are of the day my family had Natalie while I was at work.  She had a great time learning about the business that keeps Milwaukee afloat--Miller Brewery.  She loved the free pretzles at the end of the tour.  


We tired her out with lots of activities through the week and by Friday she was so tired she fell asleep during the tour of this cool old mansion right in downtown Milwaukee.  It is called the Pabst mansion, and it was beautiful, a great example of old town Milwaukee and the amazing architecture they have here.

After the exciting morning at the mansion I stayed home to try to get Natalie to take a nap while my family went hiking and experienced the beautiful wildlife and fall colors of Wisconsin.  Yes the following pictures is of wild turkeys roaming around the hiking trails. 

Saturday led us to explore a little further south of Milwaukee and get out of the city to explore the Jelly Belly factory, cheese stores and the outlet stores.  It was a fun-filled day with lots of free samples of Jelly Bellies, yum!

Sunday morning we went and showed my family Lake Michigan.  It was a windy day, as you can tell from Natalie cuddling with Grandpa on the rocks.  Also to add excitement to the day Natalie lost her shoe among the rocks on the lake, thanks to brave Uncle Adam we were able to get it back after he crawled between the rocks and got sprayed by the very cold water.  Adam to the rescue again.


  We did many other things the week my family was there including seeing the Medical College and hositals, watch BYU lose in the student lounge at the college (we don't get the games at home), tour Sprecher's rootbeer factory, and go to the park (a lot).  Patrick also survived his crazy test week and we were glad when the weekend came and he got to have fun exploring Wisconsin with us.  

Tribute to the Greatest Mom in the World

I was notified multiple times that we failed to include my mom in the pictures of her visit, my mom did not complain but others did. So this blog is about her, mostly pictures. I am sure most of you can agree that she is the "Greatest mom in the world." For those of you who cannot, I am sure she comes in at a close second behind yours.


Grandma, Grandpa and Natalie at the beach.


Grandma Leiter with Natalie at the zoo

Grandma with Natalie at build-a-bear. Traumatic experience for Natalie. She thought they were hurting her Monkey when they were stuffing it. Good thing Grandma was there.
Random, elephant picture.





Also, pictures of Natalie are always appreciated by the blog audience, so here is some of the best daughter in the whole wide world.

Sitting next to monkey at zoo.
Eating her Pizza
Sliding the slide
Skipping rocks on the lake.

Grandma and Grandpa Leiter Visit

Last weekend Patrick's parents came to visit. It was so nice to have family here for awhile, Natalie loved the attention. We were super busy while they were here playing with Natalie and showing them around Milwaukee. Here are some highlights of their visit.


Natalie got to pick our her own pumpkin for Halloween, she was so excited about it, she also got one for her friend Myleigh. Following are the pictures from our trip to the zoo. Natalie loved to drive the truck they had at their kids play area. She also got to ride the Merry-go-round with Grandpa. I took her to the zoo again this week with some friends and she remembered the Merry-go-round and wanted to ride again.




We also went to Lake Michigan. Newsflash--Natalie likes the sand now!!! Yea maybe we can go to the beach this summer and she will do more than sit on the beach chair. She also discovered rocks there and kept asking for more to throw into the lake. Careful that girl has got an arm on her--she also has no aim to it is very important to stay clear of her while she is throwing the rocks!



All in all it was a fun-filled packed weekend with Grandma and Grandpa! Now we are getting excited for my parents and Adam to come and visit us next week! Yea! I ask Natalie if she is excited to see Uncle Adam and she smiles and says "Ada" --I think he is still the favorite, sorry Grams and Grandpa Esplin!

One more exciting thing these last couple of weeks. We got a treadmill, I have been wanting one for awhile now and we finally got one. I kept reminding Patrick how cold it is here in the winter and how much happier his wife would be if she got to work out, I have been so excited about it. Now I have also proven that I will use it too. I have gone running on it 4 times this last week, we will just have to see if I can keep it up!