A Mid-week trip to Madison

Last week, we went to Madison for a couple of days. My friend Sara and her family were in town, so we were excited to visit with them. And the kids couldn't wait to spend the night at Grandma Reinsel's house! Chris had to travel to Atlanta for work anyways, so it worked out great. It was an awesome visit - we went to the zoo and out to dinner on Wednesday, then on Thursday we went to the park and to the Terrace for ice cream on campus. A BIG thanks to Sandy for watching the boys at her house while I went out to dinner (see legos below as to what they did the whole time) and for watching Emily the next day while I took the boys to the park & ice cream. It made visiting with Sara much more relaxing when you cut the number of kids by one or two :)

WOW - look at all of the legos. 25 years later and they are still entertaining. (they were Chris's when he was little) Grandma worked hard to put them together!

Castles, pirates, tree forts, space stations...

The older four kids looking at the lions (Jack, Emily U., Courtney, and Andy)

Courtney and Andy examining the bugs. They could have stayed in this zoo building ALL day - Jack especially had fun pretending to be a bug scientist and looking at all of the creatures...

The next day at the park... Jack and Andy on their "batmobile"

4 kids on the tire swing... luckily no one fell off!

Jack and Andy on the train

Nothing better than ice cream on a hot day :)

Jack enjoyed his chocolate ice cream for awhile, then I let him try a bite of my orange custard chocolate chip. He took his bite, then said, "hey, how about we switch. I'll eat this one, and you can have my chocolate." Well, it shows you how much I love him... letting him eat all of my favorite flavor that you can't find anywhere other than Madison. But afterwards, he did say, "don't worry mommy, next time we'll both get orange custard chocolate chip!"

You unfortunately can't really see Sara's Emily in this picture. But she's there! It was great to see them - twice in one year, since we had just visited in May when we were in CO.

Andy putting his feet in the water after ice cream. The Terrace was so nice and relaxing - too bad I never got to go there much when I was a student (either too busy studying or working away from Madison for the summer)