Four Days of Fun

Hey!  Apologies are in order.  SOMETHING has messed up and I didn't see all the comments until I was looking at my blog and saw them.  My email stopped receiving them almost two months ago.  I figured that I had grown obsolete and people had moved on...  It was so refreshing to read your comments on the trip and I need to get my email or maybe Blogger fixed!!

On Saturday morning, at the crack of 6am, we were out the door.  Headed to Wisconsin, 6 hours away.

Hey look!  It's Mr. Crabbs! (from SpongeBob...)

We found lots of things to laugh about on the trip.  and some photo ops.  Leon with Bigfoot.  He was NOT happy about this picture and said that I needed to delete it as soon as he was done being forced to pose.  So I lied...

We got to Maddy and Matthew's house around noonish.  We met Matthew after he got off work at the Hotdog place downtown and then went with Maddy to her school where she had some things to do.  She said it wouldn't take more than a couple hours.  But really, with Robb and I helping her out, we had all her kindergarten library stickers put on and ready for the first day of school.  In less than an hour.  Leon was getting stir crazy so Maddy and I took him outside to wear off some energy on the playground.  After 5 minutes of that, he was too hot and wanted to run around INSIDE the school.

I hope no bullies see this picture, because Leon CAN fit inside the lockers...

The tour involved seeing the after school room with ping pong, foos ball, air hockey and more.  And of course Leon had to try it all out.

Duke gets a new bandana whenever those two go shopping, so he is one hip, HIP dog!  He loves it there!

Leon playing fetch.  Duke didn't want to give the green bone back, so it was more like, "Throw it so I can go elsewhere without you there."

Posing again...  He's so rad.

Maddy and Leon picked out the new Daphne and Velma movie from Redbox and it was pretty good!  We stopped it half way through and Maddy looked up who the bad guy was.

We took Leon to a Children's museum after church and everyone had a great time.  But only after you blow some coins...

So many places for him to run and hide.

And I think he learned a lot!

Matthew got in on the fun and got the water toys spitting good.

It was hard to drag Leon away from the water hurricane thingy.  When we had a little time at the end, he wanted to go back to it again.  He was drenched.

Robb and Maddy taking over the spout area.

Leon was very patient for this little girl to finish getting off the net, then bounced like crazy until we were finally able to get him to knock it off.

Found a Lego wall!  So cool!  I think we need to adapt our Legos to go vertical in our house...

Such determination!

But he still couldn't get the magnet where it needed to go.  I did and then got kicked off by a 4 year old girl.  yeah yeah, just a minute.

Leon ALMOST ran over Maddy with the firetruck.

Then found out that SHE was actually a fire fighter too!  However the uniforms didn't fit her.

He could SO be a fire fighter if he didn't have his heart set on re-creating dinosaurs some day

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Duke later.  He gets lots of walks these days. Yay!

Later, when we turned the movie back on, Maddy asked Leon who he thought the bad guy was and he said, "Well, it's definitely xxxxxx because xxx acted weird at the beginning."  He was right.

Is he perceptive or what? 

On Monday, we went with Maddy to a cool park nearby.  We had been to it before with Meri and them.  So we got the "now" traditional picture.

Then we hit the free zoo.  The otter was a hit!

And Leon's wing span wasn't nearly as big as I thought.

The elk in this pen were put away and the workers were cleaning the windows.  

It was just as entertaining for Leon.  We just enjoyed the cool air inside the hut.

There is a chipmunk hiding under these flowers.  Leon waited for it to come out, but we made him give it up and keep going.

More otter magic.

And showing off how brave he is by putting his head in a lions mouth.

The goats were a big hit for Leon.  

This turtle lives in the same cage as the goats!  We figured it can pretty much come and go as it pleases.

THEN we hit the splash pad.  

I had brought my suit but when I heard it was mostly for kids, I bowed out. 

Wore him out!  He had so much fun running all over the place and getting soaked to the skin.

WHAT a full day!!!  After lunch at a local ice cream joint, we went to a matinee of the Incredibles 2, without Matthew!  He had to work.  Free refills on the popcorn, so four tubs of corn later, we were stuffed.  Leon tried to pull a Jack Jack and go through a door, but his face stopped him.  Then when we got back to the house, fell out of the mini-van, slamming his knees on the gravel and his forehead into the rock foundation.  What a day!

He and I went and took a nap.

Robb had found a grill on a local swap page and Maddy is now a grill master.  Maddy and Matthew fed us well and I haven't had so much ice cream in a single weekend as this one.    They threw me a birthday party on Monday night with a homemade cake and more ice cream!  AND in my honor, gave me the Firestick remote to pick something that I wanted to watch for the evening.  So after thinking about it, I chose home movies of little clips I'd uploaded over the years to Youtube.  It was so fun seeing Duke as a pup and then a new dad...  And seeing Leon over the years growing up.

What a great vacation!