Our family has been living in Wisconsin for the past couple months while I prepare a piece of property that we bought years ago for an eventual little country house. While my work still takes me all over the world to winter mountain ranges, we have decided that our boys need to have more time in both my wife and I's hometown in southeastern rural Wisconsin. Also, you read that correctly, I said, boys... plural. I have talked about "happy firsts" here before, and this post highlights a few more that have come for Amos, including becoming a big brother! The future is always uncertain, for all of us, not just Amos, but memories like these are forever.
^Amos became a big brother. Needless to say, Walt, has a lot to look forward to with a big brother like Amos. Amos is a total wild child, and he loves his little brother... aggressively... if you will. I just keep telling Walt that he will have to toughen up quick because Amos only knows a full-throttle kind of outlook thus far in his young life, and it seems all that Walt wants in life is to hang with his big brother.
^Before we left Utah, our good friend, Jenni, and her sister, Heidi, treated us to a day with them at a local amusement park, Lagoon, near our home in Ogden, Utah. Jenni works for Overstock.com, and the company rented out the park. Jenni treated Amos, and us, to his first day at an amusement park. Lagoon was the perfect place for his "happy first", and a low-traffic setting due to the generosity of Overstock.com was a wonderful way to enjoy Lagoon with a small crowd and short lines.
^Oops, Amos didn't expect that bump in the ride, and wasn't paying attention. I am happy to report that despite piling his head into the steering wheel in this incredibly luckily timed photo he brushed it off hooting and hollering his way through the rest of the ride. He also learned to pay more attention to the ride, and I was thankful the steering wheels were padded. Gotta admit this photo is hilarious though!
^Jenni and baby Walt.
^Me and Amos.
^Christine and Amos.
^(L to R) Heidi, Jenni, Amos, and I.
^Even me and Christine got to ditch the kids onto Jenni and Heidi for a bit to have a rip on a couple rollercoasters together like the old days when we went to Great America with our high school physics class. The day was perfect and Amos talked about the rides and Jenni and Heidi for a good week afterwards. Needless to say the first time at an amusement park was a hit with Amos, and Christine and I are once again forever grateful to our dear friend Jenni and her sister Heidi. It's the people that make this life worthwhile and we are blessed to be loved by great people.
Then the time to head east to the midwest and Christine and I's hometown came upon us pretty quickly. After Amos got sick we felt the draw of our hometown more then ever. We always planned to have a home there some day, which is why we bought the land, but after Amos' ordeal the pull towards more time with our families there became deeper and moved up our timeline to a faster pace.
^We wanted to make sure to take one more hike on one of Amos' favorite trails,...
^... and snapped a nice little family picture before we packed up. Ogden is beautiful. We'll be back just after Thanksgiving for winter, but I have to clear that property in Wisconsin if a house is ever gonna get built on it so we had to pack-up and do Amos and Walt's first big road trip across the Great Plains of America east to Wisconsin.
^I love this little house. We'll be back pretty soon. Time flies when you are as busy as our summer was slated to be, and it will undoubtedly fly by before we are driving right back.
^The van all packed up.
^On the road bright and early.
^The gang.
^We took the scenic route. We linked together some cool spots on a more northerly route from Ogden to Wisconsin. Our first stop was in Lander, Wyoming for a day. It was a "happy first" for all of us in Lander, and we did a great day hike to these Popo Agie Falls. We also stopped in the Badlands of South Dakota for a day as well.
^First time any of us ever had a fast food picnic in the one shady spot on a hot summer day next to the gas meter behind an O'Reilly Autoparts store. Traveling with a dog adds a few extra elements. We thought it was a pretty hilarious "first". The whole road trip was a 6-day affair, and the longest for both the boys.
^We arrived at my parent's house in Wisconsin, and the summer fun was on. Amos was loving his first Wisconsin summer. He quickly became a little fish swimming in the local lakes, and Nonni and Grandpa's little buddy. They are spoiling him right proper, and there's not a whole lot I really want to do to much about it. For now.
^I on the other hand began lumberjacking on the property. This picture above is the first time that all of us were out on the property together. I have a lot of work before its ready for a house, but it's time and labor that I have, and money I don't so I am settling into the chore.
^Amos' first ride on a Stand-up paddle board! Murphy getting her swim on too! This new local park near our property is quickly becoming one of our favorites. It has hiking trails, a non-motorized lake, and its dog friendly for Murphy too.
^Beautiful. All of it.
^A really cool first... Amos' first day of school! It is only 3k so its not "school" really, per say, but it was still a huge milestone for Christine and I especially.
^Amos was pretty pumped about it too though. He was super excited about his Cars lunchbox and his Curious George sleeping bag.
^It was the school that I grew up in too. Pretty nostalgic all around.
^He took right to it. No problem. His mother and I on the other hand had a hard time leaving the classroom. We kind of milled around for a while, filled out some paperwork, milled around again, and eventually had to appease the strange looks from his teachers and just leave. Neither of us spoke at all for a while on the drive back. It was a strange mix of joy, sadness, nostalgia, victory, and loneliness. We both agreed neither of us were quite sure how to feel about it. Amos though, he was fine. As far as he was concerned, he was just another kid in that classroom. No big deal.
^Learning to ride his Strider bike at a local trailfest at Silver Lake Park's new mountain bike trail system. Happy first for me to come home and ride a mountain bike on real single track flow trail! That will make Wisconsin summers more pleasurable for me, and I am glad to be able to share it with Amos too. Christine and I both came to love mountain biking in Utah and it is awesome to have it growing so much in Wisconsin now, and to have the local Park with a single track trail system is huge. Maybe one day Amos will ride on the new mountain bike team at the local highschool.
^Amos gets to become friends with his cousin, Cole, too. My big brother has a young son a year younger then Amos, and due to Amos' whole ordeal they really had not been able to spend much time together. This summer and fall the two have become fast friends, and both get so excited to hang out with the other. Just two kids who want to play, do not really want to share yet, but we're working on that one! Watching them play together, and fight each other, is really special to see. It is also such a comfort that Amos has no idea why his mom and I cry over everything, or why every new thing he encounters is such a "thing" for us. I think we'll get used to it too, maybe not. Either way, he is a regular kid now. Yeah, he still has risk, as I said before, to some degree, we all do, but for all intensive purposes... he is a regular kid. He is trying to potty train, he doesn't want to share his toys, he loves his momma, Lightning McQueen is a very famous race car, he loves getting dirty, and he hates when it is time to leave the playground. He throws me this pouty lip and puppy eyes on that dirty face, and I cave in for twenty more minutes pushing him on the swings just like every parent now... and he doesn't know why that is such a big deal. That's my favorite part.
