Friends, friends and fun

As you can see, we had a pretty good week.


Last Thursday we went downtown Milwaukee for Jazz in the Park, a weekly outdoor summer event here. It was very pleasant and Cash had a good time socializing with the people surrounding us.

We've also spent a lot of time with friends in the last week. I think it's because we're finally settled in and are excited to be more social. Cash and I went with the Chang's (another Transitional year family) to a really nice lake with a beach.

We also went to the local farmer's market with them the next day and got some good veggies. They came over Sunday for dinner and our house was about 400 degrees even with both the window AC units going full blast all day. I probably shouldn't have cooked so much, but we were pretty excited to have rhubarb crisp. Anyway, later that night we were like, oh man, we've become those people - like the people's houses we go to and it's a million degrees and they won't turn on the AC even though we're dripping sweat. So the next day I called our landlord and asked if they had any spare AC units, and if not we'd go buy one. She said they were actually thinking of putting in central air this week. YEA!!!!!!!!! So that got put in and I am ever so happy. Finally a solution for our sweating issues. And much more pleasant for anyone who may want to visit us. (Hint, hint.)

Cash and I went to the Children's Museum with our next door neighbors - Melanie and her little boy Harrison who is a year and a half. Cash is so happy to have a little buddy around. Plus they have good toys and a fun yard to play in. Ryan has forbidden us from collecting anything this year since we'll be moving again next year. But the Children's Museum here is great and we really enjoyed it. I think we're going to get a membership. The only downfall is that Cash got sick at the end of the week and I'm pretty sure two trips to the Children's Museum was responsible.

Cash and Harrison are pretty funny together. They're both really chill kids and just make each other laugh. The car ride was too cute, as you can see in the video:





Jed and Melanie (the next-door neighbors) also had a barbeque for some of the couples in our neighborhood. It was nice to get to know people, especially now since once the winter comes we'll all be in hibernation, apparently. Here's the frozen lemon dessert I made for the BBQ. I'm really happy that I found a replica of the recipe my mom always used that doesn't have raw eggs. I always felt a law suit coming on.

Anyway, Melanie and I also discovered maybe one of the only advantages to having only about 5 feet between our houses - baby monitors and nap times. I felt rather successful having two children nicely napping while I was in charge.

We had friends over on Friday night for dinner and games - I've found some stiff nertz competition here in Wisconsin.
Then Saturday we went to Bastille Days in the afternoon - a French festival in downtown Milwaukee. Besides the freakishly huge puppets, the Eiffel Tower replica, and the wine tasting going on, I really couldn't see anything authentically French. Most of the vendors were Chinese, Mexican, Italian foods, etc. We're not sure we'll go to too many more of the festivals. It wasn't all that exciting, and we hear they're pretty much all the same.

Later that night we went to another BBQ with some of the transitional year residents. I know, we sound like such party animals. Pretty much we are. That's why we moved to Milwaukee, right?

As for this week's milestones, Cash has now taken at least 13 steps consecutively. For anyone in the family who feels they are missing these important events, you can see one of the first attempts here:




The second milestone - Cash got his first plate of cookies from a girl! Our cute 5-year-old neighbor on the other side, made some cookies just for Cash. And she was adamant that he would like frosting on them (very true), so they even made a special trip to the store to buy some frosting with sprinkles for him. How sweet!





Here's Cash skeptically wondering if I'm really just going to let him have-at the whole plate of cookies.




Then getting over his hesitation:




I know I've mentioned some blogs I like to some people (women, pretty much) so I figured I'd put the links on here so you can check them out. Ours is obviously just a here's-what-we're doing blog, but theirs are some cool alternatives to just the journal blogging. My friend Gabby from New York started a blog called Design Mom a year ago and it's HUGE now. It's great and it gets tons of hits from people every day. She has great ideas, advice, guest moms and awesome give-aways. Check out more at:
http://www.designmom.com/

When she's famous, at least I can say I did her hair.

Another one that I think is great is one another friend from New York started about the preschool she does with her son Connor (preschools are ridiculously expensive in NY). I think she was an education major, but anyway, when Cash is old enough, I'll definitely be using it: http://preschoolwithconnorandmommy.blogspot.com/

I have a lot of friends that are new to the blogging world, but it's awesome! I wish more of you did it so I could keep up on your lives too!