The Wisconsin Martins

Yesterday, we arrived safely home from our summer vacation. On July 15, we drove from Oregon, WI to Strongsville, OH to spend 2 days with my grandmother. On July 18, we drove from Strongsville to Buffalo, NY to visit Christine’s parents. We stayed for about 2 hours, then left for Williamsville, NY to visit some of Christine’s friends at Camp Cherith. We stayed for the evening, then drove back to Buffalo to spend the night.

On Saturday, July 19, we drove down to Pittsburgh, PA to visit some of my old college friends and some of our old college hangouts: Uncle Sam’s Subs and Dave & Andy’s ice-cream. We spent the night at the Mariott Pittsburgh City Center (thank-you, Priceline.) On Sunday morning, we worshipped with Allegheny Center Alliance Church. We went there during my last three years of college and it was a joy to be back there once more. Sunday afternoon, we drove back to Buffalo where we spent the remainder of our vacation.

On Friday, July 25, we left Buffalo and headed home. We drove as far as Shipshewana, IN before spending the night at Der Ruhe Blatz, in the heart of Amish country. On Saturday morning we ate a fantastically delicious breakfast at the Blue Gate Restaurant before walking through several of the local shops. We left Shipshewana around 11am and arrived home around 4pm.

I finally remembered how to bypass Chicago, on the drive home. I took 80-West, through Indianna, then 80-94 North, then 290 North (Tri-State toll-way), which goes west around the Chicago suburbs. Finally, we hooked back up with 90-North and drove into Wisconsin. It saved us the hassle of Chicago traffic and didn’t take any longer than 90-North through Chicago normally takes.

Finally, here’s a look at our vacation in numbers:

2100. The total number of miles we drove, round-trip.
847. The total number of pictures we brought home. We took some ourselves and Esther’s grandmothers took the rest.
700. The total amount we spent on our vacation.
295. The total number of hours we were away from home.
5. The number of different cities we visited.
4. The number of different cities we slept in.
3. The number of days that we spent half on the road, half actually doing something.
2. The number of different hotels we slept in and the number of days that we spent doing nothing but driving.
0. The amount of video we took this trip.

Here’s a look at how we spent our vacation dollars:

It’s getting harder and harder to take pictures and videos of Esther. She’s recently discovered the camera. Not “discovered” in the sense that she wants to get it down and play with it. No, she’s discovered that there are pictures on the back of it. She’s discovered that when she sees someone using the camera, she can run up and look at the pictures on the back. More and more of our pictures and videos just show a girl running towards the viewer.

Take yesterday, for example. Over the weekend, I brought up a large box from the basement. Esther decided that it was a great toy, so we left it upstairs for her. Yesterday, she was playing in it and I wanted to snap a few photos. Far easier said than done.

She noticed that I was using the camera and she quickly got up and ran towards me to see what the display on the back was showing.

I put the camera away and we both tried to distract her and get her interested in the box again. I was hoping to snap some pictures while she wasn’t paying attention. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

She ran into the box, hit the back wall, turned around and noticed the camera. Then she came charging right back out to see what was going on.

After losing 24 pounds between September and December of 2007, I stopped keeping track of what I was eating and how much I weighed. The result was predictable: after plateauing for a while I started to gain weight again. Now I’m back to tracking calories and losing weight again.

My overall history.

A close-up of the last 30 days.

As she gets older, Esther is getting better and better about knowing when she needs to sleep.

This morning, she woke up around and 6:30a and wanted to eat some yogurt. I carried her to her booster seat, got her a cup of yogurt and watched her eat. After she finished, I lifted her down from the table. She immediately walked down the hall to her bedroom and stood next to her crib. I lifted her into her crib and she curled up and went right to sleep.

She slept for about 45 minutes, then came out and played in the living room for another 45 minutes. Then, she grabbed a Nuk and her blanket and walked back to her room. This time, she turned on her CD player and stood next to the rocking chair. I rocked her for about 10 minutes and then she went to sleep in her crib again.

Something similar happened last Monday. Christine had already left for an early morning appointment. I was in the shower and Esther was playing in the living room. As I finished up my shower, I could hear her whimpering somewhere. After getting out and getting dressed, I went to find her.

To my surprise, she was in her room, standing next to her crib. She had pulled one her blankets out of the crib and was holding it in one hand. She pushed her other hand between the bars of the crib and was resting her arm on the crib mattress. She’d been standing there, waiting for me to get out of the shower and help her get into her crib. As soon as I lifted her in, she went right to sleep.

Because she’s getting so good about bedtime, we’re thinking about setting up a real bed for her and retiring the crib until her new baby REDACTED comes along. I think the only thing she would miss is the ability to hold onto the sides of the crib and jump up and down.

We bought our first dishwasher today.

Once we decided that our time is more valuable than our money, we started working on upgrading our kitchen. The most obvious way to cut the amount of drudge work was to stop washing dishes. But we value hygiene too highly to simply let the dishes remain unwashed. Thus, a dishwasher.

But this old house has never had a dishwasher before. The previous owner did put washer and dryer hookups in the kitchen. We decided to piggyback on that water line and to install a dishwasher next to the washer and dryer. That wall of the kitchen doesn’t have a countertop to put the dishwasher under. So, we’re also going to install a second countertop and some additional cabinets.

(This is also why you shouldn’t ask me to scope a project for you. Instead of going with the easy solution — a portable dishwasher — I chose to go with the much more expensive kitchen upgrade package.)

We’ve been working with Stoughton Lumber to plan the project and decide what we’ll need to buy. After we’ve bought everything we’ll need, a friend from our church Life Group will help me install it all. Because I lack pretty much all handyman skills, this will be a real learning experience.

Christine’s been watching the sale flyers for a while now. She’s also been researching dishwashers and checking out the Consumer Reports rankings. This week she saw a good deal on CR’s Best Buy. So we went out and bought it at Quam’s Appliance. They’ll hold it until we call them up and tell them we’re ready for it to be delivered.

We thought about buying our new dishwasher from Sears. Sears was willing to more than match the advertised price from Quam’s, but insisted on charging a $75 delivery fee for any purchase less than $399. The price match would have cut the dishwasher down to $344. The total price (including delivery) would have been $419. Quam’s sold us the dishwasher and delivery for only $389. Done deal. Sears wasn’t willing to price match on the delivery and that cost them the sale. Their loss, our gain.

Now we just have to finish the overall design, buy our new cabinetry and countertop, and do the installation. We can’t wait.

We went to the zoo today. Madison’s zoo, The Henry Vilas Zoo, is fairly small — it only takes about an hour to walk through the whole thing. It has two redeeming characteristics: it’s free and it’s small enough that young children can see the entire zoo without getting too tired or cranky.

We walked through the entire zoo with Esther. She enjoyed watching the chimpanzees climb around their cage. The zoo staff setup an indoor habitat and covered it with climbing ropes and nets. Esther enjoyed watching the chimps climb around the ropes.

She was starting to look tired by the time we reached the goat pen. As soon as she saw the other kids feeding the goats, she wanted to have a go of it. She climbed out of her stroller and started reaching up towards the goats. We helped her find some food that the other kids had dropped and she tried to figure out how to give it to the goats. Her idea was to just hold it between her finger and thumb and put it into the goat’s mouth. We helped her lay it on her hand, for the goats to eat out of, so she didn’t accidentally lose a finger.

After the zoo, we went out to dinner at Broux-Nellie’s. We ordered macaroni and cheese for Esther. Before her dinner came, she amused herself by eating most of a cup of ice and watching everyone else in the diner. Once her dinner came, she ate most of it herself. It was so much fun to see her scooping up bite after bite herself, using her spoon like an old pro.

This week I past a major milestone — I can now feed myself an entire container of yogurt. Watch me eat.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Download high quality video

Esther at 16 months:

She has grown up fast.

In this action packed movie, Esther first figures out her mother’s new water bottle, then rocks on her rocking horse while watching a tobyMac concert. Next she dances on the couch while enjoying more of the concert. She finally finishes up by emptying out her toy bin, from her lofty perch on the couch.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Download high quality video

With this classic home movie you can relive one of Esther’s first trips to the park again and again. Enjoy her sliding down a slide, climbing up a slide, crawling through a tube, swinging in a swing, and much, much more. All of this can be yours for just 3 easy payments of $19.99.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Download high quality video