July visit to Rhinelander, part 2 (and Stephen's first birthday)

Now that we've settled back into our life here in Monticello, I've finally got some free time to update the blog. When I left off, we were awaiting the arrival of Lisa and her kids before Jenny Bayer's wedding. Below is an attempt to get the kids to pose nicely (which failed, thanks to Stephen's protests):


Saturday afternoon, we drove about an hour south to Merrill, Wisconsin, to the wedding of my cousin Jenny Bayer. The wedding was in a park not far from the Merrill home of her parents David and Mary Pat Bayer. It was a beautiful afternoon, if a bit warm, and the bride was glowing:


It was good to see some family we hadn't seen in a while--this picture of the groom includes cousin Joshua Bayer (white shirt on end), Jenny's younger brother, and her father David (other end, pointedly giving advice to the new groom):


We also saw my Uncle Don, his three sons (Joel, Jesse, and Jared), his new wife Sherry, and his new granddaughter (Bella, I think). Also present were my cousin Mitch, his wife Mary, and their daughter. My brother Bob and his girlfriend Lisa showed up fashionably late for the wedding ceremony. Here, Hope and my mother smiled nice for the camera:


And Grandma Rose danced with most of her grandkids:



We stayed for a while after the wedding dinner so the kids could dance some, but we ended up leaving early so I could return to Rhinelander and help brother Bob work on my Charger (Bob had left an hour or so before us). By the time we got back to town, Bob had finished up reassembling parts of the Charger, and we were even able to get it started for the first time in several years. Bob and his girlfriend then left to return to her house in Kewanee, and we turned in for the night. The next morning we left Rhinelander and drove towards Milwaukee, with a quick swing through Green Bay and a peek at Lambeau Field--we didn't stay long because they had their big "Family Night" promotion going on, and we needed to get to Milwaukee so Hope could drop me off and then drive the next 5+ hours to her parent's home in Michigan. I got to my hotel on time, and Hope then toughed out her solo drive to Whitmore Lake.

During the next week, I attended the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting at a downtown Milwaukee convention center. My meeting went well and I got to see a number of friends and colleagues, including my PhD advisor and some friends from college. After eating at a number of good restaurants and have a few good local microbrews, I have a much better opinion of Milwaukee than I had before...

Hope and the kids spent most of the next week with her folks. They had a big adventure going blueberry picking--here's Beth on a mission to eat her weight in berries:



They also got to visit with Hope's family, including her grandparents, her Aunt Diane, and her cousin Chris and his family. On Friday, Hope and the kids retraced their route back to Milwaukee, arriving at my hotel just before 4 pm. We immediately hopped back into the car, and drove to a neighborhood near Miller Park to meet up with my brother John, his partner Jim, and my sister Laurie. We then drove together to a parking lot near Miller Park for some tailgating before we caught a Milwaukee Brewer baseball game:


Here's Bragg Family South during pre-game warmups:


Bob and his girlfriend Lisa joined us just as the game started. The Brewer's pitcher, C.C. Sabathia, is a big, powerful man, and since joining the Brewers a couple months ago, has gone 7-0 with a tiny earned run average. The night we saw him pitch, he pitched a complete game shutout of the Washington Nationals, and struck out 9 or 10 batters:

In this picture, Stephen is advising his Aunt Lulu about the excesses of alcohol...or maybe he's just begging for a drink himself ;)

We had great seats, the kids had a great time, the Brewers won on a beautiful summer evening, we had a lot of fun tailgating--an all-round good time. After the game, we sat around the parking lot waiting for the traffic to clear, and then we returned to our hotel while the rest of the family returned to Madison or Kewanee. On Saturday, we began the long drive back to Monticello. The kids caught up on some shut-eye:

We did stop in on a small antique tractor show in Pana, Illinois:

While they didn't have a lot at this show, they were some neat items, like this motorized wheel barrow:

We return to Monticello by mid-day on Sunday. We arrived in a heavy rain--after weeks of virtually no precipitation, the skies finally opened on south Arkansas. Between Saturday and Tuesday of this week, the Monticello area received between 5 and 8 inches of much needed rain. Tuesday was also Stephen's first birthday (officially, this time), for which he got a cake with an apparently really neat candle on it:

As you can tell, the birthday cake was a big hit for Stephen:

After cake, Hope immediately took Stephen in for a bath while Kenny and Beth played with the Kuttenkuler boys (Beau and Gabe, whose parents Scott and Mandy are Stephen's godparents). A clean Stephen then got to open his presents:

Next Monday, Kenny starts school, so we've been scrambling to get him ready for that. Beth will start preschool after Labor Day, and I think she starts dance lessons next week. Busy, busy, busy! Good thing I'm done with work travel for the next month and a half!