Road Trip 2009 – the beginning.

And so it begins. Our grand 3 week adventure around the Eastern US. The kids and I flew to Chicago from Winnipeg to meet up with Kyle and Scotty last Tuesday afternoon. After a far-too-brief visit to Chicago – we only made it to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner – we had to get back in the car the next morning and head northwards. First to Milwaukee to meet Kyle’s parents, who had just arrived from Hawaii, then on to Sheboygan where the Margenau clan was gathering for their once-every-five-years family reunion.

Evelyn has proved to be a pretty good traveller so far.  We spend a lot of time stopped watching construction sites, and she seems happy to play in the car with all those buttons and fun lights!

She is also getting her fill of restaurant food.  Here she is slouched down enjoying a pizza lunch in Sheboygan.

Sheboygan is located right beside Kohler, WI – home to the famous Kohler bathroom fixture company!  In Sheboygan is the Kohler Memorial Art Gallery, which is interesting as an Art Gallery but, more importantly, provides some of the most spectacular bathrooms you’ll ever see.  We looked at art for a while, then spent the majority of our time peeking into the bathrooms to check out the designs!  All in all, quite spectacular.

You’ll find fancy Kohler bathroom fixtures just about everywhere here, including at the Blue Harbor waterpark that we spent a lot of time at.  In fact, I had a very sad experience with a jet-flush toilet at that waterpark.  Evelyn was wearing a practically brand new Fuzzi Bunz (cloth diaper, for those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about) under her swimsuit as a swim diaper.  Inevitably, it got dirty and I went to change her.  I rinsed out the diaper in the toilet and as I lifted it up and flushed it, apparently a small corner was still touching the water.  It ripped the diaper right out of my hand and it was gone in an instant.  Trust me, I tried to grab it – but it was gone.  So sad, I loved that Fuzzi Bunz, and they definitely aren’t cheap.  Now I’m very careful around those Kohler toilets, for fear of losing one of my children by mistake!  Anyways, Luke LOVED the waterpark and went two days in a row to exhaust himself on the slides, tubes, and swimming in the lazy river.  It was really a great experience for him.

Getting drenched as a 1000-litre bucket of water dumped over their heads

So cool – a waterslide just for riding on tubes!

The absolute best part was that they let Luke go on ALL the slides – as long as we caught him at the bottom.  He had never been on a real waterslide before, and absolutely loved it.

Evelyn got cold pretty quickly, so we sat out for the second half!

That afternoon we made it out to Lake Michigan to play on the beach before heading to Kyle’s cousin Cheryl’s house for a traditional Wisconsin Fish Fry.  The kids loved the sand and warm weather, but the water was a bit chilly for swimming. Evelyn once again ate her way through the beach, earning her a beard to rival her dad’s.  We keep hoping that when (if?) she ever grows teeth she’ll stop eating sand by the handful… but as there are no teeth on the horizon, it seems we’ve got a while before we see if that’s true.

Standing up on her own!  This is also the day she first walked – video to come in a separate blog.

Our own little mermaid

On the Fourth of July we were all invited to a friend of the family’s house in downtown Sheboygan.  They had just bought a new house right along the parade route – and incidentally just across the street from the Senator’s house.  We had prime seating for the parade, and got to benefit from a LOT of Margenau family enthusiasm.  This was my first Fourth of July parade, and we all really enjoyed it.  Except the fact that is went on almost 3 hrs and had 101 floats.  Thats a LONG time to sit and watch a parade.

Party at the Senator’s house!

The Margenau men

Dancing girls with pom-poms… another strange American tradition.

Evelyn – who just officially became an American about a month ago – happily waving (then eating) her American Flag

After the parade ended we went to the official family reunion party at Cheryl & Patrick’s house.  A ton of Margenau’s and related family all in one place.  There were unfortunately not a lot of little kids for Luke to play with, but it was sure neat to meet all the extended cousins and their families.  And to eat.  And eat and eat and eat.  We’re leaving Wisconsin about 14 lbs heavier than when we arrived.

Our little piece of the Margenau Family

Our kids and their nearest cousin who attended – baby Maren.  She is about 4 months younger than Evelyn.  That’s her Grandpa John holding her.