Milwaukee

At the end of July we headed to Milwaukee for our annual Northwestern Mutual meeting. Jay had some committee meetings a few days before the real meetings, so we were there for almost an entire week. We had a great time--probably our best Milwaukee trip ever. The most difficult part was getting there. Anna isn't a huge fan of sitting still on airplanes. Let's just say that I was very thankful God surrounded us with gracious people on the airplane. At one point they were all singing "The Wheels on the Bus" to her to try and console the poor child.

We had a little mix-up with our hotel reservations, so we were at one Marriott for 2 nights and then moved over to the other Marriott. Our kids loved this big window that looked out on the river at the hotel. They were very happy watching boats and kayaks and people walking down the street on the morning it rained.

One of the annual highlights is the race on Sunday morning. Will was looking pretty handsome in his race gear. Definitely the cutest racer I've ever seen.
Catherine and Will did the one mile walk with PopPop, Mimi and Anna did the 5k, and I ran the 10k. (Jay had to head to a meeting and couldn't race this year.) Catherine was very excited that she didn't fall down and get a boo-boo this year.
On Sunday night, Northwestern rents out the entire Milwaukee zoo and has a big Garden Party. This year our kids especially loved the carousel. Will pretended like he was a cowboy on his horse and named it Rob and kept petting it and talking to it.
This was Anna's first carousel ride and she loved it. When we got down at the end, she climbed back up and wanted to go again.
On Monday and Tuesday mornings we went to a couple of museums. The kids always have so much fun. One funny story: we do a lot of walking in Milwaukee. Pretty much everything is within 1/2 mile to a mile so we definitely get our exercise. After we walked to the museum on Monday morning, Will started complaining about how much his foot hurt. I took off his shoe and realized he had a huge blister on the back of his foot. I had been thinking that he probably needed bigger shoes soon but had put it off. So he walked around the entire museum with one shoe on and I carried him piggy-back down the street when we left. We walked to the nearby mall to buy him some bigger shoes. The shoes he had on were a size 7. They measured his feet and said he needed an 8.5! No wonder his feet hurt!
We enjoy having Mimi and PopPop with us in Milwaukee too. Jay's dad also works for Northwestern so it's a lot of fun that we get to go to the meetings and dinners and events together. They were both very, very gracious to us and watched the kids a lot this year so that I could go with Jay to some meetings and dinners.
We love our annual trip to Milwaukee. Sounds crazy, I know. But Northwestern is fabulous. We love the work God has given Jay to do and the company he works for is the best there is. I'm glad our whole family gets to be a part of it!