House on the Rock

Monday morning started out with a trip to the House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI. The website doesn't have a ton of info so here's the wikipedia page link as well.

The first thing you see as you follow the drive to the main building is this crazy collection of amazing flower pots (??? somehow that doesn't seem like the right word to describe these things). They're covered in dragons....
and giant lizard looking things...
Here's Alex saving his sister from one of the giant lizard things...
(they would both need saving soon after this when they riled up some bees that were living in the lizard's foot)

A lizard-less flower pot...
... but still incredibly cool.

We went inside and bought our tickets so we could start our tour....


The Infinity Room was really cool! Although I wasn't a big fan of the fact that it moved as you walked out into it! :-)

There was lots of stained glass throughout the house....

This panel was a favorite of Clara's and she asked me to take a photo of it...

Then we started getting into all of the crazy coin operated contraptions. This was a coin operated magician....

And one of the first coin operated music machines we came across (many more would follow)....
This was one of our favorites "The Mikado". The moving parts were amazing! This guy right here...... would turn his head and his eyebrows would go up and down.

It was dark enough in there that it is hard to see all that was going on... but you can see the drummer move and the girls fanning themselves with the golden fans...


The next big favorite was the giant carousel! Please forgive the video... I was trying really hard not to fall over! It's harder than you think to walk forward in a dark room while watching a brightly lit carousel turn in front of you! It still makes me a little dizzy to watch the video :-)



There were no horses on the carousel (some unicorns and such, but no horses). We had so much fun looking at all of the different creatures.

Of course, the kids' favorite HAD to be the bulldog...
Some of the other crazy creatures....
The amazing red chandelier thing in the next room....

And the three tiered doll carousel...... which Clara found appealing and creepy all at the same time :-)



There was one bathroom in the place that was full of doll displays. She started out loving it but shortly, she couldn't get out of there fast enough after becoming convinced that the eyes were following her!

Another favorite was the band and orchestra...

It filled a room!


The House on the Rock is amazing! I think we spent close to four hours there! You have to go realizing that it's more art gallery than museum though. But crazy, off the wall, art gallery. We totally loved it.

After that we loaded up and headed for Door County which is where we would spend the bulk of our week.

Of course, the kids had to hit the pool as soon as we got settled in....

One week ago today...

... the kids and I joined my parents for a trip through Wisconsin. All five of us in the "family truckster"! :-)

We had a really great time together and I have lots of photos and videos to share. But for now, here's a little video of the kids in the pool at our hotel on our first day together....

Radtke Cousins...

On the Sunday of our weekend in Michigan, we went to the Radtke Family Reunion. The kids have been before (with their grandparents), but this was the first year we were all there as a family.

Here are the cousins...
and the girl cousins plus Alex...
It was good to catch up with everyone! We had to sneak out pretty early as we had to drive back to Chicago that night. There's a traditional water balloon fight each year (from what we've been told). It had started before we left but I think we missed the main battle.

Here's Clara holding her little cousin....
... whether her little cousin wanted to be held or not :-)

day 2... the video...

just a little sampling of the jumping, tubing, swinging, ambushing grandpa and the end of day pizza feeding frenzy...

day 1... the video...

day 2 in michigan...

Day two started with the kids in the water again by 10 am. They began with a little fun with the pink ring...
... it matches her feather well, no? (oh... I forgot to post it here... Clara got feather extensions last week... one pink feather, one purple).

They decided to try jumping into the ring from the seawall.

Alex was up first...


Almost!

Clara went, but I recorded it instead of taking photos... still have to transfer the videos to my computer.

Alex is up again...

.... getting closer!

Now Clara...


Bull's Eye!!

Alex looking rather macho with his new mustache....
Jeff came out after a while and took the kids tubing behind the wave runner (lots of video of this).

They love it... especially Alex...
Clara getting ready to go....
And her trip back in after a successful ride...

By then it was time for lunch. But that didn't keep them in long. In no time at all, they were right back out in the water. This time over at the rope swing....



From there they met a friend and ended back over on the canal side to slide and go off the diving board. Grandpa and grandma supervised so I have no photos or video.

Then, it started to pour! We all came inside and played cards for a while, waiting for the rain to let up. It finally did and at about 6:00 some friends pulled up in their jet boat to take the kids tubing and knee boarding! They were out another two hours before finally calling it a day. They were so exhausted, but extremely happy!!

one happy boy...

I have a ton more photos to post of our trip to Michigan but today I have very limited computer time so I'm going to post this one from yesterday instead.

My very happy boy....
Alex is in a day camp this week and next. It's called "adventure camp" and every day they ride their bikes to somewhere in the city for an "adventure". Yesterday morning started out with rock wall climbing at a local gym... but yesterday afternoon was the big adventure! They biked to Wrigley Field for a fitness day! They got to spend the afternoon ON Wrigley Field playing baseball and doing drills with actual Cubs players!! Alex ended up chatting with one of the players quite a bit and he gave Alex this baseball which he signed for him!!! So that's my very happy boy with his Darwin Barney signed baseball!!

family weekend in MI...

I'm temporarily suspending my search for my camera cord and moving on with photos so I don't get too far behind. I'll (hopefully) find my cord eventually and I'll post the camp pick-up photos I have on my little camera.

So, two days after getting home from camp with her friend, Clara headed off to Michigan to spend a week with her grandparents. She had a fabulous time and on the following Sunday, we did the switch. Clara came home and Alex went for a week (he also had a blast). This past Friday, Clara, Jeff and I went back to Michigan for the weekend to pick up Alex and attend a family reunion. Within minutes of getting to Jeff's parents' house, Clara had changed into her swimsuit and she and Alex were off into the water!

They started out at the rope swing a few houses down with some friends they had made during their visits, but after a while the kids all decided to go across the street to go down the slide into the canal. They also decided to jump off the boathouse roof into the canal as well. I don't have good pictures of the sliding since the big trees over there made it tough to get a good angle. However, Jeff got some good video which I'll have to get ready to post here.

Alex was the first one of our two up onto the roof, but it was Clara who first worked up the nerve to jump off....
Get ready....
jump....
going...
going...
gone!
Alex working up his nerve...
And off he went...
splash!
The end of the slide...
That was actually just a test shot to see how my settings looked.... kind of liked the shot so here it is :-)

Clara coming up from a trip down the slide...
Alex sliding off into the water...
A second trip to the boathouse roof...
I have no photos of Alex because he got up there and jumped straight off without hesitation that time. I wasn't expecting that... so no photos!

Clara chose to stay up there and blame random people on the ground for why she wasn't jumping...
But we were on to her...
But here she goes again...


So much fun!! I love that our kids had so much time this summer to just be kids!

stalling...

It's always something, isn't it?

My latest issue is that in the process of relocating my computer, I have misplaced my cord that connects my point and shoot camera to my computer. I do have a card reader, but I got some fancy type of card for this new point and shoot and my old card reader doesn't know what to do with it. So, we'll have to wait just a little longer to see the photos of when we went to pick the girls up from camp. I normally would have taken my big camera, but it was absolutely POURING when we were leaving and I just didn't want to deal with trying to keep it dry. I settled on bringing my little camera and, of course, the skies cleared and the sun came out by the time we got to camp.

To fill space while I'm stalling, here's a little video of Clara's crazy dog. Jeff and I gave her a bath while the kids were gone to camp. There are two things that Mango dislikes most in this world... being clean and wet... dry and stinky is her preferred way to be!

and there she goes...

... again!

So, the fireworks were on Saturday, Sunday we spent about 9 hours in the car driving home and Monday Clara was packed up and gone again for a week of sleepaway camp with her friend from ballet and church...

Here are the girls hanging out while we waited in the registration line...
We got registered right away and were off to set the girls up in their cabin. They originally picked a pair of top bunks (this camp has triple decker bunks)... but decided it was just too hot up there. The settled on a pair of bottom bunks so they could plug their fans in and have them near their beds.

Clara immediately started pulling out her stash of craft goodies and her and her friend started to make things...
Clara and her stash of "duck tape"....
... this was the big thing this summer at her other camp so I had to send her a care package or two of "pretty duck tape".

The girls were so ready for us to leave but we did get them to pose for one last photo in front of their cabin...
So Clara spent just one night in her own bed before going off to camp again! I had Alex at home with me though. We had a great week (that I have no photos of). I'm not sure that I've mentioned this, but Alex is starting school in the fall. He's going to be going to a brand new charter school that has a focus of technology and digital media. Starting last week, this new school is running a two week "camp" to explore some of the technology that they'll be using during the school year. Alex is in HEAVEN!! Last week his class was called Short Circuits and they spent the whole week building... you guessed it... circuits! This week he's in the video game design class. He just can't wait until September! As an added bonus, he's making friends with some of the kids he'll be in school with! Playdates (I guess he may be getting too old for that term) are already being scheduled!! Besides camp, Alex and stayed out of the heat and watched all of the Harry Potter movies in order to prep for going to see the final one. It was a really good week!