Annual Wautoma Weekend

This past weekend we spent it with our friends, Scott, Anna & Ethan Harms; Matt, Sarah & Genevieve Maio; and Kyle, Robin & Miles Kroening. We all bunked down in the Maio's cabin in Wautoma, WI. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty cool and did not get the opportunity to float in the lake, but a few of the guys did take morning lake baths. Brrrr. Ethan & Miles even ventured in for a few minutes to say they got their toes wet. The group took a few laps around the lake in the pontoon boat and even got stuck on a stump in middle of the lake. Props to Matt for diving into the freezing water to maneuver the boat off the stump. On Saturday & Sunday evenings the guys went out to try the luck with the local fish and then we all enjoyed camp fires and smores. It will be hard to fit everybody in the cabin next year as Anna is due with their second child in September, Melissa is due with our first child in October and Robin is due with their second child in January. We will be going from 11 people to at least 14 people. Could there be more????

Festa Italiana 2009

On July 16th, Melissa ventured downtown to watch her nieces dance with the Children's Italian Dance Group. They danced to five different songs and did great. New this year was the Pinocchio Parade, where the participants of different Italian dance groups walk through the fairgrounds. On Friday & Saturday Lexi was the fairy, similar to when she was in the Great Circus Parade. Here are a few shots of the girls dancing.

Birthday Fun!

After the Circus parade, we celebrated Nicholas' 4th birthday at Flabbergast in Sussex, WI. It is a large gym with gigantic inflatable toys, slides, jungle gyms and a game area. It was great to watch the kids run around and get out all that extra energy. Afterwards, the family headed over to Jeff & Cheryl's house for the family birthday celebration. We also celebrated Steve's 33rd birthday. As always, there was a large amount of confusion and chaos with the kids running around. Thankfully there were new large quirt guns to soak each with. The adults were glad to stay inside. Here are a few more pics from the night...

Madison & Nicholas in the jungle gym

Nick & Madison's action shot

Matt anticipating his next move

Nick & Matt racing down the inflatable slide

Happy Birthday Nick

The Birthday Gang

Holy Moses!!!

On Monday, July 6th, Shawn & Melissa went to the Highland House in Mequon. We were very excited to see Shawn's long-time friend, Ben Sattell. Ben moved to Taos, NM about two years ago. Ben was in town visiting family and we were so excited that we were able to dine with Ben and his new family, Flowers, Hawk and their new son Moses. Here are a few pictures from our patio dinner. We hope we get a chance to see them again sooner rather than later!!!

Flowers, Hawke, Ben, Shawn & Moses

Shawn, Moses & Melissa

Ben, Shawn & Melissa

The Great Milwaukee Circus Parade

Only every few years the Great Milwaukee Circus Parade rolls into town. Finally on Sunday, July 12th the parade returned. After a few days of festivities at the lakefront, the grand finale was the parade. Melissa's parents, Daryl, Jenny, Madison & Melissa staked out a piece of the sidewalk with the other thousand's of spectators for the highly anticipated parade. It is always quite the spectacle as the parade becomes entirely horse drawn with 50 authentic circus wagons, 350 exquisite horses, 30 musical bands and novelties, exotic animals, 150 clowns and over 450 riding and walking performers dressed in lavish circus wardrobe. This year my niece, Lexi Prusow, was also walking in the parade to promote the Children's Italian Dance Group of Milwaukee and Festa Italiana. She was dressed as a fairy and did a fantastic job walking approximately two miles, despite her brief case of nerves.

Jenny, Daryl, Madison, Dad, Mom & Melissa

Lexi (blue fairy) walking in the parade

Tailgating fun

On Saturday, July 11th, Shawn & Melissa organized a fantastic tailgate with a few close friends. We were joined by Jason & Kristin Jourdan, Kevin & Bridget Pankonin, Justin Pankonin & girlfriend, Rachel. We arrived with plenty of time to set up our tailgate and eat, eat, eat. Starting off with bacon wrapped asparagus, carrots with dip, taco dip & chips, Italian sausages, brats & hamburgers and wrapping up with delicious chocolate peanut butter bars and chocolate chip cookie bars. Oh and lots of beer, water for Melissa. The game was very enjoyable despite Shawn dropping a full glass of beer on the patrons next to him. Nice...real nice. The Brewers beat the LA Dodgers with a final score of 6-3. We stayed in the parking lot for another 90 minutes to finish some beers and watched our drunken neighbors. Can't wait until we do it again next year!!!!

Tailgating with all the details

Bridget, Kristin & Melissa

Shawn, Kevin & Jason

Melissa & Shawn

4th of July

This year we spent a fabulous weekend in Door County for another 4th of July. Shawn, Melissa and the dogs got to the cabin on Thursday night early. It was so nice to relax prior to settling in for the night. On Friday morning, Shawn was kind of enough to go strawberry picking with Melissa. We picked a flat of strawberries and sure did enjoy them. We were treated by Grandpa to a delicious fish fry with the most of the family, around 22 people. Brewer really enjoyed swimming in the bay, while JoBu did an excellent job of trying not to drown as he did not like the water so much. Shawn really wanted to teach him how to swim so he carried JoBu into the bay and made him swim back. It was quite hilarious. Brewer had an amazing time swimming out to everybody on the floats and even tried to swim after Shawn & Uncle Fred on the boat. It proved to be another fantastic adventure on Saturday, the 4th of July. After a day of floating in the bay, we prepared for the annual wienie roast. Yummy! Uncle Mark brought out a new wienie roaster. Two hot dogs could go on either end and then rotated by the built-in-reel. Very humorous to watch! The fireworks display was absolutely amazing. Not only did we have the best show that I've seen in my years in the Bansemar family, but we were also blessed with the entire county's fireworks. Fireworks were seen up and down the point, including a display from a wedding down the road. They were fantastic. Dangerous, but fantastic.

Shawn & Melissa picking strawberries

Melissa, Shawn, Grandpa & Eric

JoBu & Brewer enjoying a cold one

Our impressive firework display

Uncle Mark & his weiners

Shawn & Uncle Fred go for a boat ride. Not seen: Brewer swimming after boat

Shawn swimming with his dogs

There she goes....

So picture this....Melissa is relaxing after a long weekend of cleaning out the basement by herself and 3 trips to Goodwill. (I can't believe the memories of my childhood. I consolidated 4 boxes of memories into 1 box!) It was just Melissa, Brewer & Gatsby (brother's dog) for the weekend while Shawn was in Door County with JoBu and some of Shawn's relatives. Shawn apparently did lots of yardwork and and cottage maintenance. So fast forward to 5pm on Sunday night, Shawn had a freshly opened a beer, the oven was preheated for some potatoes and we were about to put the chicken on the grill when we had some large gusts of wind come through our neighborhood. We were sitting at the kitchen table when we heard a sound similar to some chairs turning over. Well! Melissa looked out the front door window and saw leaves blowing around, which had not been there 5 minutes ago. Oh crap! Our front tree had gone down. The neighbors had seen its gradual fall as it had cracked in half. Thankfully, nobody had been walking by at that exact moment. We all know how the Bansemar's are in outside preparation...no long extension cords, no tree trimming equipment, no chainsaw...nothing! Our friendly neighbor, Tony, said he had a chainsaw, but it was electric with a loose chain and it was starting to drizzle. Typically, not a good combination! Our other friendly neighbors, Joellyn & daughter Kelly, came down barefoot to report that husband & father, Rob, was on his way back and very excited to help in the removal of our tree. Unfortunately, Melissa did not think to take any "before" pictures of the tree but once Rob brought out the rope for Shawn to aid in the direction of the tree falling and Rob was at the trunk of the tree, she knew that it needed to get scrapbooked/blogged! It took the 5 of us less than 45 minutes to completely remove the tree. Thank goodness for friendly neighbors! In the end, we had 12 piles of branches that line the entire front of the house. We are hopeful the City workers will pick them all up next Friday during brush pick up.

Melissa, Joellyn & Kelly are standing clear

It's a...BABY

On May 19th, we went in for the big anatomy ultrasound. We were very excited to see our little bean again. This time we were able to see things a little more clear thanks to the ultrasound machine's higher resolution. Everything is looking healthy and normal for the most part. We do have to go back for another ultrasound appointment beginning of July to check on a few things, but we do not mind at all. It's always so thrilling to see the new developments!

Baby's head. Check out that cute little nose!