[Moriah] Wisconsin Vacation

We just got back from a two-week vacation, August 4th-20th, up in da nort'woods, ya. It definitely wasn't as relaxing as our mini vacation to San Antonio the weekend before, but it was very nice to see family and friends that we haven't seen for over a year.



Due to the extensive drive (24 hours from Austin to Wausau), the fact that we brought Bear along with us, and the fact that I was 31 weeks pregnant at the outset, we decided to break the trip up a bit by staying overnight with my friend, Sarah, and her husband, Trent, in Urbana, IL. It was great to see them again, as we hadn't seen Trent in over two years and hadn't seen Sarah much over the past two years either. It was also interesting bringing Bear into their apartment because they have four ferrets, an animal Bear had never seen before. He did very well around them.



Once we got to Wisconsin, the first week was spent with Daniel's mom's side of the family in Wausau, along with visiting the Fox Valley twice, visiting La Crosse once and seeing our band teacher from high school and his wife.



During the first visit to the Fox Valley, we took my flute in to be cleaned and tuned, and stopped by The Free Market to visit former co-workers and pick up some much-needed vegan goodies. During the second trip to the Fox Valley later that week, we picked up my flute, restocked on some more food, visited a friend in Neenah, and went out to lunch with my aunt and cousin at Vitale's Restaurant in Oshkosh.



Unfortunately, we had another bad restaurant experience. We used to frequent Vitale's while we lived in Oshkosh, but we will never go back again after what happened this last time. First of all, the waiter was less than hospitable. They used to have awesome customer service, but apparently something happened between the time we lived there and now. We both ordered our usual meal: the Gnocchi Primavera with marinara instead of alfredo sauce and no chicken. However, when our meal came, it was packed with pieces of chicken! Daniel accidentally discovered this after biting into a piece and nearly losing the rest of his lunch. We told the waiter, who took it back to the kitchen. However, not even five minutes later, our plates came back...with about a quarter of the food left on it. All they had done was dump off whatever chicken they could find and reheat it. Daniel's plate still had chicken on it! We were disgusted with their service. It was very nice to visit with my aunt and cousin, but we will never do it at that restaurant again.



Our visit to La Crosse was very nice. We saw Eric, a good friend from high school, and caught up with him for a while as we took a drive up to Grandad's Bluff, which overlooks La Crosse, part of Iowa and part of Minnesota. That was really cool to see. Then we visited with Daniel's brother, Patrick, and Patrick's girlfriend, Stephanie. It was nice to catch up with all of them.



The rest of that week was spent going back and forth between visiting Daniel's mom and his grandparents on her side. We even went to a water aerobics class with his mom, which was a lot of fun, even though it was in an outside pool and the water was really cold.



That weekend, we celebrated Daniel's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary by going to the Wisconsin Dells and taking an Upper Dells Boat Tour. It was fun to see the area. We had beautiful weather and got lots of nice pictures. There was a baby sitting in front of us on the boat that Daniel and Patrick were entertaining with lots of funny faces and noises. She was quite intrigued by them and made lots of noises and laughed back at them. Seeing the way they interacted made me very excited for when our baby is born. I just know Daniel will be an awesome dad and Patrick will be a great uncle! We also went out to dinner that night to celebrate the anniversary. The next morning, we went to the grandparents' church at their request before having a nice luncheon at 2510 in Wausau.



The second week of our vacation was spent with Daniel's dad and his grandmother on that side, along with a trip to Minocqua to visit my grandparents, and time with a few friends in the Wausau area. We spent one relaxing morning going to Marathon Park in Wausau. The weather that day was just beautiful, and it was so nice to get out and do something quiet on the trip with just the two of us and Bear.



We had a nice dinner with Grandma Lindsley and Daniel's dad Monday evening and then had a big get-together with lots of extended family from the Lindsley side on Wednesday. Our visit to Minocqua was wonderful. We went out to lunch with my grandparents and had a great afternoon with them at their house on the lake. And it was nice to see a good friend of mine from high school that week as well.



The drive back down to Austin was long and tedious, but we broke it up by stopping overnight in Urbana again. This time we went out to dinner with Sarah and Trent at an awesome natural health food store called Strawberry Fields. We had a fantastic dinner there and then picked up a few things for the way back home.



It was a long, busy vacation. We didn't get much sleep and we were constantly running around to visit people. It was nice to catch up and see family and friends. Next time, though, I think we're going to stay put in Wausau and if friends want to visit, they can come to us... :)