APPLETON

 We got back from Appleton last week after being there for four fun days. Shari and Mark just moved there a couple of months ago. This is their fifth state in eight years! I loved Appleton. It is a quaint old town - very large and interesting. There are a few beautiful parks, a railroad, restaurants, nice shops, lots of churches, and lots of interesting houses. It is an historical town, so all of the houses were built  over 50 years ago, and each one of them is unique. This is a picture of the house that they just bought. It has a lot of fixing up to do, but has all of the original wide woodwork with lots of built ins like old houses used to have. All of the bedrooms have built in closets with drawers and cupboards. The upstairs hallway is wide and has many built in storage cupboards and drawers.  All of the floors are wood. The worst room is the kitchen which had actually been updated in the fifties and doesn't match the rest of the house. It needs remodeling badly.

We went to visit for Esme's second birthday. While we were there, Shari made her a birthday cake with one of Esme's favorite characters on it - Dora, the Explorer. It turned out very cute as you can see, and Esme was very excited by it!

A few of these pictures "somehow" got out of order when I was loading them. i don't know how I always manage to do that! The one above is of Esme and Asher on about the third day we were there. I am very prejudiced, but I think they are both so cute!  Asher is four months now.

Esme loves to pretend. I got her some dishes to go with the kitchen that she got at Christmas. She loved them and was very good at pretending to serve everyone.

Aunt Shelley, Uncle Bob, and Matthew and Nolan sent her a couple of gifts. These are the wooden dolls with magnetic clothes that they sent for her. She loved putting on all of the clothes, but sometimes put the pants up under the dolls chin! She's only two.

Many of her toys are upstairs in the spare room that we spept in. I played up there with her a couple of times. Here she is pretending to have a conversation on a play phone. She looks very authentic, doesn't she? 

Asher is a very happy baby. He has such a sweet smile. He is already using his bouncy seat, rolling over and over and over, and scooting himself around. He is just so precious, soft and warm!!

We took a walk one evening into town to go to a restaurant by the river. Esme loved to walk, but it is a very long walk, so she road some of the way. This was a very hot day!!

Like I said, Appleton has beautiful parks. We stopped at one along the way, and Esme had a good time on the slides and swings.

Shari and Esme'

This picture got out of order. This is the actual day of Esme's birthday. We celebrated it on Sunday, but her birthday wasn't really until Tuesday. Mark had to work that day, so we celebrated with cake and gifts early. On this day we walked downtown to a place called the

"Building for Kids". It was a big building with lots of rooms filled with interesting things for kids to do. I thought this was a cute picture of Esme' and "Grandpa" walking together holding hands.

This is the restaurant that we walked to. We ate outside because all of the tables inside were taken. It was VERY HOT out!! It was next to the river and a dam. Very pretty place!

ASHER - 4 Months

Appleton is about six or seven blocks long. There is also a college, Lawrence University, there. It has a beautiful campus right in the middle of town. There are also several very large churches in town. Shari and Mark can walk to everything from where they live.

This is one of the rooms in the "Building for Kids". It was the water room. The kids put on raincoats and there are huge tubs with water toys and fountains and rivers, etc. for them to play with. Esme loved it!

Shari put Asher in his "baby bjorn" so that she could carry him around with us. It looks like he is in a straight jacket, but he likes it.

The building had two floors, so we had to use the elevator to get upstairs. I thought this was a cute picture of Esme. She wasn't quite sure that she liked it!

Such a sweet baby!!

There was an authentic looking fire engine in the building for the kids to play in. I forgot to get a picture of the outside of it.

There was a room set up like a small grocery store for kids. Everything was their level. It had shopping carts, groceries (empty boxes), a cash register, baskets, and carts.

One room was a doll hospital. There were dolls, bottles, baby beds, benches, diapers, and nurse aprons to wear. Esme loved taking care of this baby.

This was a big crane that you could operate. The big lifter picked up magnets. Here is Terry helping Esme try to operate it. 

We had such a great time with the kids and Shari and Mark. They are very hospitable - what a joy to visit! I will miss those little ones so much - they grow up so fast. I am going to try to upload some videos of Esme, but so far I haven't had much success. I don't know if they will turn out at the bottom or top of this post. If I can't upload them now, I will try to do them later in another post.