Playing Wisconsin Tourist

In between McKay's graduation and packing and moving to Utah, we decided to play tourist and visit a bunch of the places that we had wanted to see but hadn't been able to yet before we moved away for good. McKay had taken me to see many of the places that he lived in while he served as a Missionary in Wisconsin 10 years ago, but he still had a few places to show me, and his parents were in town and he had a lot that he wanted to show them. 

The first stop was a day in Milwaukee. We went to the Harley Davidson Factory, drove around the areas that McKay lived and served in, had lunch in Miller Park, and got some frozen custard for dessert at Kopps. 

Then we took a trip up to the Upper Peninsula. We visited Green Bay, and then went up to Marinette and Menominee where we went to a park dand then had dinner at a cute little diner with free pie with every meal and views of lake Michigan. They even gave us binoculars to help us get an even better view during diner. We really only saw ducks through the binoculars, but it was a unique and fun experience. We got to try peanut butter pie, and it was really good!

Next we spent some time in Sturgeon Bay and exploring door county. We drove all the way around the peninsula and stopped at beaches and touristy little shops and every single lighthouse we could. we also had lunch at a little Swedish restaurant that McKay remembered from his mission because they had goats on top of their grass roof, It took us a long time to find, but it was worth the hunt.It is absolutely beautiful up there and we decided we could definitely retire there some day.

after that we took a trip down south to the Alp and Dell cheese factory in Monroe and then to spend the day in New Glarus, our favorite little Swiss town. We had to stop at the Glarnerladen Antiques shop, and the swiss bakery and the Swiss hotel for lunch. We had fabulous wiener shcnitzel and bratwurst and roesti. We will miss New Glarus a lot. 

We will miss all of Wisconsin. It is beautiful and has been good to us. We have met so many amazing people and made so many wonderful friends. Wisconsin has been a little paradise for our family full of happy memories and I am so grateful that we got to spend two years of our life there. 

McKay's Graduation

On May 17th McKay graduated with his Masters in Business Administration from UW Madison. It has been a long road but a good one and we were very excited to celebrate his graduation. He worked really hard and got full ride scholarships and internships and T.A. positions and was really busy for 2 years. However, he managed to do a pretty decent job of managing to balance his home life with school and spend time with his little family in the midst of earning his degree and working, and for that I will be forever grateful. Also, the hard work paid off and McKay got a good job offer 6 months before he graduated, so we had that peace of mind as he was finishing up his MBA.

On graduation day McKay's parents came out from Utah to support him and his sister Cecily's family drove up from Illinois to celebrate with us as well. The school had a brunch buffet before the convocation, so we got to watch McKay get his diploma with plates full of yummy breakfast food. The ceremony went pretty fast, so after it was over we took some pictures and then decided to continue the celebration by going to the zoo!

Congratulations "Master" McKay! You are a smart, hard working, amazing man and we couldn't be more proud of you if we tried!

  McKay and His Friend Adam

 The kids were really excited to meet Bucky the Badger

 The whole family

 Master Young

Cousins enjoying the Henry Villas Zoo

Olivia Ann Young

 Little Olivia joined our family in April of this year. I had a rough pregnancy and was very anxious to be done with it, but Olivia has a mind of her own. She was due on the 6th of April and didn't come until the 13th! I felt like she was never going to come out! McKay's mother Nicci came out a week before the due date and stayed for a week after the due date to help, but Olivia decided not to make an appearance during those two weeks. Nicci had to fly home on Saturday afternoon, then late that night I went into Labor and I had her Sunday afternoon. Grandma missed her by only 24 hours! We were a little bit sad about that, but luckily she had a trip planned for less than two weeks later to attend McKay's graduation, so she still got to meet her pretty soon after birth.

Labor with Olivia was much shorter than with Madelynn. From the very first contraction to the time I had her was about 15 hours, and with Madelynn it was 2 days! Olivia came out in just a few good pushes and she had lots of hair! She was a big girl at 8 lbs 2 oz and 20 and 3/4 inches long. What is funny is that the doctor asked me how big I thought she would be and I told him I guessed 8 lbs 1 oz. I was only 1 oz. off. He said that for some reason mothers tend to have a pretty good idea of how big their babies are and are better at guessing than the doctors. I knew she would be big being a week overdue, and am very glad we didn't have any problems with it.

The Wisconsin Hospitals ran very differently than the Utah hospitals I was used to, which was both good and bad. They let me stand up and move around a lot more during labor than I was used to and I appreciated that. The equipment also seemed a lot more high tech which was very nice. The only frustrations I had were that they would not let me have a pacifier or baby lotion. What? Olivia was nursing like a champ and the lactation consultant even asked, jokingly of course, if she could use me as an example to other breast feeding moms. She was nursing so well that it was all she wanted to do. I needed a break, so I asked for a pacifier and they refused, saying it might hurt her ability to nurse. I get that, but it is my baby and she was nursing  well and I wanted a pacifier. So since they wouldn't give me one Olivia spent the majority of that first night sucking on my fingers, and McKay brought me a pacifier first thing in the morning. They refused to give me baby lotion because they said it might lower her body temperature. both were a little frustrating, but we got through it.

Madelynn and McKay spent a lot of time with us in the hospital. Our wonderful friends the Schmutz's watched Madelynn for us the first night so McKay was able to stay with me. Then McKay picked up Madelynn from their house and they were there all day except for Madelynn' s nap time. There is not a whole lot for a two year old to do in a tiny hospital room, so we had a movie marathon and took many trips to the little kitchen area to get snacks and juice.

We love our little girls and are so happy that they have each other as sisters.