Recent videos!

Self explanatory mostly I think!

Wesley here is playing at a toy at the golf place.

This one is for those who just want to keep seeing Wesley improve on walking. He can stand himself up now and has started to walk away from mom to find other fun things to do now. Crazy, because he used to be more clingy.

birthday and other trash

Hello Readers! Some of you may have been wondering when we were ever going to try out our first Wisconsin meal. Well we have. I believe it was last week on Monday, so right after our last post that we decided we should taste the brats and curds. Despite the tentative expression, it was not all that bad, although slightly less like hot dogs than I was expecting. We did not get the spicy variety of brats, because there is no way I would have been able to handle it.

Oh and the shirt I am wearing came from CR's work place. Sweet! Love getting free shirts!

The day before my birthday I made my first bread sticks! They turned out rather well if you ask me, especially since I blended all the ingredients with a fork. (Our hand mixer broke way back in Utah). But never fear, just keep reading.

For lunch we had a picnic at a park. Wesley saw a dog he liked to watch, and he went down some slides... what else do you do at a park? We left before it started to get too hot outside.

For my birthday I got: A mixer! A monkey card, a pastry cutter-inner thingy, twizzlers, and Carcassonne- with five expansions!

As part of my birthday funness, Chris surprised me with a blueberry cheesecake. I had told him that cake was off limits because we are going to have one next week for Wesley's birthday. I was expecting the lime bars that we had in the cupboard, but he surprised me!

Okay so before we get to the next picture..... cough..... I should tell you some more good surprises. I went on a mini treasure hunt to find my prezzies. On the clues were reasons why he loved including that I don't hate mailmen all to the way I'm patient.

Then on the bottom of my cheesecake after my present fun, Chris had taped what place we would be eating at this month for my birthday. Afterward, I got to pick out of a cup the other places-one a month- of our restaurant fun. Well it just so happens to be that the one he had picked (with eyes closed) was a trash can. My idea for how he should handle that was to put a board over or trash can and see if we could balance our food on it while we ate. His idea was far different....

Apparently if you have to be near a trash can, you must eat "trash." So yes my birthday dinner was left over pasta, some banana, some chips, and twizzlers... all blended up. I stopped asking what was in it, but it looked like something that may rhyme with "goop" and tasted like banana mush. We managed to get in about six spoonfuls before filling up on cheesecake again.

And in case anyone may say this was a bad dinner idea, my philosophy was: better to eat trash today when something else later in the day would make up for it, instead of eating trash on a day when cheesecake is not present to complete the meal. :)

Afterwards, Chris surprised us with a trip to mini-golf. It was great! It was a little hard to play with me being distracted about Wesley stealing the balls after we hit them, and worrying about him falling down while he walked and slide down the slopes, but over all it was a great game because I won by ONE point!

Below are some pictures we snapped of Wesley et al at the golf place. There were lots of things to do and look at while playing and waiting for others to play through.

Tah Dah!

More Weekend Fun

Another Post! Just for you Michelle so that you can see us at least once a week. We miss not getting to run into you an Allen on the weekends, so we have to keep ourselves busy in other ways. To begin with, we all need to make silly faces at a park like the photo below.

So this weekend we went to see some cool sites. This is the park at the end of our journey. Sorry the order is backwards a little, but I am sure no one will mind.

Chris had as much fun playing at the park as Wesley did.

Choo Choo! One of my favorite pictures of the trip. Go driver go!

Okay I know how it looks. I did not push him down the slide all on his own when he can't hold his head up on slides yet. But he is smiling. This cool slide is found in the photo below.

The boot! aka a fun slide. While were there, these two boys kept saying, "This is our castle. No girls allowed." Of course that doesn't stop moms from taking down little tikes.

We have one of these dino rides at a park close to our house and Wesley loves it. He was very excited to get a ride on one today too!

This is located on the top of the Monona Terrace. There were tons of these up there and I think we found a rather good one after all our searching. See if you can catch who is up there by looking to the left of Wesley.

While I was snaping a picture of the water fountain, a dude asked if we wanted a family photo. Can you turn those down nope, so here it is. Oh and I just may mention, that is not a belly, it is the tie on my pants....

Here it is! The Monona Terrace that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, complete with fishermen lining the sidewalk. I once had a teacher who made me take two days full on notes about this architect, so it is really exciting to me to learn that he has tons of stuff in Wisconsin. The reason? He was born here!

Speaking of fishing, on the Monona lake doesn't look too bad of a spot either. Isn't it pretty?

So Chris told that by company policy I can't mention the name of his work place. Chris invited Wesley and me to lunch here on Thursday as I had spaghetti and eggplant. He had a sandwich with three layers of bread, and Wesley had tomatoes, and bites of bread. He didn't like the eggplant at all.

As I have been telling people this place to work is awesome! Especially if I am not the one busting my brains out, but get to see all the cool sites! Each building has rooms that contain different themes like Star Wars, the universe, dragons, flappers, you name it they may have it, or it may be coming soon. This one I think you all can guess what it is. He sits at the main entrance to the guest area.

This theater is where Chris will get to go inside next week for a large company group meeting. It's a pretty large place let me tell you!

While there are many exciting things to see here, I snatched a photo of a suit of armor...

and R2-D2: who is shorter than Wesley just look! There are tons more exciting things to see, but in order to see them, you may just have to come give us a visit!


Finally for all you Wesley fans out there:

Tah Dah! I hope you enjoyed our latest post! See you next time!

Party Down on Capital Square

We visited the Madison Temple this week: Nearby was State Street, where no cars are allowed. On Saturdays there's a huge farmer's market that sells such local delicacies as brats and curds, but since curds just make you throw up, we didn't get any. There was a free museum of contempary art there, so we visited it too. As you can see, art these days is just plopping a wagon wheel onto a picnic table. Here's the view of State Street from the roof of the museum. It was Wesley's favorite part of the journey. Mommy's favorite part was all the architecture. I couldn't tell you what this is or it's time period, but she sure knows her stuff. Amanda got to do a cute little project this week. Since Wesley wakes with the sun and the sun is rising around 4 AM without mountains blocking it, she made a curtain to keep it a little darker in the room. This isn't from Wisconsin, but he's a real good looking boy so it's here.

And apparently this video was promised to some people about 19 months ago.

It's too boring though, so here's a more exciting version.

Moving Time

View Larger Map
Exhibit A: Provo
We left Provo on Monday around 10 AM after waiting for the cleaning checkers to not show up. Since they were in no hurry and they tend to always find junk to rip you out of your security deposit, we left before they could complain about the bed order form.

Exhibit B: Little America

Note: It looks exactly like on this picture
It was a quick hop over to Little America, Wyoming and its 50 cent ice cream cones. You can't miss it when every billboard in Wyoming advertises it. While there, Wesley got some new toys that do all kinds of cool tricks to defy his current understanding of physics.


Exhibit C: Sidney, NE

Thanks to some nice winds for 40+ mpg in the car, we got to Sidney, Nebraska without very many stops on the way. We stayed at the classic Motel 6, which is bigger than the town itself, for the night. In the morning, the car realized we were Heits on a road trip, so it decided not to start.

Earlier in the previous day, the locks had mysteriously unlocked themselves while driving. As is immediately apparent, such a problem prevents the car from starting the next morning. So while this issue was getting checked out, Amanda and Wesley hung out at the nearby Walmart. In the meantime, I stood around at this place:

They were nice enough to look at it right away. In the meantime, I sat on a trailer next to the red car on the right. Since there was only one mechanic on duty at the dealership who kept getting called away the minute he came back to the car, it only took 3 hours for them to finally diagnose the issue: a 10-amp fuse controlling the A/C. It turns out this fuse also supplies a bit of power to the ignition, and with it blown, the car wouldn't start. So after $2 parts and $70 labor, we were on our way again.

Exhibit D: Des Moines, IA

Fortunately we were able to make up most of our lost time and stopped only about 100 miles earlier than I had planned. We stopped at the Microtel in Urbandale since the signs leading to other motels were all lies. I'd never even heard of Microtel but it turned out to be cheaper than Motel 6 and with way more amenities. There was even a window bed, but no pictures to show for it.

For dinner, we had a world famous butterburger from the Culver's across the street. The next morning, the car succeeded in starting.

Exhibit E: Madison, WI

We arrived in Madison a little before 1 PM on Wednesday, and our crates full of junk conveniently arrived at our parking lot before 2 PM. By Thursday, we had everything unloaded. It was then time to make some shopping trips. In just one day we became masters at getting around town. Here's a little tour so you can become an expert too:
First, we needed some stuff from Walmart:


Then, we were hungry for pizza:


We needed some groceries eventually:


After arriving in Madison, it was hot so I turned the air conditioning on. The locks popped up again, and the fuse blew out once again. Luckily we had some extras from Sidney, so I was able to get the car started myself this time. Until I actually look into the issue, we'll just avoid the air conditioner. In the meantime, we needed some more backup fuses, but Walmart was out of stock, so we had to find an auto parts store:


End of Tour

Warning: Quit reading now if you are offended by pictures of apartments

SPOILER WARNING
Amanda had hidden muscles, so we were able to move everything up to our apartment by ourselves in 24 hours. Here's our apartment so far, and at long last Michelle's amazing present can be put to use. Let's see if she can spot it.


Living Room


Office


Kitchen


Dining Area


Corner of the living room


Wesley's room. The moment his crib was put up, he felt right at home. Wanting to show his enthusiasm, he bounced up and down inside and vigorously chomped on the railing.

Secret tip: Even though it took 20 hours to get here, Provo is actually right outside our back window. Take a look on a map if you don't believe us.

The end. Work starts on Monday and we toured the campus already, but Amanda didn't bring her camera for that.

Coming up next time (before October 2026): We explore a few more streets in Madison