This has been a full weekend. On Friday night Chris and Everett went to the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center for the owl hike at dusk. We didn’t see any owls during the hike, but we did learn a lot about them, and at the end of the hike we got to spend some time with four owls who are residents at the center.




We also received instructions on how to build a nest box for an Eastern Screech Owl or a Barred Owl.

On Saturday morning we went to visit our friend Vicki (who is also a colleague of Chris’ in the Neurology Department) who just had hip replacement surgery. Vicki gave Everett a ginormous cookie with a snail on it, and Everett regaled Vicki and her brother with stories about his life and how it has changed since the twins arrived.

We also took a short break to assess the acorn situation in Vicki’s front yard, and we collected several specimens that are quite different from the ones we find regularly in our neighborhood. One day soon we will offer these to the squirrels at our house alongside fruits from the Oak tree in the front yard and the Black Walnut in the backyard to see which they prefer. Naturally this will be documented using our motion camera, and we will report our findings.

In the afternoon Chad and Amanda stopped by for dinner on their way back to Akron from a wedding in Appleton. Their daughter Katie was born five days after Gwen and Teddy. We did not manage to get a picture of the adults, but did get one of all the children together. It is quite challenging to get a picture of three babies and a five year old that is: 1) in focus; 2) none of the children are crying; 3) most of them are looking at the camera; 4) there isn’t a dog or an adult wandering through the frame. Chris took several, and this was the best one.

On Sunday morning Everett went to Sunday School for the first time. We forgot to tell him in advance, and it did not go well at drop off. The teachers don’t know him, so they mistakenly interpreted his reaction as separation anxiety. In fact he was just angry that we didn’t tell him it was coming, which is reasonable and we are usually pretty diligent about it. On Sunday afternoon we visited Weston’s Antique Apples in New Berlin.

We have been there once or twice before – they have over 100 varieties of apples and a picking season that can last from August to December.


Astute readers of our blog will recall a similar picture of Chris and Everett from three years earlier.

On Sunday evening we had dinner at The Landing. Everett got to drink from his German stein that was a gift from Grandaddy.

And we were joined by with Roy, Kathryn, Jackson and Ryan. Roy is a friend of Chris’ from graduate school in Utah. His wife Kathryn is a GI physician who is doing a fellowship at MCW for the next year, so they are living a couple miles away from us in Wauwatosa. Their son Jackson is a few months younger than Everett, and Ryan turned one on the day Gwen and Teddy were born. Ryan just learned to walk and is really enjoying his newfound freedom. Translation: Roy or Kathryn were chasing Ryan most of the evening, and we attempted to have an adult conversation with whoever wasn’t chasing him. Perhaps this is what we have to look forward to in about a year, times two. We would have included pictures of our dinner together, but photography was virtually impossible.