Charlie's First Overnight

Saturday morning we hit the road by 7:40 to our first mini vacation as a family of 3 to the Madison, WI area. Tony originally started the "what to pack" list, and it included EVERYTHING we own for Charlie. I made that list quite a bit smaller, and we had plenty of room in the car. I'd have to say, since I'm pumping exclusively, it is difficult to travel. Luckily I have some excellent coolers from Thirty-One that kept the milk nice and frozen on our trip.

We made our first stop in the Dells so we could feed Charlie. He sat on a bench at the Tanger Outlet Mall with Tony and ate happily while I looked around at the shops. An elderly woman stopped and sat with them for a while. She really enjoyed Charlie's smiles.

We landed in Edgerton, WI at Ali and Jared's house around 12:45. We visited for a bit while Charlie snoozed in Ali's arms. When he woke up, we headed to a local park to take Charlie's 3-month pictures. It was a little breezy, making it hard to get good smiles from him. I'm hoping we got a few. Ali has posted 2 pictures on Facebook, and they're pretty cute! I'll post some when I get the CD.

We headed to Janesville to meet my friend Kelly for supper. She lives in Milwaukee, so we don't get to see her much!

We then went back to Jared and Ali's for the night. Charlie slept GREAT! I was a little nervous, but he went through the whole night. Jared was so kind and bought New Glarus Spotted Cow. It's my absolute favorite beverage.

We took off Sunday morning to meet Heidi and Raegan in Madison for brunch. We went to THE BIGGEST and BEST brunch buffet ever. I was so impressed. I cannot wait to go back again! It was at a restaurant called the Nauti-Gal. Ha, try explaining that to miss Raegan...

Raegan and Heidi got Charlie the If you give a mouse a cookie board book. I bought Raegan that book for Christmas several years ago, and she loves it. She thought Charlie would too! Raegan also read some out of her chapter book to Charlie. I was impressed with her reading skills. She's just finishing up kindergarten.

After brunch Raegan thought we needed to head to the zoo. We were all in! I did manage to get a few pictures from our trip to the zoo.

This lion came right up to the observation glass and talked to us. It was a little creepy considering what a large guy he is. I didn't get my camera out in time.

Here are my 2 girls! Nice tongue Raegan...

 Charlie napped for a good chunk of our trip to the zoo.

They just opened a state of the art animal hospital at the zoo. When they aren't working on animals, they stage stuffed animals so people can see them. Cute!

They also have this neat exhibit where you get clues and you try to diagnose the animal. 

The zoo has a great big playground. Raegan had to show off her monkey bar skills. She informed me she has 11 blisters from doing monkey bars at recess. 

On our way home, we stopped in LaCrosse and had a delicious brat grill out at Liv and Torben's house. What a fun unexpected dinner!

Charlie's schedule got changed quite a bit for the weekend, so Monday was a little rough. He seems to be back on schedule today though!