Lea in Galena

I need everyone to call my wife and tell her thank you. She allowed us to impulsively set off on an adventure this past weekend. I've been climbing the walls this summer for something to do. Grad school is done and babysitting has commenced. In a previous post I stated that I was going to be playing video games and reading all summer. My daughter has put a kink in my plans. She is not always happy just laying between feedings. Sometimes she wants to be held, sometimes she wants to be paid attention to, sometimes she's angry and has no reason for it. Lately she's been eating like a horse. (I feed her, she gets mad, I feed her more, she gets mad, I feed her one more time, and she gets happy)

What I'm getting at--I've needed something to do that will include the kid. I took her to the mall this past week (ran into a former student which was cool. Come on former students, randomly walk around malls in Des Monies so I can run into you) which went very well. Lea loved the mall. Happily jabbered the entire time. Flirted with the salespeople. It was great.

So Kate and I (spurred by my good friend Dr. Jesse's suggestion) have been discussing taking a vacation with Lea. Thursday night we were deciding when we should embark. Kate offhandedly mentioned that this weekend would work (she had Friday off). Being an wannabe impulsive person, I jumped on the idea. To shorten the already too long story, we decided to take a test-vacation. Short distance, weekend in length, collect data of how Lea does, results would allow us to gauge how she'll do with a longer trip.

In short, Lea did fantastic. We took her to Galena, IL. The trip was only three hours long, and she slept the whole way. We kept her in Dubuque, IA, which she was fine with. We took her to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium on Friday. See picture below. We then spent most of Saturday in Galena. She was happy for the entire time, expect our choice of lunch. She wanted the entire restaurant to know who she was. Once we left and got her outside she was happy again. Lea got to see President U.S. Grant's house and loads of goofy little shops in Galena. We were very happy with our munchkin--and I didn't even mention that she slept 10 hours straight both nights in the hotel.

Our conclusions: we will be talking a longer, multi-state, multi-stop trip. We are very excited.

The following are pictures from our trip. They are in reverse order, and I'm too lazy to correct them. Deal with it. I know you're only reading this to see pictures of the cute kid.




Picture of the family taken in front of the mighty Mississippi. (taken by stranger)




Lea and I in front of President Grant's house.





Lea and I in front of a statue of Mrs. Grant. The representation of Mrs. Grant is not flattering.



Lea and I about to get eaten by a mammoth catfish. The catfish looked even bigger in person.