June 5, 2009 - Serena

I feel like I am finally getting a chance to relax after a busy school year. May started with us going back to La Crosse to clean up some of my old things at my parents' house. They bought a new house along the Mississippi River and made the move at the end of May after living almost 20 years on top of Ten Mile Hill.

Emily came home to help them move, so we spent a day with her in Madison. Odessa and Emily had lots of fun, although Odessa kept lamenting Bonnie's absence. We went to the zoo, got ice cream, and Odessa is still talking about it.

Scott and I also celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary by having breakfast at the Pancake Cafe and then going to Allen Centennial Gardens to re-visit the spot where we got married. Then we topped off the evening with my very last final exam.

For my birthday, Scott planned a surprise trip to Chicago for a few days. We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, did some swimming and shopping, and just relaxed.

May finished with a Von Ruden family trip up to the Hayward area. Dave and Paula rented a cabin and we did a lot of fishing. Scott's grandparents came and camped in their motor home and took care of Odessa during the day so the rest of us could catch some fish. We had a lot of fun, ate some very good food including two dinners with fresh-caught fish, and enjoyed being together.

I am 13 weeks pregnant and starting to get bigger. Yesterday, I was able to hear the baby's heartbeat at the doctor's office. December 11, 2009 can't come fast enough. This summer we hope to relax, have fun, and spend lots of time together before school starts up again in the fall.

Here are some pictures of things that happened in May.
Here are some pictures of our trip to Hayward.

May 13, 2009 - Scott

This Friday is our fifth wedding anniversary. I think everyone who knows both of us, if they are honest with themselves, understands that Serena is probably too good for me. I'll follow her around like a lost puppy for as long as she's foolish enough to tolerate a jerk like me.

My wife is awesome.

April 21, 2009 - Scott

So for anyone who cares but doesn't know yet, you can find out the same way our parents did. We dressed Odessa in this shirt when each set of parents came to visit us:



Serena is due in December.

March 23, 2009 - Scott

Hi.

Serena and I recently returned from our trip to Florida. The days leading up to the trip were rough. Serena was under the effects of a pretty unpleasant respiratory issue, Odessa had gotten some cuts at her preschool, and I also dislocated her right elbow. She may have been the one crying, but I think it hurt me more than her.

On the 16th we took off from Chicago Midway for Jacksonville. I thought the airport in Jacksonville was very nice looking. We got on our shuttle bus and headed for our hotel.

Now I know most people would not consider us to be old, but we are starting to feel it a bit. I've got small patches of gray hair and I'm getting close to 30. Serena goes to school with kids much younger than her who don't have children, and she complains each and every time someone calls her "Ma'am". So it was nice that our shuttle driver greeted us by saying "Hello, young couple!"

We headed out to see the Atlantic ocean. Those who know me understand I have a weakness for oceans, so it was really nice for me. The only other time I remember seeing the Atlantic was half my life ago when I was 14.

On the 17th we drove north to the Okefenokee swamp with plans to explore, hike, and canoe. Unpleasant weather made canoeing not an option that day, but we did explore the area and walk on a boardwalk trail. The alligators were everywhere, and so were the little lizards.

The next day we drove to Homosassa because Serena was going to explode if she didn't see manatees. It was a long drive, but it was an interesting excursion into rural Florida, with orange and boiled peanut stands along the way. We attempted to go swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, but the beach was mysteriously closed.

On Thursday the 19th we tried to watch the sunrise over the ocean, but it was pretty cloudy. We spent the day slowly making our way southward along the coast, checking out beaches and shoreline, and little towns like St. Augustine. We also spent quite a bit of time swimming in the ocean, which is so indescribably fun I can't explain it. I normally don't really like swimming or playing in the water, but I love it at the ocean. Daytona Beach was as far south as we went, then we turned around and came back.

On Friday we tried going back to the swamp in hopes of better weather for canoeing. The forecast called for clear skies all day long, and it was a beautiful sunny day when we left. But in the hour it took to get there, the skies clouded up, the temperature dropped, and the winds picked up and it was not good at all for canoeing. Dismayed, we returned to Jacksonville and Serena went shopping at some outlet malls.

That night we dressed up a bit and went out to eat at a nice restaurant she picked out online. Between the first course, my own meal, and the dark meat from Serena's I ate the following animals that night: duck, salmon, chicken, cow, scallop. It was really great, I wish I could afford to eat that stuff more often.

Even though our plane was due to depart on Saturday, it wasn't until 4:15 P.M., so we thought we'd give one more try for canoeing in the swamp. And we were lucky enough for it to be absolutely beautiful weather. We didn't have as much time as we'd have liked, but I can't complain because we at least got out there.

The swamp is absolutely filled with alligators, and for people who aren't used to them (like, say, us), it can be a bit disconcerting when negotiating your position with the invisible line that denotes reptilian personal space. The gators are often in no hurry to move out of our way and there isn't often much room to maneuver in the narrow channels. Also, we suck at maneuvering, which doesn't help.

We counted 31 alligators on our 4 mile canoe trip, so there was lots to see. Our trip to Florida wasn't as busy as some of the trips we plan, but it is nice to take things slower and just enjoy what's going on instead of focusing on what's coming up next. It was a good trip.

Here are some pictures.

February 11, 2009 - Scott

The website isn't dead, but there's not much going on. Serena is in school, which basically means we become boring for sixteen weeks.

Odessa has been going to school for a half day on Wednesdays in order for her to interact with other people her age. She seems to enjoy it, and as a bonus she brings home a new sickness each and every single time she goes.

She has also been recently disturbed by something she refers to as "Yets". What the Yets are, we don't know, but they are outside the windows and Odessa isn't a huge fan.

My birthday is coming up. I realize that Serena is very busy and doesn't have the time to properly plan a party for me. So, being the generous person that I am, I have kindly instructed her what I expect her to do. This eliminates the time that would've been spent worrying over how to not screw it up.

I indicated to her that she should anticipate everywhere that I would walk on my birthday and, while I am sleeping the night before, to bake and ice enough cakes to put on the floor in the places she expects me to go. The goal here is to not allow my feet to touch the ground on my birthday. My feet should touch only cakes.

See? There was nothing new to report. Business as usual.

January 10, 2009 - Scott

Serena's parents generously allowed us the use of a timeshare for a week. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a place to use it when you can't plan ahead, so we try to find seasonal locations during their off-season. That's how we ended up going to Branson, Missouri and had a somewhat awful trip.

I had never heard of the place, but it didn't take long for me to get the general idea of its appeal to some people. I would not count myself among them. The reason I was interested in heading into the region was due to the numerous caves, waterfalls, and hiking opportunities that abound in the area. We left at midnight so that Odessa could sleep during the ten hour drive. I prefer driving at night, so this was good for me too. The drive was nice and easy.

At about 8 A.M., near Springfield, MO, we stopped at a location I had learned was the spot of a non-commercialized cave. I thought it might be neat to check out and explore a little, and it was one of many I had set up for the trip. I had even packed a couple flashlights and head lamps because I am a nerd. I'd guess this is where the trip started to go downhill.

After driving on some gravel roads in the middle of nowhere for a while, we came to a large stream blocking the road. It was at least 30 feet wide and the water was swift. Ostensibly, the cave was on the hill I could see on just the other side of the stream. I wasn't going to try anything crazy today, though a couple years ago I may have. So we decided to turn around. Only, the car wouldn't start up. That's not good. No cell phone reception, either.

I lifted the hood to see if I could spot a problem, because, as everyone who knows me will attest, I'm basically the world's best auto mechanic. I can fuel the car by myself, wash the windows by myself, and, on good days, I can even adjust the mirrors by myself. So when I opened the hood and saw that one little thing looked like it should be connected to some other little thing, I thought to myself "Hey, I should probably connect those little things and make one big thing." So I got some string I had handy and tied everything all up nice and tight. Next try, the car started. I was feeling pretty awesome.

We decided to have the car looked at when we got to Springfield. They told me that what I had done was basically unrelated to whatever the real problem was and the fact that the car started up after my repair was completely coincidental. That's so stupid. Anyway, they didn't seem to know what the real problem was, but charged us eighty bucks to fix something with the battery regardless.

That behind us, we arrived in Branson about an hour later. We walked around Branson Landing, a commercial area along a lake. I don't really care for such things, but they had a fountain there that was pretty neat. They had little shows with water jets, colored lights, and giant fireballs that was synchronized to music and pretty entertaining. The temperature that day was 73 degrees F, and it was hard to believe it was January. The rest of the trip would be much colder, but still warmer than Wisconsin.

Anyway, upon arriving in Branson, it didn't take long for me to figure out that I wasn't a fan of the city. It's just not my kind of place at all. Most of the stuff we planned for the trip was well outside Branson, so it wasn't a deal-breaker or anything.

The first real problem of the trip soon became apparent: Serena and I can be pretty stupid parents. Maybe it's because we're still sort of new at this or because we're just far too inconsiderate, but we clearly did not think about what Odessa would get out of the trip. Remember when I said that most of the stuff we planned was outside of Branson? Well the logical implication is that a lot of driving would be required to get to the places we wanted to see; an implication that initially went unnoticed to us as we planned the trip.

As a result, Odessa was stuck in a car seat for long rides. She's just over two years old, and if you know her at all, you'll understand that she is extremely active and hates being restrained. On just the second day of the trip, at 8:50 A.M., as we strapped her in the seat, she looked at us with pouty eyes and sweetly pined for better days by whining "Home?" It would be a word she'd say over and over again throughout the trip.

The next problem that we had was something was wrong with the coordinates I put into our GPS for things like caves and other points of interest we wanted to see. For some reason many of them did not seem to be in the right place. We've been geocaching for almost six years, logged over 250 finds, and owned three different GPS models so I consider myself to be pretty capable when it comes to this stuff. As I sit here in Madison, I still don't know exactly what went wrong, but I'm going to figure it out eventually so it doesn't happen again. The point is, not only were we subjecting Odessa to long car rides, when we got to our "destination" there would often be nothing there.

And then the problem that emerged after that was when Odessa got sick. And when Odessa gets sick, I get sick. We both had some pretty bad nausea, though I managed to control mine. And by "control mine", I am eloquently saying that I didn't vomit all over everything, like Odessa did. Multiple times a day, every day. We ran out of clothes and bedding for her.

Two days before we were due to check out, Serena and I had a talk. Odessa and I were really sick, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that Serena would be getting sick as well. This posed another problem: How in the heck are we going to be able to drive another ten hours home if we're all sick? We decided to leave early so that Serena could drive back before she got sick. We thought if we were feeling up to it, we might also check out the zoo in St. Louis, which looked really neat and was free.

As it turned out, I was feeling a bit better the day we left so we did end up at the zoo, which was nice. Right after the zoo, however, is when Serena got sick. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't want me to get into too much detail because she's such a lady, but let's just say it was explosive, forceful, and... let's go with voluminous. Not to mention frequent. So I ended up being the driver. Oh, and to top it off, the last three hours of driving were through a freezing, gusting, and very slippery snow storm.

And while we're very glad this is all over, we don't mean to imply that there weren't good things about the trip. The highlight for me was Blanchard Springs Cavern. For as much as I am interested in caves, I am embarrassed to say that I did not actually realize that caves could have rooms this enormous. Every cave that I have been to is relatively narrow with some larger rooms, but nothing even compared to this. Every cave that I have been to before is on some other inferior tier below Blanchard. I cannot say enough about it. I even had dreams about it that night. I am even more eager now than before to experience other, larger caves.

We also found some history at the historic site of the Battle of Pea Ridge, a Civil War encounter which solidified Missouri for the Union. Wikipedia, the unquestionably infallible source on everything, refers to it as one of the best preserved Civil War battlefields, and it was fascinating to explore. This area is also where Odessa discovered her love of deer. "More deer? More deer?" We toured Cosmic Caverns, another show cave in the area as well, and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Additionally, we passed through a small town in Arkansas called Eureka Springs which was very neat.

The Ozarks region seems very interesting, but circumstances prevented us from seeing pretty much any of it. We didn't do a single hike, and the only time I used my headlamp was when I needed to clean up vomit in Odessa's very dimly lit bedroom. Serena and I want to return to the area, but this time we will come without Odessa, and we'll stay in Eureka Springs instead of Branson.

I've posted some pictures if you'd like to check them out.