Chad's home!

Lauren and I were SO excited to welcome Chad home safely last night. He's been in Beijing, China for the past 9 days. He went there on a grad school field trip to study international business. Jeez, when I was in grad school, I went on a field trip to a local middle school. Chad went to China. Must be nice!

He took lots of great pictures and I'll try to put some on the blog this week. We picked him up from a park-n-ride last night and he got many huge smiles from Lauren. It was so sweet at her bedtime- we couldn't get her to go to sleep. She was crying a bunch in her crib and stopped each time Daddy went in and stood beside her. I suggested he hold her and cuddle her on the couch for a few minutes to calm her down. They snuggled for about 15 minutes, with her holding her blankie and sucking on her pacifier. It was adorable. Then we put her back in her crib and she went right to sleep. I guess she just wanted a little extra time with Daddy. Isn't that sweet?

On Saturday, I took Lauren to Rhythm and Booms in Madison. It's a huge fireworks display set to music. Chad and I have gone for 9 years in a row and I was sad to go without him but I just couldn't miss it. Beth, Andy and Rachel came with me. Instead of making a full day of it at the park like we usually do, we waited and went much later in the day. We finally had our picnic blanket set up in the park by 8pm and enjoyed visiting until the fireworks started at 9:30. We loved the fly-overs of 4 blackhawk helicopters and 4 F-16 bombers. Before we went to Madison, Beth helped me find child-sized noise reduction headphones for Lauren. She didn't mind wearing them at all! Also, we had covered ourselves with bug spray but it turned out that we didn't really need it after all. We had a wonderful time and Lauren and I escaped without any mosquito bites! The fireworks were fantastic and Lauren just stared and stared at them with her headphones on to mask the loud noises. In fact, it was so quiet for her that she fell asleep halfway through the 40-minute fireworks display!

Here's a crowd-shot. They say that there are typically close to 200,000 people that descend on this park each year for Rhythm and Booms. My sweet girl didn't mind wearing these at all. Believe it or not, they are noise-reduction headphones meant to be worn by children that go along on hunting trips so that the sound of gunfire doesn't harm their hearing. I don't plan on taking Lauren hunting, but the headphones work just as well for fireworks!

Love,

Mindy and Lauren