Thursday, December 18, 2008

Otto

Allen has always loved the name Otto. He's tried to convince all of his kids to name one of the grandbabies, Otto (yes, even the girl babies). In fact, Eliya's nickname is Otto. Imagine how delighted we were when we discovered that the Dr. Seuss book "A Fish Out of Water" starred a fish named Otto. We asked Allen to read it to Sheinah and enjoyed the look of surprise on his face when he read the fish's name.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Is hotdog a Vegetable?

Travis has been talking about shooting a deer for a few weeks now because we have so many in our backyard. With his parents coming to town, he actually got a deer tag. Coincidentally, Travis bought some straw last week to cover our septic area since we hadn't had enough snow to keep it from freezing. Who'd have thought that deer would want to eat the straw! Now, deer baiting is illegal in Minnesota (but legal in Wisconsin, and thus, quite controversial). At one point we had 9 deer in the yard. So, Travis and Allen got out the bow and Travis shot a deer on his first try. They waited overnight, went out on our property, and found the deer just a few yards past the edge of our yard. Allen took care of skinning the deer and all that stuff. We were very open with Sheinah and talked about the whole process with her so she wouldn't be freaked out. Luckily, she hasn't seen Bambi :)



Anyway, Lori took this video this morning while Allen was cutting the deer up into steaks. Here is a transcript for those of you who can't understand Sheinah-ese:



Travis: What is this?

Sheinah: A deer that doesn't walk anymore

Travis: A deer that doesn't walk anymore? Do you like deer?

Sheinah: NO

Travis: How come?

Sheinah: Cuz they walk.

Travis: Cuz they walk? Where do they walk at?

Sheinah: Grass

Travis: In the grass? What are you gonna eat if you are not gonna eat deer?

Sheinah: Vegetables

Travis: Vegetables? What kind of vegetables?

Sheinah: Broccoli...

Travis: Broccoli!

Sheinah: and, uh...hotdogs

Travis: and hotdogs!

Sheinah: and carrots

Travis: Broccoli and hotdogs and carrots. I don't know if hotdogs are vegetables. You don't know, but you're not going to eat deer?

Sheinah: no

Travis: no, because they walk, huh? You want to touch it.

Sheinah: no

Travis: Look it, Opa has some, you want to touch it?

Sheinah: no

Travis: OK

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Dance Class

Now that "baby sister" has arrived, we were looking for a way for Melissa and Sheinah to have special time together...enter Mommy and Me dance class. Melissa saw an ad for the class in the local paper and decided to sign up. Melissa and Sheinah go to class for 30 minutes on Saturday mornings. As Sheinah likes to say, "no daddys can come." In addition to Mommy and Me, Sheinah's best buddy from her old daycare, Gabrielle, also goes to the class so it's doubley fun for Sheinah.




This Saturday, her Nama was in town so we all went together to class. We decided to get some pictures and video to capture this momentous ocassion. It should be noted that Melissa managed to leave the camera there (she has a long history of losing cameras, just ask her Aunt Jo-Ann). Luckily, someone turned it in!



The little girl in the green shirt is Sheinah's friend, Gabrielle. You'll see that they are the only two little girls who are not wearing fancy dance clothes. Maybe Auntie Shannon can make Sheinah a little dance skirt for Christmas? HINT, HINT, HINT :)

In this week's class, the girls learned first position. In the video below, you'll see Gabrielle and Sheinah practicing first position and doing a PliƩ and then doing a dance at the end. The teacher uses some neat terms to help the girls learn the positions. To get them into first position, she talks about zipping and unzipping the feet. To do the PliƩ, the girls "open a window." Sheinah really doesn't like first position at all (she won't unzip her feet in the video). I guess we'll be doing tap dance class instead of ballet in the future! Enjoy the video!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Abi or Amaris


Now that Amaris is a little bit bigger, she is starting to look a bit like other family members. Melissa thinks that in this picture she looks just like her cousin Abigail (Abi is the baby on the right).

Twins?

We've been thinking that Amaris looks a lot like Sheinah so we decided to duplicate a picture we had taken of Sheinah when she was six weeks old. Can you tell which picture is Sheinah and which one is Amaris?

Monday, November 10, 2008

Shannon, the master seamstress

Shannon's gift to baby Amaris was the gift of sewing. We sent Shannon some fabric and she made a nursing shawl and new cover for the glider in Amaris' room. The result was quite amazing. She even found matching buttons for both fabrics! Check out the glider (to the left). To see the nursing shawl, check out the Marshall Kids' blog: http://marskidsinterest.blogspot.com/


She also made Sheinah a really neat jacket and matching doll for her birthday. Sheinah has been wearing it every day since we opened the package.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

What's Missing?

Check out this photo and see if you can tell what's missing. Hint...it used to be attached to Amaris and went missing today.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Story time for Amaris

Sheinah really loves to "read" stories to us. This weekend, she got to bring home Duncan, a little dog who travels to the homes of the kids in her preschool class. Duncan comes with his own suitcase, pillow, blanket, and story books. Tonight, Sheinah decided that Amaris would like to hear Duncan's story so she asked daddy to help her read to Amaris.



You'll hear Sheinah talking about duck poop several times. After we stopped recording, Travis asked Sheinah why she was talking about poop so much. She said, "here, let me show you where the poop is" and proceeded to turn to a page that had a drawing of what she thought was the duck's poop. It was actually a soda bottle in the water, but she was convinced it was poop and that became the focus of her story :)



Thursday, November 6, 2008

Amaris photo shoot


During our travels this summer, we came across a cool photo of a baby's feet that we decided to try to replicate with Amaris. We also found a cute photo in a baby magazine that we tried to duplicate. See below for the finished products:







Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Wake up time

Travis has a facination with the faces babies make when they are waking up. Both Sheinah and Amaris made/make the same faces. Check out the video to see what Travis loves so much.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Fixing Jonne's bike

Travis took Sheinah outside to play because the weather was nice (an oddity for Duluth at this time of year). He decided to put the muffler back on Jonne's dirt bike while they were outside. "Uncle Jonne" travels for his job so our home is kind of his storage unit. When Travis was done, it was Sheinah's turn to fix Jonne's bike. It's important to notice that she actually uses the wrench appropriately (only putting it on actual bolts) and that she figured out she needed a larger size for the big bolts. At any rate, she had a good time hanging out with her daddy.


Friday, October 31, 2008

Just like daddy

Note to the reader, this post may be slightly inappropriate for younger readers...proceed with caution :)

For those of you who do not have little girls, you may not be aware that the genitalia are swollen when little girls are first born. In fact, it takes quite awhile for this area to shrink to normal size. Sheinah was helping her daddy change Amaris' diaper today. She pointed to Amaris' private area and said "Daddy, she looks like you!" This taught us two things: (1) it might be time for Sheinah to stop taking showers with daddy (2) she is very observant because of the swelling it DID look kind of like male genitals. We tried to explain to Sheinah that Amaris would look like her soon, but we're not sure if she understood.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Pictures of Baby Bum





























baby bum

Amaris Laela (ah-ma-ris lay-la) came into the world at 10:12 October 27, 2008. She weighs 6 pounds 1 ounce, 17.6 inches long, head 12 inches, chest 12 inches and beautiful. Her mom is sleeping and her dad is typing with one hand as she sleeps-cries in his arms.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

37 Week Excitement

We went in for our 37 week check on Wednesday. Melissa's blood pressure was up a little bit (140/86 for you health professionals out there), but it wasn't enough for the doc to do anything yet. She was still dilated 2.5 cm but the cervix had thinned out more 70%. Thus, it was back to the waiting game for another week...until Friday.

On Friday night, Melissa started having contractions that were stronger than they had been and they were coming pretty close together (about 5 to 10 minutes apart) for about a 2 hours. We decided to do the lay on the left side and drink a bunch of water thing and the contractions stopped after 30 minutes. We figured we better check her blood pressure and it turned out to be high (150/100) so we gave the doc a call. They wanted Melissa to come in so they could run lab tests and make sure she wasn't heading into HELLP syndrome again. Well, our planned babysitter wasn't available and Sheinah was already in bed so we had to call around to find someone to come stay with Sheinah. At the last minute, we remembered that we needed to do something with Samson also. Luckily, we have enough friends with dogs and found someone to take him.

We got to the hospital about 10:30pm and got set up on the monitors. The contractions had slowed down but Melissa's blood pressure was still high. After about an hour, they had Melissa lay on her side to see what happened. It was amazing actually. The contractions stopped (which we kind of expected) but her blood pressure also dropped to normal within 15 minutes. They watched her for another hour until her labs came back (all normal) and decided that since her blood pressure went normal when she was laying down, that we could go home. The deal, for this weekend anyway, is that we are to call them if her blood pressure goes back up. We aren't exactly sure what they will do if it goes up but goes back down if she lays on her side but we'll keep everyone posted. For now...her blood pressure was good all day on Saturday :)




P.S. Travis took a bunch of pictures trying to get the settings right on his camera just in case they decided to induce labor. If you click on the picture of Melissa and the nurse to enlarge it and look at the tracing on the right, you can see that Melissa just came off a contraction.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Who needs a table?


Melissa's belly is big enough to serve as a table for her drinks and even a small plate. All is well as long as she doesn't laugh...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Reading a story

Sheinah has been very interested in "reading" to us lately. Kids have an amazing memory, especially for books that they've heard many times. Tonight, Sheinah wanted to read us an old book that we bought awhile ago called "I can go potty" (it's from the Muppet series of books). The best part of this was when she turned the book around (like they do during story time at preschool) and started pointed to the words as she "read." Unfortunately, Travis didn't grab the video camera until she was halfway through the book. Since you all out there don't know the story, you'll have to take our word for it that she was saying the right information for each page except the one where she mentions kindergarten. If you look closely on the last page, you can actually see the words "Hip, hip hooray."

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Baby Car Seat

Sheinah was pretending that she was a baby and could not talk. She asked to be in the car seat and be rocked. Travis keep asking questions to trick her into talking (because he is stinky like that).


Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hopscotch

Tonight, Sheinah found sidewalk chalk in her basket of craft supplies and asked to go outside to use it. It was a little windy and chilly and we don't actually have sidewalk on our dirt road, but we figured she could use it on our walkway (which is badly in need of repair). She told Travis she wanted to draw hopscotch. She then drew some squares on the ground and proceeded to hop on them. We've never played hopscotch with her so we are assuming she learned it at preschool.


Tuesday, October 14, 2008

36 Weeks

We went in for our 36 week checkup yesterday. At this visit, the doc likes to check to make sure the baby is in the head-down position. Our baby was not. Melissa has been saying for months that the baby was kicking her in the cervix...turns out she was right. The doctor checked to see if Melissa was dilated, which she is (2.5cm), and then made a little exclamation when she said she felt "a small appendage." That prompted a quick ultrasound to confirm that the baby's head was up by Melissa's ribs, the bottom was on her left side, and the feet were down in the cervix.

This left us with three options: (1) wait and see what happens (2) perform a procedure called breech version in which the doc pushes on the uterus to get the baby to flip over (3) schedule a C-section. We, of course, opted for trying to get the baby to flip since we really don't want surgery. Our doc doesn't attempt breech births...if the baby is not head down, mommy gets a c-section...that's it. Thus, our best bet was to give this breech version procedure a try. You can read about the procedure at this website: http://www.webmd.com/baby/external-cephalic-version-version-for-breech-position


We spent three hours at the hospital going through all the steps described above, but it took only 3 minutes for the doc to get Baby Bum to flip over. The procedure could be described as "uncomfortable" for mommy, but much preferred to surgery! Melissa immediately felt a whole lot better not having that little tiny foot kicking her unmentionables :) Even her belly looks a little bit different now that the baby is head down. Anyway, there is no guarantee that Baby Bum will stay in the proper position until it's time for her to make her entrance into the world so we would appreciate your prayers that she stays where she is supposed to be.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Dancing Princess

Sheinah has been facinated with all-things-princess for about a month or two. Her Nama, being the great bargain hunter that she is, found her all sorts of princess things for her birthday: jewelry, shoes, a crown, etc. Nama sent money to buy a special princess dress for her birthday. Luckily, it is halloween time, so we had many options to choose from. Sheinah picked out this lovely pink one that even has fiberoptics in the skirt. Today, she told us that she needed to dance because she was a princess. Check out the video:

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

35 weeks

After many months of not looking all that pregnant, baby Bum number two has finally made an appearance...in Melissa's belly. Travis has decided that we need to start taking pictures every week because Melissa's belly is growing so fast and so dramatically. Thus, here is week 35 placed side-by-side with week 32 just so you can see the amazing growth. The white pants picture is 35 weeks, the black pants is 32 weeks.


Saturday, October 4, 2008

Sheinah turns three

We celebrated Sheinah's third birthday at the Children's Museum again. Sheinah got to sit in the special birthday chair and be the birthday princess (with a special hat and wand). She picked out her dress that she wanted to wear and was adamant that she get to wear her hair down. She had tons of fun and we learned several important lessons:



1. Eight kids aged three to five are much louder and full of energy compared to three two-year-olds



2. The parenting styles of Sheinah's classmates at pre-school are different from our's in many ways which makes partytime a little more interesting.



3. It's hard to take pictures and chase kids at the same time :)



Sheinah really enjoyed herself with so many of her friends from preschool. Scott and Brandee Davis caught a flight up to Duluth for the day so that Avery could attend the party also. It was such a blessing to see them for a few hours. Seriously though, when Sheinah turns four, there will be fewer kids at her party!



Check out this video of her blowing out the candles.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Spokane WA


While visting Spokane Washington to build a business relationship with http://www.tourfactory.com/ , I took an evening to watch the sunset over the Spokane river.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Maternity Photo Shoot

When we were pregnant with Sheinah, we had intended to to get some photos taken professionally, but she came a little sooner than we expected so we never got around to it. This time, we decided to let Travis' blossoming photography skills take a stab at maternity photos. We did a Google search to find some poses we liked and then set up shop in the living room. We had purchased some fabric to use as a backdrop and figured this would be a good a time as any to try it out. Two hours and a little photoshop later, and we got some amazing shots. Given that these photos are of Melissa's belly, we won't be sharing most of them publically. However, this one was too cool not to share.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Magic Braids

One of Sheinah's teachers at preschool as really long hair that she always wears in braids. Sheinah has been having Melissa braid her hair so she can look like "teacher Dani" for about a week now. The cool part about wearing braids is the awesome bumpy waves that show up when you take out the braids. Check out these pics we snapped in the bathroom while we were fixing up her hair.


Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Almost Pony Ride

We took Sheinah to the Fall Festival at Chester Bowl today specifically so that she could go for a pony ride. After waiting in line for about 15 minutes, it was finally her turn. She picked out which pony she wanted to ride and it happened to be one standing next to a big pile of poop. Melissa called Travis' attention to the poop so he wouldn't step in it and it apparently distracted Sheinah enough that she used that as an excuse not to ride. She wouldn't let Travis move away enough for us to get a good picture of the few seconds she actually sat on the horse, but at least she tried. She told us that she would try again when she was bigger...after she turns 3. There is a place to ride ponies at the Apple Festival in Bayfield. We'll be going on her birthday weekend in 2 weeks so we'll see if she will give it another go.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

32 Weeks


We had our 32 week check up today and got a clean bill of health. Melissa's blood pressure is good and she is measuring the right size. She is up to 17 pounds gained and Travis has lost about 12 pounds so all is well in that department as well. Joining the gym at the University has really helped Travis find time to work out...he drops Melissa and Sheinah off at school and then goes to the gym. It's very convenient. He's looking quite studly!!

Monday, September 8, 2008

I'm a Mommy Too

Sheinah has enjoyed playing with baby dolls for awhile now. Recently, she has started telling us that she "is a mommy too" and very carefully wrapping up her babies, feeding them, pushing them in a stroller, etc. Today, Travis put together the crib in the babies room. We also went to the fabric store and bought fabric to make the baby two little fleece blankets and to make Sheinah a new princess blanket for her room. Travis left Sheinah alone in the baby's room to clean up the mess of putting together the crib and came back to find this (see picture). Sheinah had put her "horsey baby" to sleep in the crib. You'll notice that she made a pillow for the horsey out of a burb cloth. Apparently, she can reach in there by standing on the stool she uses to reach the sink in the bathroom. We'll have to teach her not to play with the baby's crib really soon!

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sheinah's Memory

Sheinah want to look at pictures of mommy today so we got out the wedding album. While Melissa was getting it down from the shelf, Sheinah said "I went to a wedding. It was Dan and Annie's wedding. We went to lunch with only one of them not two of them because Annie had to work." This, of course, was all true. Dan and Annie are a couple from our church who we led the premarital counseling for. We went to their wedding back in June, but Travis and Sheinah just went to lunch with Dan last week. Then, as we were looking through the wedding album, Sheinah pointed to a picture of Dan and Jodi Martin and asked who they were. When Melissa told her his name was Dan, she said "no mommy, he has hair!" (Dan, our friend from Duluth, has a shaved head). On the next page, there was a picture of our friends Ben and Eryn. Ben happens to have a shaved head. Sheinah pointed to the picture of Ben and said, "that's Dan." But wait, there's more...we saw another friend of ours from church at Sam's club today named Dan Ahlfield. This Dan has hair on his head. When Sheinah asked what his name was and we told her "Dan"...you can guess what she said :) Thus, we tried really hard to explain to Sheinah that many people can have the same name. She said there is only one Dan...and he has no hair!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Week 28


Melissa had her oral glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes today. For those of you who remember, she had diabetes with her last pregnancy so we were pretty much expecting she would get it again. Sure enough, she failed her test...major bummer. Thus, she's back to poking her finger 4 times per day and counting carbohydrates. Her weight gain is going well though, she up to 14 pounds gained.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Singing to Baby

We bought a book for Sheinah several months ago called "What to Expect When Mommy is Having a Baby." It does a really nice job of explaining, in kid terms, what's happening to mommy during the pregnancy. There is a section of the book that talks about how the baby can hear from inside the uterus and encourages the child reading the book to sing to the baby. Well, it just so happens that Lori taught Sheinah the "You are my sunshine" song this week specifically so Sheinah could sing to the baby. She sang the song and then told us "I forgot some parts" before we could get the video camera out. When we finally got the camera going, she decided to sing the birthday song. She happens to be facinated with her birthday right now because we've been telling her about things that will happen after her birthday (like the baby being born and she has to stop sucking her thumb). Anyway, check out the video of Sheinah singing to the baby.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Princess Piggy Bank

While we were in St. Louis, Aunt Jo-Ann gave Sheinah some money to buy a piggy bank...because every little girl needs a piggy bank. We had told Aunt Jo-Ann that we had tried to buy her one awhile ago but we just couldn't find one. Well, Sheinah kept reminding us that we needed to go to the store to buy her a piggy bank so tonight we did. We went to WalMart because we knew our local Target didn't have one that we liked. We walked all through the store and asked three different workers who sent us to three different places looking for a piggy bank. As a last-ditch effort, Melissa decided to check in the bedding department where they sell the kids themed bedding. She looked down the aisle and didn't see anything but decided to walk down it anyway because it was on the way. Of course, Sheinah wanted to stop at the display of the princess bedding. Wouldn't you know, wedged between the princess pillows and the princess comforter was a princess piggy bank. It even makes noise when you put the money in. She is beyond excited for this special piggy bank. See below for the video and listen carefully for the sound it makes when the money goes in. Thanks Aunt Jo-Ann!




Horsieback

Sheinah has become a little bossy in her old age :) Last night she told Travis she wanted to play "horsieback" and then proceeded to order him around until he performed the way she wanted him to perform. See below:

Monday, August 11, 2008

YTB Convention 2008

Last weekend marked the 2008 Annual Convention for YTB in St. Louis. The whole family went, including Al and Lori Bumgardner, Travis' Aunt Boots and her daughter, and Melissa's Aunt Jo-Ann and Uncle Brian. The theme of the conference was Liberty and Travel for All and the founder of the company commissioned a near-life-sized replica of the Statue of Liberty to celebreate this theme (it's about 20 feet shorter). The Statue will make her permanent home in Indiana as a tribute to our soldiers after the convention is over. We took Sheinah to the opening session when lady liberty was unveiled and she had a blast! The best part was when she saw the picture of the statue on the YTB magazine and she said "I saw her!"...she remembered seeing the statue! The convention was amazing and everyone is excited for what 2009 holds in store. We are most excited about the changes that will be happening with our travel website. By January 2009, you'll be able to save your profile and search preferences just like the other booking engines. The best part is, if you book with us, the commissions go to us instead of the mystery folks behind the big-name travel engines :) So, next time you're heading out on a trip somewhere, please consider checking out our travel website: www.ichoose2travel.com We appreciate your support!


While we were in St. Louis, we got to connect with Erin Kletti-Keich, one of the bridesmaids from our wedding. She and Ben have two little ones now and their oldest, Maddie, is just a few months older than Sheinah. The girls had a good time playing together at the restaurant and the mall.





Of course, we also had to go check out the famous Arch. Travis' wide-angle lens was able to capture the whole thing. Sheinah wanted to "touch it" so Travis took her over for a closer look.

where do the underwear go?


Sheinah has been going to the potty by herself for awhile now. She even empties the potty container into the toilet, flushes, rinses it out and then washes her hands. She likes to take her underwear and pants/shorts/skirt all the way off while she sits on the potty sometimes. She knows how to get dressed by herself so it's not a big deal. Today, she came running out of the bathroom with a sly grin on her face. It took us a minute to figure out what she was smiling about. She had put her shorts on first and then her underwear over the top. She was quite proud of making a "funny", but she wasn't quite so happy when we asked her to get dressed the proper way.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Sheinah's new room

We decided to move Sheinah upstairs and put the baby in Sheinah's old room. The rationale behind this decision was that Sheinah sleeps through the night now so the number of trips upstairs should be limited. We were wrong...not on the sleeping-through-the-night theory but on the limited-number-of-trips-upstairs theory. It seems we (read that as Travis since Melissa does a lot more sitting now-a-days) spend a whole lot of time going up and down the stairs. On the plus side, Sheinah really likes her princess room and actually goes up there to play by herself. We decorated it in a princess theme and let Sheinah pick out pretty much everything in the room. We got a new, upright desk to put in the guest bedroom which is now Travis' home office also and cleaned off the bottom three rows of shelves for Sheinah's toys. All in all, we think it's going to work out pretty well.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Baby Belly Week 24

We had our 24 week checkup today and all is well. The doctor is not concerned about Melissa's contractions since they stop with rest. She told Melissa to just keep resting and drinking lots of water (enough to pee every hour, so fun) to keep the contractions under control. Melissa has now gained 9 pounds or 6 pounds, depending on which starting weight we use. Travis has lost 6 pounds so both Bumgardners are on track :) The belly is growing slowly and the baby is moving like a future soccer player.



Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Strawberry Pickin'

It's that time of year again when the pick-your-own fields open up for picking of whatever fruit is ripe. This week, it was strawberries. We had a gorgeous Duluth day ideal for the event...70 degrees with a cool breeze. We went to the same field as last year only this time we were prepared with knee pads, sunscreen, and hats. This year, Sheinah actually did a good job of picking berries for about 5 whole minutes. After that, her focus was eating them and putting the berries we picked into the container. Sheinah decided that all the little strawberries were for the baby and refused to eat them. She insisted that she had to eat the big strawberries because she was a big girl. All in all, it was a good day and we'll be eating strawberries for awhile!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Chicago

We all went to Chicago for four days so Melissa could attend a teaching conference. For the first time since Melissa's been teaching, we actually got to stay at the hotel in which the conference was held. Boy, was that nice! The conference hotel was just 5 or 6 blocks from Navy Pier right on the water. Chicago has a Children's Museum at Navy Pier so Sheinah got to go play everyday while we were there. Since Melissa does best in the morning, that is usually when we took Sheinah down to the pier as Melissa had enough energy to make the walk there and back. Check out snapfish for the full repertoire of pictures. Travis got a new, professional grade camera as he's been contracted to shoot the student portraits at the college so he took a whole bunch of pictures.

As many of you know, Travis traveled with a woman's choir while he was in college. One of the women from the choir, Rosie, lives in Chicago so we connected with them one night to go out for dinner. We decided to go to Cheesecake Factory (Melissa's favorite restaurant). It was about 12 blocks away on the "Miracle Mile" where parking is virtually non-existent so we decided to hoof it. For Melissa, this meant borrowing a wheelchair from the hotel and Travis pushing her to the restaurant. Sheinah caught a ride in the stroller with Rosie's little girl so the only Bumgardner who got any exercise was Travis. Surprisingly, Travis didn't get any pictures of Melissa in the wheelchair. Travis snapped a bunch of pictures of the girls in the stroller, but little Selah did not want to smile at him. After about 20 pictures, he finally got this precious grin.

We had a great time with Rosie, her husband Jose, and her daughter Selah. While we were walking down to the restaurant, we noticed that many stores had decorated mannequins in the planter in front of the store. There were all sorts of oddly dressed mannequins, but the one Travis liked the most (and took a picture of) was the coke girl. As lovely as this picture is, the best story of the night happened when Rosie left to change Selah's diaper. Melissa happened to take Sheinah to the bathroom at the same time so just the guys were left at the table. Somehow, they managed to let the waiter take away Rosie's plate even though she hadn't hardly eaten her dinner yet. When Rosie came back, she wasn't exactly happy with Jose. The story has a happy ending though...we just told the waiter what happened and the manager replaced Rosie's meal...just one of the many benefits of eating at a nice restaurant!