We met Rick, Michelle and Luke at the zoo here in Madison. The great thing about Madison's zoo is it is free. They have a ton of great things for kids. And Luke seemed to have a blast. He also is getting good at saying Uncle Ryan's name. Hillary's name not so much...it comes out as ree-ree. Close enough! In fact I think I am going to start calling Hillary, Ree-ree.

This might be my most favorite picture I have ever taken of Luke.

After we left the zoo we had some time to visit a place we haven't been to this summer. We stopped by the UW's Memorial Union.

As you can see Ree-ree enjoyed an ice cream cone while I had a spotted cow. It was nice to get out and relax for a little while.

Man Cave

CNN did a big report on what they called Man Caves.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/05/02/mantuary.marriage/index.html

Basically men across America are decorating basements or garages with whatever it is they are most fond of. This is supposedly a new trend. This past December we finished our basement. Since then I have been modifying what I guess you could consider to be my Man Cave. Not sure why this is suppose to be a "new" trend. My Dad's basement which is covered wall to wall in hunting related items...Whitetail, Mule, and Antelope head mounts, pheasants, owl, turkey, bear and wolf capes, fish, etc... has been that way for 30 + years. And I remember visiting my Grandpa Lobe's basements which he had his hunting stuff and a bar and beer signs. I specifically remember one that lit up and it looked like a running river? If I could find one of those some where...mine would be truly complete!

Wedding Season

We mentioned in a prior blog that we had our first anniversary. Well today we attended our first wedding of the summer. Our friends Brandy and Bob were married. Congrats to them. The ceremony was very nice, and the reception was a lot of fun. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.
The large glass beer yard has a funny story behind. At our wedding, some of Ryan's friends dared one another to drink out of a large glass vase that was part of the table decorations. This did not make a couple of people very happy. Because they were expensive, I can't blame them. So, we had to put the kibosh on the boot-like beer chugging. At the next wedding in our group of friends, Patty and Tyler, they gave us the glass yard in part as a way to apologize and more importantly as a way to pass on a fun tradition. Now the yard gets passed from wedding to wedding. Are there any doubts we live in Wisconsin?

Hawaiian Family Vacation

Dad and Ashley at the Outrigger Canoe Race

Holly and Dave at the Luau

Pearl Harbor: USS Missouri on left and USS Arizona Memorial on the right (off in the distance)

The Road to Hana in Maui. So many stories from this adventure. Some highlights:
1. Roy
2. Two bags full!
3. Did you know that it's bad for whales to court, mate, and raise their young in the same area?
4. Swimming in (one of) the seven pools
5. The pilot saying "We're here!" when we returned to Honolulu
6. And the most important highlight from our trip to Maui and possibly from our entire trip: Ken and his Cedar Rapids Library Card!

Chris, Matt, and Holly at the Luau!
Mom and her quest to win the umbrella drink contest. Just remember who was able to get all of those umbrellas for you, Mom! That's me, your oldest daughter!


The "real deal" surfing crew: Trevor, Ashley, Matt, Chris, and Dick

Mom and Ken "preparing" for their surfing lesson.

Important things we learned during the trip
1. Maholo means "thank you"
2. Everyone is your cousin
3. Don't forget your library card!
4. Whales are particular
5. At least half of the family will get sick (sea-sick, motion-sick, shrimp truck-sick) when attempting to survive the grueling Hawaiian Death March
6. Drink umbrellas are golden!

A big thank you goes out to Mom, Dad, Holly, Dave, Dick, Ken, Trevor, Ashley, Chris, and Matt for making it a fun-filled family vacation.

What you up to?

Wow! As fun as this is, it is really hard to set time aside to update this thing.
We have got no excuse as we are still about 15 weeks away from Baby Lobe.
I know we have mentioned Baby Lobe is a boy. In the past few weeks we have been busy gettin ready for him. More on that later. We do have a short list of names picked out. JJ, CC, Prince or Ryan... I kid. Or do I? Actually we are going to keep the list as quiet as possible so we can have one little surprise for family and friends. Who am I kidding...it will leak out I am sure. But doesn't Ryan Braun Lobenstein sound good?
What else is happening? Hillary was just in Hawaii with her family for a week. From all accounts, things went very well and a good time was had by all. Here she is oceanside. Or is that Lake Michigan?
We also had our first wedding anniversary. Even though we spent it apart. We were able to enjoy some cake from the place that made our wedding cake. We enjoyed it while tailgating before a Brewer game. Speaking of the Brewers, they are a game behind the Cubs as I write this. If the playoffs started today the Brewers would be in!Speaking of baseball we just went to our first Mallards game this summer. The Mallards are in Madison and it is kind of like minor league baseball. Except the players don't get paid because they are still in college. Madison does very well and draws about 5,000 + fans a game. We went with our friends Ann and Scot. Ann is due at the end of August. Also our friend Geno who was back home visiting from Washington D.C. came along. It was super hot that day and we only managed to stay 4 1/2 innings.Ok enough baseball (for now), we have the baby's room about 1/2 way done. As you can see the crib is ready. I spent a few hours one of the nights Hillary was gone and put it together as a surprise. She was very happy when I showed it to her. Today we gave it a test run. Our friends and neighbors have little baby boy. Phil and Emily's son Caleb came over for supper. So I checked it out and he seemed to like it. It is going to be nice having them so close having just gone through the whole process! Here Caleb is trying on a hat we just bought at another neighbors garage sale. I figure since he is due in hunting season I had better get him ready. Even though Hillary already say's I will be missing hunting season this year. But hey if the kid has the hat and boots to match I think he's ready to go! Oh, and my sister Michelle gave us a huge box of clothes from my nephew Luke. He's ready for Badger and Packer season

We will sign off with a couple more photos from our past. Here are some baby pics of us. I figure this would be a good way to see what we have coming.

Hopefully our next entry will come just a tad sooner than the baby.

What the Favre?

I know we don't update this enough so I figured I would express my thoughts on Favre.
Brett Favre seriously make up your mind and quit frigging pointing fingers.
I don't care if Ted Thompson didn't give you enough toys or if Mike McCarthy didn't hug you enough. No matter who you are 1 person is not more important than the team. Frankly he can play for anyone but the Vikings or Bears! It's hard enough seeing Bevell wear purple.
Don't get me wrong, assuming he comes back I would be happy to have him ready to back up Rogers. Ok, enough on the Packers and Favre.
All of our attention should be on the Brewers and the fact they will have their first MLB All-Star Starting Pitcher in Ben Sheets in addition to Ryan Braun starting in LF. Throw in Corey Hart and the Brewers deserve all the current sports publicity!
Looking on the bright side this means I will have more room in my basement for Badger and Brewer memorabilia! Oh, and eventual pictures of Baby Lobe.

Baby Boy Lobenstein

Yesterday, we had our ultrasound. Most importantly, the doctor said the baby is healthy. We were able to see so many parts of his little body (head, eyes, nose, mouth, heart, internal organs, femur, legs, arms, fingers, toes). He was an active little boy during the ultrasound moving around constantly. He weighed in at 15 ounces. Almost a pound!

We also found out that we're having a baby boy. We are blessed by this miracle.

I'm going to attach two ultrasound photographs. One is a profile picture and the other is a 3-D picture of his little face. We already put up a few ultrasound photographs in frames around our house.