Daddy's Day and Heartland Surprise

We woke up early in Appleton, Wisconsin Thursday and headed east to Green Bay to fulfill one of Michael's boyhood dreams--visiting Lambeau field, home of the Packers. He grew up with both his Mom and Dad following the Green Bay Packers and could recite the Packer history. So off to Green Bay, we went. When arriving at the field, Michael's excitement grew and the girls grew a bit more perplexed. "Mom, why are we here? We don't even like football," they whispered as we briskly walked behind Daddy rushing up the statues of Curley Lambeau and Vince Lombardi just outside of the stadium. "It's Daddy's Day," I explained. "He does so much for us, this day is about him."

An hour long tour took us behind the scenes and into a luxury box near the end zone. Then through down to the field level, by the locker rooms, and through the tunnel which the Packers rush out to the field.



After the tour, we then went though the Hall of Fame Museum. The girls were trying their hardest not to look bored and keep interested. They kept coming up to me as if to say "Really, Mom?!", but then they would just murmur "I know, I know, it's Daddy's day." We finished up our time at the field in the gift shop. That was something the girls COULD get excited about! A few hats, t-shirts, silly bands, and one giant foam finger later, we piled into our rental and headed east across Wisconsin towards Minnesota.

Now, I've seen beautiful rural areas before. New England is full of picturesque farmlands, punctuated by hills, mountains, and lakes. I wasn't quite prepared for the sheer volume of beautiful green farms and farmlands that made up our nearly 5 hour drive to Minnesota. Farm, after farm, after farm. . .puncutated by the occasional firework stand and one Gentleman's club named Chubby's. Girls fell asleep and didn't know that at the end of our drive a surprise waited for them. We were on our way to visit our friends the Malloys, who lived in Maine for too brief of a time before moving back to Minnesota. The girls really missed Monica and Nora and none of us had met Henry, the newest Malloy child who was born months after leaving Maine.

We didn't tell the kids about this visit they all would be surprised. And boy was it! The girls didn't realize what was happening until we pulled into the Malloy's driveway. It was if a single day hadn't passed since the girls saw each other! They hugged, screamed, and ran off to the trampoline to jump for the next four hours.



With good friends it doesn't matter how much time has passed since you last saw each other. You just seem to pick up seamlessly where you left off. That's how it was for us. We spent the night talking, laughing, sitting around the bonfire making smores with the kids, stayed up way too late. All in all, a perfect day.