Grant's Last Supper (in our first house)

We officially closed on our house on Wednesday, October 28th. Therefore, the night before, we gave Grant one last awesome supper in our house. We gave him everything that he likes; grilled cheese, peanut butter sandwich and cocoa puffs. I know it wasn’t very nutritious, but it was a special occasion for him!...He was leaving the first house he ever lived in! Ok, perhaps I was a little sadder than he was, but it was still a special moment for us. And now we’re homeless for exactly 20 days. Fun, fun.

Trick or Treat

Grant went on his very first trick or treat trip on Sunday, October 25th. The weather was absolutely beautiful when we all met up at Mrs. Henderson’s house in Oak Creek. Grant and his buddies Evan, Emmalee, Logan and Colton were all the Milwaukee Brewers’ Racing Sausages. Grant went as Chorizo, Evan was the Hot Dog, Emmalee was the Polish, Logan was the Bratwurst and Colton was the Italian. Grant was able to walk to the entire trip, and he got lots of good candy for me to eat! : )

Pumpkin Farm

The Gestl Family made our traditional (2nd year in a row can qualify as a tradition already, right?!) trip to Swan’s Pumpkin Farm. This time we made the trip with the Freimark Family along, as well! It was an extremely cold Sunday and we decided to dress the boys up in costumes (kind of wanted to dress them up because it was so darn cute and kind of wanted to dress them up because the costumes were so darn warm). Grant was a roaring tiger and Own was the most adorable monkey that you would have ever seen!

Grant absolutely loved the pumpkins! He was running all over the place, sitting with the pumpkins, trying to pick up the pumpkins and even found white pumpkins that I think he thought were soccer balls and was kicking them all around. We all went on the boys’ very first hay ride and Grant continued to say “Vroom, vroom” the entire time looking at the tractor. We then ate lunch and drank hot apple cider before heading over to the Freimark Farm for carving of pumpkins. (See photo of the moment for my favorite pumpkin.)

DFW

As I mentioned earlier, we all went to Dallas for an extended weekend (Friday morning – Tuesday afternoon). It was such a great vacation for all of us, and we all had such a blast. Also as I stated earlier, we were going down there to attend Matt’s cousin Jenny’s wedding to Adam so we had a lot of family festivities to keep us busy. We still wake up every morning thanking God for having such a wonderful Nanny for Grant, and she continued to amaze us on this trip and she also flew down to be with us for the majority of the weekend (with her son and one of our best friends, Ross).

On Friday night, Matt and I attended the rehearsal dinner with all of the other adults while Grant hung out with Nanny and Ross in their hotel room. The rehearsal dinner was at a beautiful restaurant in downtown Fort Worth, and then we all headed to the bar on the rooftop for some after dinner drinks. On Saturday, Matt, Grant, Nanny, Ross, Uncle Jim and I all visited the Fort Worth Zoo during the day. It was the most beautiful zoo that I have ever been to! Then, we came home in the afternoon and got ready for the wedding ceremony. In fear that Grant may scream and be a distraction on the wedding video, Grant stayed with Nanny and Ross in our hotel room while we attended the beautiful ceremony at the chapel on TCF. We then proceeded to the dinner reception at the Fort Worth Club which was absolutely amazing! Since our hotel room was also at the Fort Worth Club, Matt and I went to get Grant right after dinner so he could come up to the reception for some dancing. It was a great night!

Sunday morning, Nanny and Ross left for home and we attended the opening of the gifts brunch which was hosted at the clubhouse in Jenny’s subdivision. We then proceeded to check in to our next hotel (in Dallas now), and then ended the evening at Matt’s Aunt Joann’s house for a delicious dinner.
On Monday, Matt, Grant and I did a lot of sightseeing! We did downtown Dallas, saw where Kennedy was shot, saw Rangers Stadium and the brand new arena that the Dallas Cowboys play in (boo!), and then went to the Dallas World Aquarium. Grant absolutely loved seeing all the gigantic fish at his eye level (see picture above). We then did a little shopping at the Grapevine Mills Mall, ate dinner and had to check out their local Chuck’E’Cheese! (It’s exactly the same as ours in Wisconsin. It even had the same bratty kids that skip and try to steal your tickets.) : )Tuesday morning we were able to sleep in a little bit, eat breakfast at the hotel and then head to the airport for our wonderful flight home (and I mean wonderful…Grant slept on our laps for almost an entire hour of the flight!). It was a great end to an even greater vacation.

Grant earns his wings

Grant went on his very first plane ride! The Gestl family all flew down to Dallas, Texas on September 18th via Midwest Airlines in order to attend Jenny and Adam Fox’s wedding. We had a morning flight that was not booked to capacity which was extremely nice because we were able to have an entire row of seats to ourselves! It was a little exhausting for Matt and I because we were constantly pulling tricks out of our bag to keep him entertained, but overall he did very well. He watched a few minutes of about 5 different movies, he played with every toy that I could fit in our carry-on that didn’t make noise, he drank over 32 ounces of water and he ate almost all of the snacks that I could legally bring on the plane. It was a fun two and a half hours! Right when we landed we put him in his stroller and he was sleeping by the time walked to our rental car facility.

Wisconsin Dells...Again! : )

Matt and I decided to take Grant to Wisconsin Dells to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary (Aunt Kristin joined us for the majority of the trip as well, which was nice). We stayed in a 2 bedroom suite at the Atlantis right on the strip which was extremely convenient. Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh were also staying in the Dells to celebrate their one year anniversary so we were able to meet up with them a few times. We drove up on Saturday afternoon and spent that afternoon/night shopping at the Tanger Outlet Mall, ordering Moosejaw pizza and hanging out with everyone in the room while the Brewer’s game was on. We also spent a lot of time playing with Grant in our whirlpool tub in our room. He loved turning the jets on and off. On Sunday, Matt and I went to look into a Wyndham Vacation timeshare while Aunt Kristin hung out with Grant. When Matt and I were finished, we all met up for a ride on the Dells Army Ducks. We bought Grant a “quacker” that he could just not get enough of! He blew into that thing the entire rest of the day! (See picture above. We couldn’t even get it out of his mouth long enough to take a picture!) We then all went to Monk’s for dinner, and Grant continued to play with his quacker. On Monday morning, we woke up and headed right for our hotel’s waterpark. Grant had a lot of fun going down the slides with daddy. We then decided to have Marley’s for lunch because it was almost right next door to our hotel, and then Kristin had to head home. After Grant’s nap, we decided to hit up the shops downtown and take a walk along the river. Matt and I then took Grant to Buffalo Phil’s for dinner and then decided to play at Knucklehead’s indoor theme park for the remainder of the night. Grant was a bit too short for most of the rides, but he sure did have fun playing with all the buttons on the games. We even won enough tickets to buy him a few small prizes. Then, on Tuesday we spent the entire day at Mt. Olympus and had an absolute blast! That place was so huge! They had a huge outdoor and indoor waterpark as well as roller coasters, rides and go-carts. After about 5 hours of running around that place, Grant completely crashed in his stroller on our walk to our vehicle and we headed straight home from there. What a great weekend!

Great Grandma Gestl

Grant always has a blast visiting his Great Grandma Gestl. He loves exploring around her apartment at Franciscan Courts, and he especially loves it when she takes him on rides on her walker to get ice cream from the parlor. : )