The Life And Times Of James M. Wisler

Ada and James Being Silly

Took the kids to see Santa while we were in Branson visiting Melissa’s Aunt and Grandparents. I was half expecting James to get scared of the crazy looking man in the red suit, but they both did a really good job of sitting still for the picture.

My Girls

These are my girls! This is a picture of Melissa and Ada before they were going out shopping one day. This was a few weeks ago and I would guess that it was probably on a Saturday morning before the Lawrence Farmers Market that Melissa usually takes Ada to, but I think the date stamp on the image might prove otherwise.

Melissa has been working very hard recently, but not for very much longer. She is finishing up her transition contract from the Aquila sale which took place last year. At that time, She declined their job offer that would require us to move to Rapid City, South Dakota. They have been working her pretty hard up to her very last day so she will enjoy some down time. Of course I’m sure she will get bored very quickly, feel free to start sending the java programmer job offers her way.

It has been a fun and busy summer so far. We’ve enjoyed a little bit of a break on our calendar the last couple of weeks, but things will very quickly start to pick up again. August should be especially busy with my cousins wedding and Melissa’s Grandmothers birthday party. We had also discussed maybe having some impromptu road trips. St. Louis Zoo and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo were on our minds, will be interesting to see which one might win out.

I will also be having a birthday at the end of this week, along with my sister Charity who was also born on July 17th. Throwing together a little summertime tiki party to celebrate being together with my wonderful family for another year.

May is full of so many birthdays and occasions for the family that it always seems so very busy. This year, we have booked every single weekend either throwing or attending an event.

Ada has her birthday on May 4th, she turned 4 years old this year. Her school had another picture day last month. It seems as if they do pictures about three times a year and considering the copious amount of quality photos that Melissa takes of our children, that you think we wouldn’t need to pay other photographers to do so as well. However, once they send us the prints of our adorable little children we always just have to order a copy. Another very good friend of ours had a child on May 4th of last year, so we were fortunate enough to get to see someone else’s baby mess their face with a first birthday cake as well.

My father also has a birthday in May, as well as my aunt, and my brother. Oh, and my father is now engaged and his fiancée also shares the same birthday as him. So, when we are not hosting the parties, we are attending them.

Of course, we usually do something big for Mothers Day to show Melissa how much we appreciate all that she has done for the family. This can usually turn into a whole weekend of activities, depending on Melissa’s wishes and how much energy the kids are draining from us at that time. Our Mothers Day thanks can also be a little self serving as this year Melissa received a new meat grinder and pasta maker attachment for the mixer so we’ll be looking forward to new menu items.

This coming weekend will be a Memorial Day celebration on my fathers house boat. The forecast is calling for rain, which could put a real bummer on the festivities. And the following weekend will be a wedding for friend and co-worker of Melissa’s. It took us a while to decide if it would be good to bring the kids to the wedding or not. The kids behaviors are always a little unpredictable. Knowing that good manners always have a limited time span, our final decision was to bring them to the wedding, but to skip the reception.

With all this busy going on, I’m sure we’ll be hitting the halfway mark of 2009 before we know it.

Amongst the other things we did for Mother’s Day, Ada talked the family into going to the zoo. We received a FOZ (Friends Of The Zoo) flyer in the mail last week and Ada picked it up off the kitchen table and said “Let’s go to the zoo”. So, FOZ should know that their advertising is working.

We decided to go to the Topeka Zoo this year as our trip to the Kansas City Zoo on Ada’s birthday last year left a little to be desired. The grounds at the KC Zoo were so large, but so many of the exhibits were closed that it seemed almost deserted. Melissa tried hyping it up by advocating the benefits of walking, of course then I would think she would like my favorite zoo which is the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, since the whole zoo is on the side of a mountain and so a lot of the walking is uphill.

The zoo trip was a success though, lots of animals seen with much less walking time and its closer and cheaper ticket cost as well. So, win-win-win.

This is a picture of Mac Jr. and Ada riding the wooden bear outside the black bear exhibit. The zoo has a black bear cam that allows you to see the bears live on the web.