More Pics for You!

Ali is ready for football season!

Ali Maschke is relaxing with Ali Gator.

A year ago...

Ali had just joined us. Today was spent celebrating our little girl, who is now officially no longer an infant. We still aren't sure where the year went.

Ali had a great afternoon playing at the park with her friends. Ali picked all the foods at her party, so we had fruit, crackers and cheese, goldfish, and animal crackers. All the under five set at the party were in heaven!

Her day in pictures:
Mommy and Daddy got her a piano. It makes LOTS of noise!







The cake attacked her...









...and she didn't like it

















At the end of the day with her presents.

Ali's First Joke

We've been teaching Ali some sign language lately in order to supplement her usual "mama" and "dada" that she can say, but for now the only one she can do is a sign for "more." She does this by pointing her finger to her hand: "more." So we realized that she does have a well-developed sense of humor the other day when I (Jed) was pouring some Kix onto her tray while she was sitting in her high chair. Well, more Kix came out than I intended, so her tray was completely covered. As Anna came out, she asked Ali "What happened?"

Ali's response was a big smile as she pointed to her hand..."more!"

A quick picture for you all

We had a picnic yesterday for our MOPS group and Wendy shot this picture of Ali. Just thought we would share it with everyone.

I start meetings on Monday, and Jed's last day at Holy Cross is Wednesday. That's all the news from us.

St. Louis and Wisconsin

The rest of our trip was wonderful as well. We visited great places in St. Louis like Crown Candy Kitchen, where Ali has her first taste of a shake, The Science Center (one of Anna's favorite places), and Ted Drewes. We got to visit the Peregoy family, Angie, and Erin and Brian. It was great!

After leaving St. Louis we flew to Wisconsin. The weather was beautiful. Ali was introduced to Great Grandma and Grandpa Maschke. Lots of quality time was spent with Grandma and Grandpa as well and Uncle Nate, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Jen. Ali also met the "tat", Molly, and spent copious amounts of time following her around. By the end of our time she was even brave enough to touch the cat. She was quite proud of herself.

We also had the chance to catch up with Jon and Christina Bender. It was great to see them.

More pictures for you to enjoy...

The Great Midwest Adventure

Now that Anna's done with her classes, we're enjoying our great midwest adventure. We celebrated the Fourth in style...Seward, Nebraska style. We joined an estimated 30,000 people who converged on Seward ("Nebraska's Fourth of July City") to celebrate the independence of our country. As always, the usual festivities were available: breakfast with "The Waffle Man," an earth moving exhibition at Concordia University, Water Wars (it's basically the opposite of a tug of war, played with fire hoses and a barrel on a pully hanging from a wire...I guess it's easier to just see it) and the commemorative cancellations and free postcards at the Post Office.

We partook of Food Alley (Ali likes lemons)...

...listened to the Van Kampen Trio, and watched the parade which featured every local celebrity, politician, and queen found between Lincoln and York. The day was finally finished with fireworks at the park.

While in Lincoln, Jed had his first Runza experience ("They're not too bad!"). We enjoyed staying with the Birkbiglers, who were kind enough to take Ali for an evening while we went out for a night on the town. We celebrated our 3rd year of marriage with steaks and beer at Misty's, and then washed it down with a coffee and chai at The Mill.

The next day we traveled to St. Louis, and on Saturday ate lunch at the same Steak and Shake where we had our first date almost 6 years ago! It's hard to believe Anna's been able to stand me for that long, but as our waitress commented after nodding at Ali, "I guess it worked out!" She gave us free shakes for our celebration. We give Steak and Shake a thumbs up.

We went to St. John's on Sunday, attending both services since we couldn't decide which one to attend. We've got grand plans for the rest of the time we're here, including Crown Candy Kitchen and Ted Drewes, and hanging out with friends!

Wednesday we head out to Milwaukee for the Maschke 35th wedding Anniversary celebration! We'll let you know more as we continue the Great Midwest Adventure!

A few more pictures

Hello everybody! I wanted to post a few more pictures of myself while mommy and I are in school. She's very busy with classes, but I'm having a good time staying with Mrs. Jensen and Miss Koch. They are very nice. Mrs. Jensen says she has a baby coming too! I'm sure her baby will be cute like me. Just so you don't forget, this is what I look like. Daddy took this picture of me after he did my hair for Crazy Hair Day at Abiding Savior.I also wanted to put in this other picture of Daddy and me. I was very excited to see Daddy on Sunday for Father's day. I've never had a Father's day before so when Mommy said I could come up with her for communion to see Daddy I got very excited. Daddy didn't take me then, but after church I wanted him to hold me so he did. Here's another picture of us! See how satisfied I look?

I'll talk to you all later!