Our new home

This is what we wake up to every morning! Big smiles and lots of personality.
Louis keeps growing and changing every day :)

We have lots to update-so we'll start with the adventures we took right after we moved in.
We took a drive around Richland County when we needed a break from unpacking.  We went to the chamber of commerce and picked up a bunch of information about attractions to see and things to do. 
We took the whole afternoon and here are the sites we saw. 

One room school house that has been restored. About a 20min drive from Richland Center, our new home.

Little Brown Church-tiny little church house and seems like it has a lot of history and has seen a lot of faces. There are bunches of old, tall gravestones on each side of it. They look like chess pieces,
tall and so many shapes. We could see inside through the stained glass windows.
It was one large room with wooden benches and a pulpit. 

The next stop was Oakwood Fruit Farms orchard.

The trees are short-I expected taller! It makes sense to have shorter trees though.
The orchards are beautiful. This one grows lots of kinds of apples and grapes.

One of the locals told us the orchard had a fire a few years back and their refrigerated store house burned down so they built a new one. Its large and very clean. We walked around on the inside and picked out some apples, along with a caramel covered apple to snack on later that night. Oh and we purchased a gallon of delicious fresh cider-amazing! They had samples of apple cider donuts too-YUM.

We noticed the above wall as we walked around and just had to take a pic with little Louis next to the sign. I'm excited to go back and take a little more time to look at the pics.
The black sign says "Our family is a circle of strength and love".

We're going to go pumpkin picking somewhere soon-we almost got one of these from Oakwood fruit farms.


Next we went to Elephant Trunk Rock. Wow! Louis stayed in the car because it was getting chilly and all he wanted to do was nap. :) He missed out not seeing the coolest rock ever!

This rock was called Steamboat Rock. The road wraps right around both sides of this ledge, so you have to drive pretty slowly with the sharp turn and no view of oncoming traffic. Pretty cool sight too.

Frank Lloyd Wright is a famous architect, and he designed this building that sits in the middle of Richland Center. Currently its an empty warehouse. His home has been turned into a tourist site about 20min away in another town-we here its amazing at Christmas time so we're planning a visit then.

Last visit for the day was a boat landing on the Wisconsin River in Gotham.
Keeley, the one active young woman in our branch told us its pronounced "go thumb".
I still like saying it Gotham though, like Batman's town. :)
We had a great time driving the loop to see these sites and taking the afternoon
off to enjoy some family time.

There have been events or a festival every weekend we've been here,
and we've been trying to do some fun things. The locals sure know how to have a good time :)

We went to a little town called Viola for a festival and they had a tractor pull. We watched for a few minutes before heading to the parade. Most of all we loved the drive up and back.

 Pretty sure the guy moved to be in our pic. :)

 Dan's first tractor pull! Louis' too :)

 Dan's first day of his new career! I made him take a pic :)

Loves holding on to his feely square :)

 

 Louis found his hands and he likes chewing on them almost more than eating.

 We were going to go camping... but decided we didn't want to brave the cooler weather (I've become a pansy!) so we went with some friends for tinfoil dinners and a late night around the fire.

We followed the two kids below to Governor Dodge State Park-a huge state park that is absolutely beautiful! We only saw a little of it before it got dark. On the drive through it to the camp spot we passed a lake with canoes/kayaks and lots and lots of trees. When you come visit us we'll take you there!

We've become friends with McKenzie and Harrison and their two little kiddos, Stillman and Collette. We found out they are moving to Texas very soon so we're getting in as much time as we can before they go.

This is where we go to church :) You walk into the front door and right into the room we use as a chapel.

Sunday brought a nice afternoon, so we took a walk and took Penny to play catch at Kouskop park.
We walked at least a mile around part of the path that winds around some of the town and park.
We happened to hear some karaoke country music and walked over to see what fun was going on.
Turns out it was ONE person singing in what appeared to be his backyard...
We inconspicuously took a photo :) He was even on key most of the time!

Pictures don't do the colors justice

 

I guess the outhouses match the fall colors too

  

Found some duct tape that proves we're in Wisconsin!