While Alicia and Eric Hazen weren’t born in Madison — she grew up in Racine and he hails from Oconto — they both headed to the state capitol for college. Since then, they’ve fallen in love with their city, and they regularly take their five-year-old son Ellis out and about with them. And Alicia chronicles their adventures on her blog, Madtown Momma!
Alicia shares more about her family and life in Madison.
What do you like most about living here?
Madison is a beautiful city. It is easy to appreciate being surrounded by lakes. I like that Madison has a small town feel while still being large enough to keep things interesting. We love attending events and festivals and there is no shortage of those in the Madison area. We also enjoy the many great parks and trails in Dane County, along with the lakes, so we can get outside often.
I also like living in a college town because there is just a lot of energy that comes with it, including sports and the Memorial Union, of course. Madison is an active and activist town and I appreciate both of those things.
What are your favorite things to do together as a family?
We get out and about quite a bit as a family, whether it is to attend a local event, visit friends or family, to go for a nature hike or hit the park. Before COVID-19, it felt like we were constantly on the go. In all honesty, I have appreciated the fact that we’ve had to slow down a bit over the past few months. It has allowed us to enjoy our home a bit more and find new things to do close by. For example, we visited Aztalan State Park in Jefferson for the first time recently, along with the Mackenzie Center in Poynette.
We try to camp once or twice per year and the Wisconsin State Parks always have such great camping options. In fact, we recently went camping at Perrot State Park up in Trempealeau. It was our first time visiting Perrot, which is nestled along the Mississippi River in the Driftless Area. It was really beautiful and the hiking was pretty phenomenal. We enjoy taking nature walks together as a family and I was impressed that the kiddo climbed Brady’s Bluff, which is over 450 feet above the Mississippi. It was a pretty steep climb, but we got about 3.5 miles in before he petered out.
It is a bummer that so many events got cancelled due to the virus, otherwise, you’d find us at a lot of those throughout the year. Whether it is catching some live music at the Wisconsin Brewing Company or chowing down on sweet corn at the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival, we are often out supporting local events together as a family.
What do you and your husband each do for work? And please tell us about pursuing your master’s degree!
I am a Career Services Director at the UW, which I’ve been doing for the past five years. I’ve worked on campus in some capacity ever since I graduated twenty years ago, though. It is hard to believe!
In addition to working full-time, I am pursuing my master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and Change from Edgewood College. It is a tough balance, but I’m already halfway there. I take two classes back to back each term, which are eight weeks in length. I typically do my homework at night once my son is in bed so that school doesn’t interfere with family time.
My husband started his own business, Ace in the Hole Maintenance, four years ago after nearly a decade working in the healthcare industry. He does commercial and home maintenance and repair. Last year, he expanded the business to include retractable screens and now also operates under the name Vanishing Screens of Wisconsin. He loves being his own boss! And the flexibility has been great for our family.
What inspired you to start Madtown Momma? What have been the best parts of running your blog?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer and after having Ellis, I started writing for Madison Moms Blog (now Madison Mom). It definitely opened up a whole new world for me. After writing for Madison Mom for a couple of years, several people encouraged me to start my own blog. So I launched Madtown Momma in February 2019.
I am all about honesty, authenticity and keeping it real, so I wanted the freedom and flexibility to write about whatever was on my mind, whether it was related to parenting and motherhood or not. There aren’t a lot of biracial bloggers in the area, so I was also interested in offering a different perspective by showcasing life as both a mixed chic and mixed race family. It has been a fun outlet for me, especially as the blog gains more traction. I still have a lot to learn and just don’t have as much time as I’d like to devote to it. Once I finish school I should be able to spend more time building the blog.
There’s never enough time to do everything, so what do you prioritize as a family? What do you always make time for?
Ain’t that the truth? Time has been my biggest challenge lately! Between work and school, it feels like I’m always crunched for it.
We prioritize dinner as a family. Always. Whether we eat out or at home. Dinner time is when we all come together after a busy day and get to catch up. I always ask my son what the best part of his day was at dinner, and it’s always fun to hear what stood out to him throughout the day.
In addition to dinner time, we always make time for bedtime stories. That tends to be my favorite part of the day. Usually my husband and I take turns reading stories each night, but lately, Ellis has liked having both of us there at once. We even did virtual story times with both grandmas, along with Ellis’ aunt and uncle early on during the shutdowns as well. It was a great way to stay connected and made story time a bit more special during a strange time.
Family events are important to both my husband and me as well, so we definitely prioritize making it to family reunions, birthday parties, graduations and other important events.
Why do you choose to live and raise a child in Wisconsin? What do you hope the experience means for your son?
Having both grown up in Wisconsin, it seems like a no-brainer that we would also raise our child here. I was a city girl, and my husband a country boy, so given that our parents both still live in the areas where we grew up, he gets to experience the best of both worlds. He can see where we each grew up and enjoy some of the same things we did as children, like visit the Racine Zoo or North Beach in my hometown, or go to the Breakwater or four wheeling through the countryside up in Oconto.
Wisconsin is such a beautiful state and I love that we get to experience the full range of seasons here. Therefore, he gets to enjoy swimming in the summer, the changing leaves in the fall, sledding in winter and the first signs of spring once it finally rolls around. I hope he grows to appreciate the great outdoors and all of the opportunities that the great state of Wisconsin provides for exploring. I think there is also something to be said about sticking close to home and family. Living close to our parents will afford him more time with them then if we lived elsewhere.
What three words best describe your family?
Loving, adventurous and fun!
What are the most important things to teach your son?
To be kind to others and accepting and appreciative of diversity. To always stand up for himself and others. And that it’s okay to not be okay sometimes. We all go through tough things in life, and I want him to know that it’s normal to feel a range of emotions and that he should be able to express them without feeling like he needs to hold certain emotions back. Many boys have been taught not to cry, and that they need to always be tough. I don’t want him to feel like that. He is allowed to be sad, or mad, or feel bad. Just like he is allowed to be happy. I also want him to know he can come to us for anything. He should never feel like he has to hide things from Eric or me.
What are you looking forward to doing this summer?
I’m looking forward to more camping! This seems like the perfect summer to get out and explore a few new (to us) Wisconsin State Parks and get more camping trips in than usual.
We have a blow-up pool in the backyard now, too, which is actually a pretty decent size. So, I’m looking forward to more cool dips in the pool on hot summer days, along with fires in the backyard. I’ll miss some of our standard, go-to events. But there is still plenty to do! My husband really wants to road trip out to Yellowstone … so we’ll see if we can make that happen. We are going to try to get up to Door County too. It’s one of my most favorite places!
Katie Vaughn is the editor and co-founder of Northerly. She is a University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University-trained journalist with experience as a writer, reporter, editor, blogger and author. She lives in Madison with her husband, daughter and son, and is always up for an adventure.