Fresh Beans

As promised last week, I'll start with a focus on the garden.  We harvested our first yellow beans this week.  They were incredibly tasty and we should have several more weeks of them to enjoy.  By which time, the green and runner beans should be ripe.  Our cucumbers are starting to grow up their vines and it appears we can make another rhubarb harvest.  Finally our lettuce keeps coming in faster than we can eat it. We are fairly happy with our output from our six beds this year especially, given this is our first year using our raised beds.  Although we have been plagued somewhat with bugs on our zucchini's and other miscellaneous pests and of course there is always the rabbits.

We had a quieter weekend than last weekend, but still filled with many events.  This week is Northwestern Mutual's annual meeting so we have several events associated with it.  It started Friday night where we had dinner downtown at the Milwaukee Public Market with several of the financial representatives and home office colleagues.  This morning we participated in the 5K/10K race that is run every year.  While it was hot, we finished in the middle of the pack, not too bad for folks in their fifties.  It provides a small amount of satisfaction to run by twenty year olds having to stop and walk for a stretch.  Later today, we have an event at the zoo, where the entire zoo is rented out and we can tour it without a lot of crowds along with free food (I particularly like the Sprecher's Root Beer floats - I had 3 or so last year and I'm hoping to beat that record this year).

Our weather finally cooled off a bit along with providing some much needed rain.  However, it is jumping back up into the high 80's/90's for the next several days so no long term relief there, as yet.  The cooler temperatures allowed me to get outside and complete some more of the outside painting.  That was coupled with our contractor finally finishing our radiator tops all of which had to be repainted prior to reinstalling them (we had slits cut in the tops to help radiate the heat out - a valuable suggestion from my Dad).  So another week applying paint to the house.  I finally finished the painting in the back and will be moving to do the front facade next.

Brewers, Mustangs, and Family

We had a very busy weekend with multiple sporting events and family visits.  It all started on Thursday with a visit from Jo's brother, Bill.  He was in Racine for work and drove up for a short visit and dinner.  We got caught up on his life and upcoming retirement plans along with what has been happening with his two sons.  Next up was a visit from Jo's sister Kathy and her son Drew on Friday for the weekend.  We had tickets to the Brewers for Friday night and got to enjoy an exciting game.  The Brewers won but it was a hitting contest on both sides with about 6 home runs including a grand slam in the eighth inning to put the Brewers ahead for good.  I enjoyed my favorite ballpark meal of a hot dog and a Pepsi (although I'm willing to substitute Coke if that is the soft drink of choice at a particular stadium).  I've included my favorite photo of the racing sausages just to keep that tradition alive on this blog. 

On Saturday, after our morning run we walked over to City Market for Kathy and my tradition of having a cinnamon roll when she visits.  Jo is usually going to work when Kathy and I walk over, so it was nice to include her for once and we also picked up a friend of Kathy's that lives nearby so we had quite the crowd by the time we got there.  The cinnamon roll was delicious, as usual, and fortunately the calories you burn walking there and back exactly match the amount of calories in the roll (that is my contention to help me not feel guilty for eating them).  We were then joined by Kathy's significant other, John who came down from Manitowoc after a week of boating.  To make sure we didn't sit still, we all headed over to John's aunt and uncle's place which is only about 4 blocks from our house.  There we enjoyed their pool, which was a really nice place to be in the 90 degree day, while hearing the latest news from John's aunt.  Afterwards, it was home to take some quick showers and get dinner together for everyone before heading downtown to see the Milwaukee Mustangs play.  The Mustangs are the local arena football team which none of us had seen before.  Arena football is 8 on 8 football, played inside on a 50 yard field.  It is a faster paced game  than regular football, focused primarily on passing.  While enjoyable,  I think I would stick with the outdoor variety as my sport of choice when a football is the ball being played with.  Amazingly, arena football has been around since the 90's, it just doesn't seem to be catching on - could be that it is mostly played during the summer indoors, when everyone tends to want to be outside more.

On Sunday we prepped the house for a visit from one of Jo and Kathy's 1st cousins and family.  This involved about 20 people coming over so we had quite the crowd including 8 or 9 kids.  The amount of kinetic energy represented by that many children is impressive, especially when you live with just two adults like Jo and I do.  Although the temperatures were hot, we managed to keep them mostly outside playing croquet.  After lunch, everyone started trickling out and after Jo and I cleaned up we pretty much collapsed.  Quite an exciting and busy weekend - although we both decided it might have been better to space all these events out a little bit more. 

Our work weeks were pretty routine.  I painted some more of the exterior doors and windows while Jo spent most of the week in meetings with her HR team.  Weather has been hot and dry, as is typical around much of the country this year.  It has made running a real pleasure as you might imagine although the cold showers after the run feel particularly good.  I realize I haven't uploaded any garden pictures in a while, so that will be the focus for next week.  We have enjoyed multiple harvests of lettuce and even have been giving some away since it has been growing so well.  The beans are starting to ripen and we picked our first tomato just yesterday.  Not sure what we will see in cucumbers or squash but both are growing.

Omaha and Aerosmith

As mentioned yesterday, after the wedding shower in Rockford, we continued driving to Omaha, NE to visit with Jo's oldest sister and her family.  We arrived just around midnight after an uneventful drive, with very light traffic, in which we got to see the beautiful, corn fields of the Midwest.  We then spent the week reconnecting with family.  All told in the Omaha area, besides Jo's sister and husband, is our nephew Brendan, our nephew Jimmy and his wife Becky (I think she is a niece-in-law, or maybe just niece - I've never been sure how that works) along with their two kids, Reese and JP (short for James Patrick) which would be our great niece and great nephew (although I think this would seem to elevate them above our standard nieces and nephews as they are by default, "great" - not sure that is entirely fair).  Anyway, all the family titles aside, it was fun seeing how much the kids have grown and their amazing ability to learn.  Sure wish I could learn that quickly again.  It was a great visit and the three sisters all had a lot of time to chat while I found lots of time to catch up on some reading since Jo had her sisters to entertain her.  The only downside was the incredible heat and humidity which blasted most of the Midwest last week and which made running a real challenge.  Fortunately, Mary and Mike have a pool out back which was nice to cool off in late in the day.  All too soon it was time to pack up the car and face the 9 hour drive back to Milwaukee via Madison.

We came back to the end of the heat wave and spent our Friday tidying up around the house.  Then Saturday we had visit from John and Linda and their daughter Alyssa.  After lunch at the house we found a reason to be near the Copps custard shop to enjoy some tasty ice cream specials since we have a tradition with John and Linda of always finding desserts that aren't really good for you (but are good for the soul, as Jo likes to say).  Just to help buffer it some, we did have fruit salad at lunch.  They then headed back to Lake Geneva while we went to Summerfest.  We had tickets to see Aerosmith but went early to see some of the bands on the other stages.  We quickly discovered that there is a reason not all bands become famous, as some of them really need to find a lead singer who can sing while others should learn than just playing random chords on the guitar really loud doesn't constitute music - at least in my opinion.  We worked our way to the Marcus Amphitheater to hear Aerosmith who had Cheap Trick as their opening band.  Cheap Trick did a great job and really got the crowd into the music.  Aerosmith was absolutely phenomenal, especially when you consider how long they have been playing.  Steven Tyler bounced around like a 20 year old and while his voice isn't as strong as when he was younger, he still can belt out a tune.  Great show.

Sunday we put up our feet and rested to be ready for having to go back to work - well at least Jo had to do that.  Jo went for a long bike ride and made it all the way to Cedarburg on the various local bike trails.  She was gone about four hours - I on the other hand did a much more conservative run and had the morning to enjoy reading the Sunday paper while a cool breeze blew through the house.  I also got to enjoy my 1 minute of fame (or two if you read slow) as our new laundry space was in the local paper along with a photo of yours truly.  Fortunately, the online edition of the paper doesn't display the article, so unless you got the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel yesterday you can't see me - thank goodness.

Family Visits

I missed a posting last week as we were trying to see every possible family member in as short of time as possible.  The list, roughly in order: my Mom and sister, Jo's sister Kathy and son, our sister-in-law Pat and her son and future wife, Jo's sister Mary and her two sons and families.  That was everyone one of my sister-in-laws on Jo's side of the family.  All this in the space of a week.  So to backtrack and provide a few details.

The week started (this is two weeks ago now) with a visit from our sister-in-law, Pat, who was in town to work on wedding details with her son and upcoming daughter-in-law.  We hadn't seen Pat in quite a few years so we had everyone over for dinner to catch up on the news from Colorado.  We also got to meet Pat's twin sister and father.  As it was close to Pat's birthday (and by default her sister's as well since that is how it typically works with twins) we had a bit of cake to celebrate.  I'll let the picture do the talking for what year it was.

The next day, Jo had a business trip to Philadelphia for a board she has been asked to serve on.  Fortunately, there was a bit of free time that allowed her to find a few hours to tour the sites downtown with some of  her travel companions.  She enjoyed seeing our old haunts and to be able to help others enjoy the wonderful history that is available in Philly - the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Ben Franklin court.  But her most enjoyable stop was being able to have dinner at Jim's Steak and get an authentic Philly cheese steak (unfortunately, she never really learned to enjoy Cheez Whiz on her cheese steaks the way they should really be eaten).  To help appease me, she did come how with a couple of our favorite soft pretzels since cheese steaks don't really travel well.  The hardest part of the trip though was seeing Dow emblazoned across the old Rohm and Haas corporate headquarters by Independence Hall.  We always have fond feelings for our first company.

Later that week, my Mom and sister came up from Chicago for two days to enjoy the sweltering heat that Milwaukee always makes sure is available when my Mom visits (except of course if her visit is in the winter in which case Milwaukee usually tries for bitter cold and wind).  In keeping with the focus for the week it was also close to my sister's birthday (number 56!!!, I just strongly feel the urge to put that out on the web for some reason - remember she is my OLDER sister).  So we put together a pound cake since she isn't a big fan of frosting (I won't even start on how wrong that is, since the only real purpose for any cake is to act as a frosting carrier) and had a little celebration complete with a rendition of Happy Birthday.  For the rest of the time, since the weather was a bit oppressive we simplified our plans which meant cancelling anything that required you to be outside for more than 10 minutes.  We visited two local art museums/turn of the century mansions.  First up was Villa Terrace which was a gorgeous mansion on the bluff above Lake Michigan with spectacular views.  While the art wasn't a strong focus for the museum they did a great job describing the life and times of the owners who built it and their children.  A very enjoyable museum and worth spending a few hours touring through their gardens, rooms, and artwork.  Next up was the Charles Allis Art Museum which is in the former home of Charles Allis (clever huh).  While this museum got points for having powerful air conditioning (which was certainly nice given the outside weather), the collection wasn't well curated (no good descriptions of the art work, artist, or background), nor did they have a lot of information about Charles and family.  The person providing tickets had the most information.  So my conclusion is I would definitely take other visitors to Villa Terrace, but probably won't be hitting the Charles Allis museum again.  After that, it was time to take my mother and sister to the train so they could head back to Chicago for a week of shopping and sweating in the heat.

 The next day, we packed up the car and after driving to Madison to pick up Kathy and Drew, we drove to Rockford for a "couples" shower for our nephew.  We got to see the same cast of characters from Monday (Pat, Chris and Angela) along with meeting some of the wedding party and Pat's family.  After the shower, we loaded back up to drive to Nebraska for a week long visit with Jo's sister Mary and family - but that will be the next posting.