Anniversary Weekend

We celebrated another milestone in our time together this week - number 32.  We spent some time reminiscing about our first meeting and reflecting on how much younger we both were.  Seems like just a few moments ago that we were on our first date - but yet the gray hair and aching joints seem to show that isn't true.  We had an exciting weekend to celebrate anyway.

We spent the week in our usual pursuits of work and exercise.  Our summer volleyball started and we are both really enjoying getting back into playing again.  It is a nice format, the right skill level for us, and the people are friendly.  Also, it is nice to widen our exercising beyond running and lifting.  My work this week consisted of prepping some of the first floor windows on the south side of the house for painting.  This meant a lot of sanding and caulking - not my favorite set of repair activities (especially since, for whatever reason, I manage to get caulk all over my hands every time I do it, no matter the scale of the job...caulk just seems to creep everywhere...).

Thursday night we kicked off the festivities by deciding not to do any exercising - which for those that know us well, realize is a big deal - and made homemade pizza for dinner (white pizza with sun-dried tomatoes, one of Jo's favorites).  We then went for a nice long walk during which most of the reminiscing described above happened.  We walked to Shorewood to watch the annual bicycle race that is held in town.  It was incredible to watch fifty riders flying around tight street corners at breakneck speeds.  Fortunately, no one crashed although how they avoided it was a mystery to me.
Friday night we had tickets to the Brewer's with our friends, Greg and Rhonda.  We had a nice dinner in the stadium club followed by a thrilling game in which our bottom of the league Brewers managed to dominate the top of the league Braves.  As usual, I included a photo of the sausage race - in which the Chorizo won again (must be the spicy sausage's year, also, you know you are in WI when the newspaper carries a story on designer brats).

Saturday after our morning workouts, we did a few chores around the house, before Jo settled in for an afternoon nap and I caught up on some reading.  Then it was off to dinner at Mader's German restaurant downtown.  We shared weiner schnitzel and knockwurst with sauerkraut both of which included one of our German favorites, spatzel.  Good dinner and the apple strudel with ice cream for dessert made it perfect.  Afterwards, we waddled (it was a lot of food) over to the Marcus theater to see Wicked.  This was our first time to see the show even though it has been on Broadway for years.  Every time we were in New York it was always too difficult to get into the show due to its popularity.  We really enjoyed the production and I especially thought the plot did a nice job of meshing with the movie. 

Sunday was a day of rest and shopping.  We went out hunting new hiking shoes but were unsuccessful in finding both a style and color that either one of us liked.  But there are always more stores to search.  We did find hats for hiking and Jo found a new shirt although I was pretty sure when we left that wasn't on the shopping list (only shoes and hats were!).  The afternoon was spent working a bit in our vegetable garden which continues to struggle this year (that is why there haven't been any pictures as yet).

Anniversary Party in Cheyenne, WY

Cheyenne, Wyoming was our destination this weekend.  My niece held a surprise 30 year anniversary party for my brother and sister-in-law.  This required some intricate logistics as Jo was traveling this week in New Mexico.  She managed to hook-up with my parents flying up from Albuquerque while I came in from Milwaukee and we all managed to meet in Denver without any flight delays.  We had some extra time so we headed to Fort Collins to enjoy a nice lunch with ice cream cones for dessert after which we walked around the town a little bit and did some card shopping.  I'm not sure I completely got the allure of the front range around Denver as the traffic everywhere we happened to be, was horrific.  Even Fort Collins was packed with cars - not exactly the peaceful western outdoor environment you might expect. 

Anyway after our shopping we headed up to Cheyenne.  We had a lovely dinner with my niece and her boyfriend that evening and then headed over to her home for an evening of catching up and cards (golf, in case you are curious, I managed second place).  Saturday morning was gorgeous so Jo and I headed out for a run into downtown Cheyenne and managed to survive even though at 6,000 feet there isn't enough oxygen in the air (apparently about 17% less according to Google) compared to what are used to down at sea level here in Wisconsin.  We then headed over to the Wyoming State Museum to learn a little about the state.  Very interesting museum and I would recommend it to anyone in town with a little time to kill.  It is free and does a good job telling the Wyoming story - except for why Cheyenne was founded where it was (according to my brother it was a train stop on the Union Pacific railway).  Unfortunately, the state capitol was closed so we will have to do that on our next visit.

After the museum it was party time so it was over to my niece's place to spend the afternoon chatting with my friends and family.  The surprise part of the event was a success and the pulled pork sandwiches were delicious.  We were also introduced to mango flavored Mike's Hard Lemonade, which I would highly recommend.  Sunday was another sunny day so after our morning run we went over to my brother's place to see all the changes he has made to his property since our last visit.  We managed to squeeze in some more rounds of golf (the card game, not the hitting the little white ball game) before it was time to catch a quick lunch on his deck before we had to head back to Denver to catch our flight home. 

The remaining portion of the week for me was primarily taken up with finishing the exterior painting on the deck which is now officially painted - time to start on the north and south facing windows (yes the painting is never finished on this house...).

Opening the Beer Garden

The Estabrook Park beer garden has opened and we headed there on Friday to enjoy our first beers and pretzels of the year.  It was mostly to get the pretzels with cheese sauce, but you need to have something to wash them down.  Unfortunately, after biking there we found that while the beer was flowing they are in the process of remodeling the kitchen so there won't be any pretzels until next week.  We did enjoy our beers but without the pretzels we were feeling a little tipsy by the time we got back on our bikes for the trip home.  We came home and ordered take-out pizza instead of feasting on pretzels.

Saturday, we headed out for our morning run and then after going to the gym to left we headed over to Atwater Park to enjoy the Shorewood Men's Club chicken barbecue.  We had chicken for lunch along with great views of Lake Michigan.  The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up on some chores around the house that didn't get finished during the week, including replanting our garden as many of our first planted seeds didn't sprout due to the cold weather we have been having.  We then made veggie burgers for dinner and then settled in to watch one of our many taped movies.

Sunday morning was another run and then we went to Miller Park to see the Brewers play the Phillies.  The weather was perfect for baseball and the Brewers actually remembered how to win a baseball game.  In keeping with my tradition, I've included a picture of the sausage race - Chorizo won, in case you were curious (check here for this year's results).  In a interesting twist for the race, they had big and mini-sausages racing.  After the game we came home and relaxed getting ready for our upcoming week.

I spent the week painting the outside of our new enclosed deck along with the usual mix of chores around the house.  Jo had a busy work week with lots of meetings.

Cool days in Lake Geneva

Joann had her annual conference in Lake Geneva.  So after her conference ended, I joined her to spend the weekend at the lake with our good (or should I say great since we stayed at their condo and used their boat) friends, John and Linda.  Unfortunately, the weather continued its cool, cloudy, and rainy pattern so it was a little less than optimum for being outside and on the lake.

First up was an afternoon spent shopping downtown Lake Geneva where Jo was quite successful in helping the local economy flourish.  Nothing for me, but that is our usual shopping trips.  We enjoyed lunch at the Egg Harbor cafe and really had a good time mostly window shopping the various stores in town.  We did find out that my head is not apparently made for hats.  I tried on several that mostly made me look somewhere between goofy to ridiculous.

We got up Saturday morning and after our morning run on the path that goes all the way around the lake, we just lazed away the morning catching up with the happenings in John and Linda's household, which with four kids involves a lot more happenings than usually happen in ours.  Their youngest daughter was along for the trip and had just come back from touring Univ. of Illinois as a possible college (how it couldn't be the only possible choice is beyond us - go Illini).  Then the weather finally cleared up enough for us to get out the boat out on the lake.  We toured around the lake admiring all the incredible houses for which Lake Geneva is famous.  Then after a somewhat chilly ride back into Williams Bay, we just floated and drifted with the wind while we enjoyed a brief bit of sunshine and several folks got a nap.  The picture below, although I was threatened with bodily harm if I used it, is Linda texting their son.  It is one option for older people to see the screen of a smart phone in sunshine - not necessarily everyone's choice (but then what are the odds it would land up on the net?  pretty high if you ask me now a days).  What made this particularly funny is how often she kept doing it.

Sunday was brunch at Daddy Maxwell's where Jo got the pancakes she had been wanting it was time to head home and to get a few house chores done before another week of work.  For me that has consisted of getting the outside of our porch ready for painting.  For Jo it has been meetings, meetings, meetings, as she tries to catch up after several days out of the office.

As mentioned above, our weather has been particularly rainy and cool throughout May and now into June.  The result of which is our garden beds are struggling.  Things are having a hard time sprouting since we have only had a handful of days over 70 degrees.  So I'm not predicting a bumper year for vegetables.