Beans are in

Even though our garden has struggled this year due to the cool and rainy weather.  Our old standby came through for us, as we harvested a big basket of green and yellow beans this weekend.  It was a great feeling finally getting something to harvest and the taste of beans fresh from the garden is hard to top.  We had a serious discussion of planting nothing but beans next year since they seem to flourish regardless of all the things we do wrong in our garden.  But I'm sure when the seed catalogs start coming this winter that I'll succumb to my usual desire to plant everything with dreams of a bountiful garden and order all my usual selections.

While not harvesting or celebrating our harvest we spent the rest of the weekend around Milwaukee this weekend.  Saturday we spent the majority of the day out shopping.  Jo needed a new pair of hiking boots and after checking out many other stores we found a pair at REI that worked for her.  Unfortunately, it seemed like lots of other people discovered the same thing as the shoe department at REI was packed.  We needed some food after that, which a Five Guys burger filled the need quite nicely.  Then it was to Mayfair mall so Jo could get the rest of her needed shopping fix.  Sunday was spent at home working on various odds and ends.

Yesterday we enjoyed a surprise visit from John and Linda along with their daughters, Katie and Jenna.  They were at Lake Geneva and since the weather was not cooperating to be out on the lake - cool and overcast - they decided a visit to Milwaukee was needed.  Naturally after dinner a visit to the Kopps frozen custard shop was required which was a great way to end the day.  Finally to explain the picture to the side, our pizza on Friday night came out looking like a map of the United States despite many efforts on my part to shape it into a rectangle.  Jo insisted that the photo be in the blog this week and so here it is.

Another annual meeting

First up is the weather, we went from blistering hot and humid to absolutely gorgeous weather all in the space of a day.  We were absolutely sweltering for almost a week as temperatures hit the 90's while the dew point was up in the 70's.  We caved in and turned on the air conditioner although it certainly made me wonder what people did before someone invented it.  They were probably a lot tougher than we are today.  Anyway, on Saturday the temperatures dropped 20 degrees and most importantly the dew point fell back into a more comfortable 50's.  Made my run on Saturday morning so much more enjoyable.

Most of the rest of the week was taken up with painting (there is always something that needs painting on this house) and Northwestern Mutual's annual meeting.  This year we had five straight evenings of dinners/events we needed to attend.  So while filet mignon is always good, night after night of it does tend to wear.  The 5K/10K race that it is held with the meeting enjoyed the milder temperatures so we both had a nice run along with 8,000 other participants.  The only dark cloud on this year's event was the rain storm that started 20 minutes before the start of the garden party at the Milwaukee zoo.  We managed to stay dry under the tents although we didn't stay as long since it was so moist.  This meant that I only downed 2 Sprecher root beer floats this year (not like my 3 last year, I still have the goal of trying to get to 4 one year).


This year's concert entertainment was Tim McGraw.  I only knew one of his songs so it was hard to really get into the music.  It doesn't help that country music isn't my favorite music genre.  But even with all that, he did put on a high energy show with almost no breaks.  But I also must be getting really old as I felt the music was being played entirely too loud to really understand the words he was singing.  I must admit that Northwestern certainly gets some big stars to put on their concerts.

For the rest of the weekend, we worked out and piddled around the house with various chores.  We have managed to harvest a few more peas and some lettuce.  The first crop of beans are looking ready so we hope to have some fresh beans with our weekend dinners.

Bastille Days in Milwaukee

Yes the title is correct, Milwaukee proudly celebrates Bastille Days every year right in the downtown.  We decided to put on our best berets and biked downtown to take in the French festival.  This year it was complete with not only the usual metal replica of "La Tour Eiffel" but also a blow up version (which I must admit there was a part of me really wanted one for the back yard - don't ask me why, I don't have a clue).  We listened to a few of the bands and really enjoyed a choir of French students singing but we mostly went for the food.  We both enjoyed some festival food for lunch although the choices of authentic French food were very limited.  You would thinkg there would be copious sellers of Croque Monsieurs, but most of the offerings were the standard festival fare.  We were somewhat good and resisted any dessert - mostly because the line for beignets was way too long.

Before hitting the Bastille Days, we biked over to Veteran Park to watch the dragon boat races.  Several local, corporate teams competed throughout the day in dragon boats.  Unfortunately, Northwestern Mutual didn't have a team entered so we just cheered on all the boats.  Much like the Bastille Days, not sure why Milwaukee has dragon boat races.  I'm thinking it mostly our winters are so long that we look for every opportunity to get people outside eating brats and drinking alcoholic beverages.   Trust me, if you knew the number of festivals that happen in Milwaukee over the summer you would agree that we are really successful at creating opportunities to drink.

Friday night we biked over to Estabrook park to enjoy our favorite outdoor beer garden with some friends from volleyball.  Fortunately this time, the pretzels were available so we each enjoyed one while chatting and downing a stein of Hofbrau house brew.  The weather was perfect with temperatures in the mid-70's and low humidity (unlike this week where the temps are in the high 80's and the humidity even higher) and the conversation lively so we stayed until it was almost too dark to get home.  Again, I was proud of us as we passed by a Culvers and didn't stop for a frozen custard - although we both wanted to.

As you might have noticed there have been very few garden postings this year.  Short message is that our garden is really struggling.  The cool temperatures so far this year and the limited sunlight our garden beds get has resulted in poor results so far.  We are concerned that our success last year was due entirely to the unusually warm temperatures we experienced.  Either way, we did manage to harvest some peas yesterday, our first harvest this year since our lettuce was a bust, and are looking forward to enjoying them for dinner tonight along with some steak and potatoes.

On the road to Omaha

I'm a little behind in my blog posting for the week since I just wasn't in the writing mood.  With the weather here being just about perfect (77° during the day and 60° at night) my spirits are up and I'm ready to tackle writing something.

We spent the majority of the fourth of July week in Omaha staying with Jo's sister's family.  The Friday before we drove over to Madison and stayed with Kathy enjoying some Rocky Rocco's pizza for dinner.  Then it was early to bed so we could be up and on the road early Saturday morning with Kathy and Drew joining us for the 7 hour trek to Omaha.  Unfortunately we had to violate the car trip rules I grew up with (sorry Dad, but I really tried) and actually stop once on the way out even though the car didn't need gas.  I was overruled by my travel buddies on that.  The problem is modern cars with their combination of gas mileage and gas tank size travel too far.  Anyway, we made it successfully and in reasonably good time as the traffic, while busy, didn't really back up anywhere.

It was great seeing everyone in Omaha again.  The weather was significantly cooler than last year (when it was in the 90's most of the week) which made our morning runs much more enjoyable, although splashing in the pool a little less so.  Our grand nieces and nephew have all grown so much and our niece and nephews are starting to hit major decade birthday's (like the 40's!), makes you feel a bit old especially the part of being a great aunt/uncle.  It was also interesting to see my nephews who are now uncles themselves play with their nieces/nephew the way I used to. 

We tried to have a bit of an adventure each day while we were there.  This included an enjoyable day out playing 9 holes of golf with Mike.  Kathy, Jo, and I went out as a threesome and had a great time although we played by a much looser set of rules than used on the PGA tour and as a result all had scores we were happy with.  Mike and Drew followed us and held themselves to a much stricter set of play which meant more difficult shots for them to contend with since they weren't using our ball adjustment rules.  Kathy had the shot of the day for our group as she had one heading for the water that hit rocks bounced twice before landing back in the fairway.

Other adventures included a day at the Omaha zoo one.  Always interesting to see the wide variety of creatures that inhabit this planet and their desert dome exhibit was interesting, especially since a few of the animals seemed to have the run of the place.  One evening we enjoyed the local minor league baseball team, the Stormchasers.  You can't beat a hot dog and lemonade while watching some future major leaguers.  While it didn't measure up to our hometown racing sausages, they did have the racing dairy products between one of the innings (which consisted of a racing cheese block, milk carton, cow, and yogurt container).  I think the cheese slice won.

The rest of the time was spent lazing around the pool, playing computer games, doing some reading,  baby sitting our niece (ok, Jo and Kathy did almost all of that) and just generally catching up with the family.  It was a relaxing week for me and it was hard to get back in the car for the long ride home last weekend.