Go Badgers

I'm a little late this week with my post and no excuse except for limited desire to be writing earlier this week.  We had a busy weekend as we headed over to Madison on Friday to spend some time with Jo's sister and take in a Badger football game on Saturday.  Unfortunately, the weather was a little less than ideal as we woke to rain Saturday morning.  However we had seats that were protected from the direct rain and just had to deal with the cold mist blowing around.  What made up for the poor weather was the exciting game in which Wisconsin was victorious.  It certainly helped all the fans to see WI score twice within the first 3 minutes of the game.  We also did a little house hunting while we were in Madison since, as anyone that knows us, we love going through other people's homes.  We eventually landed back up at Kathy's place which after some Rocky Rococo's pizza for dinner we headed home.

Sunday we got in an early morning run and then picked up my parents and sister at the train station for a brief visit.  We had a wonderful brunch at the Lake Park Bistro although the tornado warnings and torrential rain made for a few worried moments.  Especially trying to decide whether we should head to the basement or continue eating our meal.  We managed to finish our meal and get home without incident and only got partially drenched.  We spent the afternoon catching up on the family news and viewing our safari photos - the short version.  Then my sister headed back to Chicago while we enjoyed a delicious roasted carrot and parsnip soup using our freshly harvested parsnips and the last of our earlier harvested carrots. 

Monday while Jo headed off to work, poor Jo, my Dad and I watched the safari photos - the long version.  Afterwards we packed up and headed to the Milwaukee Public Museum.  We had to take in the butterfly exhibit since that is always one of my favorites.  We spent the bulk of the time in the section on the history of the planet (movement of the land masses and the dinosaurs - because how can you ever get tired of seeing dinosaurs).  Then it was back to the train station for them to head back to Chicago for a few more days before heading home.

First Snowfall

Well there has to be a first day of it every year, but does it have to be in November?  We are in the middle of receiving our first snowfall of the year today.  The yard is all white and while it didn't stick to the road or trees, it is a sure sign of what is to come.  While it isn't predicted to stay around long as temperatures will climb out of the freezing mark later this week, I did spend time last week putting away the lawn mower and getting the snowblower tuned up.  Another exciting 4 to 6 months of throwing snow.  No reason to get it out today, but I'm ready for the first big, driveway covering snow.

We had a nice weekend enjoying a visit from Jo's roommate in college, Mary, and her hubby, Greg.  As part of the weekend festivities we finally managed to get to the Sprecher Beer plant to take the tour and do a little beer/soda tasting.  It is quite a great deal, for $5 you get a tour of the plant and then all the soda tastings you want and up to 4 beers to taste.  Plus you get to keep the serving glass.  Jo figured you could spend an entire afternoon there with lunch for around $9.  It is an especially good deal if you take someone like me along that doesn't like to drink beer all that much - although, I did enjoy my share of the soda.

The rest of the time with Mary and Greg was spent catching up on the happenings of their first year of marriage along with all the news from Quincy - Jo's hometown, in case you forgot.  We also bored them with having to sit through pictures from our safari, but we were semi-kind and only made them do the 230 photo version. 

Milwaukee Bucks Basketball Game - Round 2

A pretty quiet week in Milwaukee.  Weather has been cool, but hey we live in Wisconsin what should you expect in late October - but fortunately no snow as yet.  Although, I'm getting the snow blower out this week to get it ready for another fun winter moving snow around.  I spent the week continuing to clean up the various gardens to get them ready to head through another winter.  Jo spent the week making sure we could continue to get food on the table.  Also squeezed in our usual mix of exercising although Jo's knees have been bothering her a little bit so she is trying to take it a little easier on the running front.

Our big weekend event was seeing if the Milwaukee Bucks could actually complete a whole game of basketball.  We received tickets from the Bucks to make up for the cancelled game the other week, so we headed back to the Bradley Center to enjoy an evening of sports.  The team decided to use the old floor, not the new, all-to-slippery brand new floor (there's some serious dollars wasting away somewhere - although we've been told they are trying to refinish it), and apparently the old floor worked just fine as the game managed to make it all the way to the end.  We had great time although the Bucks lost the game - we aren't sure if we have ever been to a game where the Bucks won, maybe we are bad luck for them.

On Sunday, Jo headed to Phoenix for a business trip while I puttered around the house doing some of my work week chores ahead of schedule.  I then took the afternoon off, watched a little football and did a little reading (which might involved some amount of time with my eyes closed).

To close this week's post, if you want to understand just how frugal Jo really is - here is a picture of her slippers that I finally managed to convince her needed to be tossed out.  Understand that they have looked like this for over a year!  Some early childhood lessons can't ever be unlearned, but you got to love her.