Party Week

This last weekend was the start of Northwestern Mutual's annual meeting which meant we have been focused on that for the last five days.  We have had one or two dinners/receptions to attend every night since Friday and so we are feeling like we ate too much, exercised too little, and - at least for me - talked way too much.  But it was a nice several days meeting new people from the field sales force along with people that Jo works with everyday at the home office.  Although, it is a struggle to remember that many new names and faces by the time I will see them again next year.  But it was another chance for me to understand a little bit more about what Jo's company does and how it works.

The annual meeting included the usual zoo party on Sunday where they have the zoo after-hours so it is a nice opportunity to see the zoo with few crowds and enjoy Sprecher Root Beer floats - I managed 1.5 this year only because Jo made me share the first one with her.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous for the party (especially compared to last year's torrential downpours) and it was very enjoyable listening to some local bands after seeing the animals.  We did stop by the new exhibit with stingrays that you can touch.  One interesting question for my readers - why do the stingrays circle their pool always in a counter clockwise direction?  The guide by the stingray pool didn't know - anyone else know?

Monday was the big opening session which is held in the Bradley Center which gives you some idea of the size and scope of this meeting.  And yesterday after our dinner with the top field agents we enjoyed a concert by the band "fun." with Kathy (Jo's sister), Drew and Amy. Great concert but I only knew about 4 of their songs, which I suppose shouldn't be a big surprise knowing my musical inclinations.  Needless to say Jo is exhausted after these last five days since while I least got some down time during the days she had meetings to attend before trekking out to our list of dinners and receptions.  We'll take it easy for the rest of the week and try to return our diet to a more appropriate level of calories.

The last picture is to show that we can dress up now and then along with showing the massive hole where Northwestern tore down one of the office buildings they had prior to erecting a brand new 30 plus story building.  Jo's group is in charge of this so she is privy to all the thousands of decisions that are needed to build a new office tower.

Bastille Days - In Milwaukee

This weekend was the annual Milwaukee celebration of Bastille days and in keeping with our annual tradition we headed downtown to enjoy the replica Eiffel Tower and some good fair food - falafel sandwich for Jo and a turkey wrap for me.  We toured the booths although didn't buy much beyond the food mostly just people watched as we wandered through the event.  We also listened to some interesting music but nothing with a real French connection as in previous years.  We either missed the French singing groups this year or for some reason they weren't as prevalent as in past years.  Still it was a nice evening with pleasant weather and a good way to get our weekend going.

Saturday morning after our morning cardio workout and yoga in the park we biked down to the lagoon by the lake to watch the dragon boat races organized by the local Chinese cultural group.  This is the first year that Northwestern Mutual had a boat in the race - last year was the inaugural year for the races so Northwestern didn't dawdle too long.  It was interesting to see how many teams were participating although the boats didn't seem quite as fancy as I remember from last year. We then biked home and after a brief stop at the gym we tucked into a well deserved lunch and a short nap.  For our evening fun and games we watched a movie we had on our DVR.

Sunday we went low key, as we often do on Sundays, and spent most of the morning just reading the paper in our living room enjoying the sun.  Our weather remains cool this year so far with this mornings temperature at 55 degrees.  Really nice for sleeping, not so nice for our attempts to have fresh vegetables.  Everything is growing in the garden, just really slow and not sure what will be in before the first frost hits - which will probably be in early September this year. 

Fourth of July in Milwaukee

We enjoyed a visit from my parents and sister this week.  Mom and Dad stopped in Chicago on their way to a cruise of the Mississippi - which became a cruise of the Ohio due to the flooding on the Mississippi -  and they all took Amtrak up to enjoy a short stay in Milwaukee.  After a wonderful lunch at our favorite BBQ place downtown, the Smoke Shack, and a quick visit to Boswell's bookstore, we spent the afternoon catching up.  That evening after dinner of roasted chicken (I'm now hooked on beer-can chicken) we celebrated my older (much, much older) sister's birthday with a little cake and the obligatory singing.  Then it was cards until the wee hours of the night - wee for us, which meant about 10:00 - enjoying the new game of 99 that we learned from John and Linda last weekend in Lake Geneva.

For the holiday weekend, we started off on Thursday night with Jo and I meeting at Bradford beach on her walk home from work to enjoy some AVP volleyball.  Amazing to watch two people cover an entire volleyball court and remembering back to our much younger days when we could do that.  Afterwards we were sitting on our front porch enjoying some Mike's Hard Lemonade (we got really exhausted watching them play volleyball) our neighbor invited us to bike to the local movie theater to see the movie, "Chef".  We decided on the spur of the moment to go and really enjoyed the movie and the company.  We would highly recommend seeing Chef.  Unfortunately, that made popcorn our dinner for the evening, since after the movie we biked down to watch the Milwaukee fireworks display along with tens of thousands of our closest friends.

Friday we lazed in bed a bit before biking down to watch one of the local 4th of July parades - using parade in the broadest sense, this parade is mostly the local residents walking behind 1 fire truck, 1 police car, 4 people playing trumpets, and 1 banner announcing it is a parade!  But it was fun to watch for the first time and see a few people we have met since we moved here.  Then it was up to City Market to enjoy a cinnamon roll and milk while sitting in outside enjoying the freedom of a three day weekend (well Jo was mostly enjoying that, since every week is kind of that for me).  The rest of the day we spent goofing around the house and planning some future vacations.  We are a firm believer in always using vacation days to plan for more vacation days.  That evening we went to our friends, Rhonda and Greg, for an evening BBQ with several of their friends.  Delightful evening although a bit chilly for the first week in July.  We tried to do our patriotic bit by making our fruit pizza dessert into the pattern of the flag.

Saturday and Sunday were spent in active laziness.  While we did get in some exercising and took a couple of long walks we really worked at not doing too much.  We got a little bit of the way through our backlog of taped shows and watched a movie each evening.  Home made rhubarb/strawberry crisp (rhubarb was from our garden0 with home made vanilla ice cream was on the dessert menu to top off a relaxing weekend.  It was nice to have a couple of days without a lot planned for once.  Upcoming week looks like business as usual for both of us. 

Warm days on the lake

Summerfest started last week, which for the uninformed is a 11 day music festival here in Milwaukee which is billed as the largest music festival.  Don't know how to confirm this so I'm just going with they are correct.  We didn't purchase tickets to any of the big shows this year and just opted to walk around and enjoy some of the music on the smaller stages.  Kawehi was the most interesting artist we heard, she was using technology to create music on the spot - a little quirky, but interesting.  We mostly went for the fair food, which was gyros for us this year, and the people watching, which since Lady Gaga was the big act for the evening provided us with lots of interesting people to watch!

Friday we went to Lake Geneva for the weekend with John and Linda.  We left Milwaukee in 60 degree weather and had 85 degree weather by the time we pulled into Lake Geneva.  We promptly headed out on the boat to enjoy some warm, sunny weather for once.  We floated on the lake and enjoyed a pasta salad dinner while watching the waves and catching up on everyone's lives - especially all of John and Linda's kids, by comparison not much is happening in ours.  Saturday was pretty much the same - out on the boat to enjoy another warm day although we choose to anchor at Bigfoot Beach for part of the day and brave the somewhat chilly water for a swim.  Then we tied up at the pier in downtown Lake Geneva to pretend to get a bit of exercise walking around the town before slowly boating our way back to Williams Bay all the while admiring the phenomenal houses around the lake and debating how to afford to live there.  Dinner was followed by Kopps ice cream and a strawberry/rhubarb pie from the Elegant Farmer which capped off a lovely day.  Sunday we thought we should try something besides boating on the lake so we took the tour of Blackpoint.  This is one of the mansions on the south shore of the lake that was donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society.  The interesting thing is that it was donated more or less intact - like the owners just walked out.   This means there is over a 100 years of historical items scattered around the house.  This is well worth a visit if you are ever in Lake Geneva with a few hours free.  After the tour we enjoyed lunch before packing up the car and heading back to reality.

On the garden front there isn't too much encouraging news to report.  Since our daily temperatures have barely been able to get in the 60's most of June the plants in the garden are struggling to even get started.  However, we did manage to harvest a healthy crop of lettuce, spinach, and mesclun which are the only crops that are seeming to enjoy the cool weather.  Not sure what our bean harvest will be this year and that is usually our reliable standby.  Meanwhile, we are looking forward to the upcoming short week - well at least for Jo - and the Fourth of July.