Madison Trip

Jo and I headed over to Madison for the weekend to see Kathy and John for our Christmas celebration with them.  While there we also spent a morning do a little condo shopping and caught up with one of the people on our Peru tour.

On the condo front, we are realizing that Madison doesn't possess the exactly perfect condo for us.  Namely, a condo with views of one or both of the lakes, is downtown near the capitol, has an expansive terrace, minimum road noise, is the right size, and is cheap.  We have now viewed most of the condo developments around downtown and are trying to figure out what are the features we absolutely must have and which are just nice to haves.  As we have several years before we need the condo, we have plenty of time to determine the right combination and also to change our mind several times.

After condo shopping, we met with Anne and her husband, Steve for lunch.  Anne was on our Peru trip with us and lives in Madison (what are the odds?).  We traded photos so we can each have another couple hundred photos to show our friends and family (side note, it is amazing how often people take fundamentally the same photo of a spot - many of her photos matched ours).  We also got to meet Steve for the first time and learn a little bit more about them.  Later that afternoon, Kathy, John, Jo, and I headed to a local bar to watch the Badger's women volleyball team play in their semi-final match.  The Badger's were defeated by Penn State (might make one of my blog readers happy), afterwards it was home to a delicious Mexican dinner that Kathy prepared.  Then it was time for our first Christmas and I scored a new pair of Wisconsin sweatpants (why is one pant called a pair of pants?).  Christmas is always more fun when you get to have multiple present opening opportunities.

Sunday it was home and then over to a neighbors for a holiday party with the folks on the block.