Milwaukee Air Show

We had a quiet weekend around the house and started it off with guava berry coladas on our front porch as we destressed from the week's work (ok, really just Jo destressed, what do I have to be stressed about, but the guava berry colada certainly helped me relax).  We also took the time this weekend to get some exercise in along with a stroll along the lakefront to watch the Milwaukee Air show.  Fortunately this year the weather cooperated and we didn't have massive fog banks keeping the jets out of the air.  It was truly amazing to see the Thunderbirds along with the other jets zooming through the air.  We still can't believe how fast these planes can go vertically, not to mention that the pilots don't pass out given the stress that must put on someone's body.  Afterwards we set up our new folding hammock in the back yard and continued to enjoy watching the show since many of the planes were making turns over our house.  Although after a couple of hours of jet engine noise we were ready for some quiet.


We made veggie burgers for dinner along with the first of our yellow beans for the summer.  We figured that since we were so healthy with our dinner and our multiple exercise units for the day we could treat ourselves to frozen yogurt for dessert.  We hopped on our bikes up to Whitefish Bay to see how many sweet, gooey things you could cram into a cup of yogurt - turns out for me, quite a lot.  After we biked home we watched a movie - Divergent - that we had taped 6 months ago, finally clearing some space on the DVR.  Jo had a massage on Sunday and we spent the afternoon either shopping (Jo) or reading/napping (me) along with occasionally  watching the planes continue to buzz over our house

As just noted, our summer beans are starting to come in and once again, they are going to be our dependable crop.  The weather has started warming up so the garden is in full bloom although besides the beans and cucumbers the rest of the garden is struggling to catch up from our cool weather this year.  But we always have our beans and it looks like I will be freezing a large amount of packets for eating this winter.  We have gotten a few blueberries this year and have enjoyed them on our breakfast cereal a couple of times.  Haven't gotten enough for a blueberry crisp, but maybe next year.

Visit from the Wyoming Side of the Family

Last week we enjoyed a visit from my Mark, De, and Joe - my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.  They were on their way back from a cross country drive that took them from Wyoming to Pennsylvania and back - all in a car when the outward bound leg driven straight through (something like 25 hours of driving).  Seemed crazy to Jo and I but then we haven't ever lived in big sky country where you need to drive around 3 hours just to get to the next city.  We had a great time showing them a little of Milwaukee which included a stop at the Comet Cafe (it was on their list of must-sees), and the Harley Davidson museum.  And no trip to Milwaukee would be complete without a tour of at least one brewery.  We choose Sprecher's mostly because I love the free root beer at the end of the tour.  The spent a day down in Chicago visiting our sister and then it was time for them to pack up and start the trek home.

Last weekend and this week was the annual meeting for Northwestern Mutual.  This kept us busy with dinners every evening which included my favorite event - the garden party at the Milwaukee Zoo.  Once again, Sprecher's root beer floats were on tap and a couple of them made their way over to me.  I only did two since I ate too much dinner - I will need to watch that in the future.  I don't like dinner to get in the way of the number of floats I can consume.  It was a lovely evening for a stroll through the zoo and we chatted with several of the representatives and folks from the home office that Jo has gotten to know over the years.  Along with the dinners we also enjoyed the closing concert which was Lady Antebellum this year.  Kathy, Drew, and Amy were able to join us for the concert and Kathy, Drew, and I found time to partake in cinnamon rolls at City Market the following day.

The rest of the week has been catching up on chores, getting the water heater replace (it was getting up there in the years and since things on this house only fall off when it is maximally inconvenient, I thought I would try to preempt that problem), and doing a lot of laundry since we had to wear multiple outfits a day last week with the annual meeting events.

This weekend is the Milwaukee air show and the Thunderbirds and F-15 fighter jets have been practicing since Thursday - the picture is one that Jo took out of her window.

Just Love the Eiffel Tower

As Milwaukee conducts the usual summer ritual of festivals we took time last week to enjoy on of our favorite, the French Fest (mostly because it is free and right downtown next to where Jo works).  In keeping with the French festival theme, it comes with the obligatory Eiffel Tower model that they erect every year and and which I dutifully post a picture of Jo standing by - she is by the left front pillar in case you couldn't find Waldo.  We enjoyed listening to some music and eating the festival food.  Especially the crepe filled with ice cream - although we were highly disappointed to find that the crepe place at a French festival wasn't offering crepes filled with Nutella.  That needs to be fixed, haven't they ever been to Paris for goodness sake!  Anyway the evening was cool and comfortable, we got to people watch, get dinner and dessert, and window shop all the interesting booths of stuff no one really needs to own.

Friday we joined our good friends, John and Linda, at their place in Lake Geneva for a weekend of relaxing on their boat and eating too much food - although I'm sad to say while multiple goodies from the Elegant Farmer were consumed, we didn't make it for frozen yogurt, waistlines aren't as forgiving as they used to be.  We had great weather for the three days with it actually warming up enough to enjoy sitting on the boat.  We got caught up on all the family doings and plans while drifting and bobbing in the water and did our best to solve all the world's problems.  Saturday night we rented the movie "Wild", which was very interesting and I would recommend it for a viewing.  All too soon it was time to head home on Sunday - but not before we got in a little more boat and jet ski time - to get everything cleaned up and ready for the work week.

Jo has Northwestern's annual meeting starting later this week, so we will be engaged in a round of dinners with that and my brother, wife, and son are stopping by for a visit on their way back from a vacation out east.  Should be an interesting week.

Our Lone Strawberry

Following the guidance that Jo learned from her father we had eliminated all the flowers from our newly planted strawberry plants - except for this one lone exception.  I'm sure it will be the tastiest berry we will have this year, but it will be a bit tough to share.  I also found the one, and possibly only, advantage to the cool weather we have been having this year with respect to our garden.  We are enjoying a bountiful harvest of lettuce and spinach.  I've never had such good results growing spinach and this year the stuff is almost two feet tall.  I finally just cut all the remaining leaf lettuce and spinach as it was about to go to seed.  Now we just need to eat nothing but salads for the next month!

Some Baseball and a Family Visit to Omaha

We had the opportunity to enjoy America's summer sport and catch two Brewer's games two weeks ago.  Our neighbor invited us for one of the games and the other we used Northwestern Mutual's suite with several of Jo's colleagues from her team.  We had great weather for both but only managed to pull out one win from the two games.  On a side note, I always enjoy having a hot dog while watching baseball but can't for the life of me explain why, since I never eat hot dogs otherwise.  Must be reliving my childhood in some way.  Anyway, as always, we enjoyed watching the games, eating stadium food, and , of course, the sausage races (they haven't updated the race results for two months, but Polish was leading back in May).

We also made it to Summerfest, Milwaukee's main music festival, mostly to eat fair food but we also enjoyed listening to a few of the bands.  We especially liked "Platinum" which kept us entertained for almost an hour with an interesting mix of what would be termed "oldies" (in other words songs from when we were in high school and college) and more contemporary songs.  We also did a bit of people watching since Summerfest always brings out some interesting outfits - we especially liked the guy walking around in a Viking outfit including the horned helmet.  Why, you might ask?  Not a clue since as near as we could tell there was no Viking themed music, venue, costume contest, or party going on.

For the long fourth of July weekend we headed to Omaha to see our nieces and nephews and Mike (brother-in-law).  We stayed a couple of nights in Madison at our condo before heading over to Nebraska since we took along Kathy, Jo's sister.  Traffic was pretty reasonable although it does take a lot longer to get across states in the Midwest and West than it did when we lived on the east coast.  It was really nice to enjoy some warmer weather, for once this summer, and we had perfect conditions for taking advantage of Mike's pool.  The homeowner's association where Mike's house is put on a great fireworks display and since we could walk there we didn't have to deal with the usual post-firework traffic snarls that always seem to occur.  Jo got in some serious clothes shopping which she loves to do on vacation and I found enough time to read a book or two.  Mostly, we relaxed and played with our grand-nieces/nephews and marveled at how grown up all our nieces and nephews have become.  All too soon, it was time to drive back to Wisconsin and get back to the day to day reality.