Doors Open Milwaukee

We were actually in town for the weekend which was a nice change of pace.  We started it out with taking in one of the last Brewer's games for the season.  Thank goodness since they have not had a very stellar year.  The Friday night game continued the bad news as they lost again.  But we had a good time with our friends, Patty and Rob, chatting about work (Jo and Patty) and about baseball/life (Rob and me).  Certainly enjoyed our ballpark meal as we decided to not do the traditional ball park frank and had milkshakes and burgers instead.

Saturday after some early morning exercising, we were joined by Kathy and Drew to participate in Doors Open Milwaukee.  This is an annual event, that we never seem to be in town for, in which buildings throughout Milwaukee provide tours and access inside their buildings.  This is a great chance to see rooms and buildings that are normally closed off to the public.  They also held a scavenger hunt with it to help motivate you to find certain items across the city.  We had a great time going to the observation deck of the US Bank building, the Milwaukee Historical Society building (which was originally a bank complete with the multiple safes for viewing), City Hall to see the Mayor's office, Turner Hall, and trying to complete some of the scavenger hunt items.  It was a busy day that we finished off by catching the second half of the Badger football game and finally a beer and pretzel at our favorite beer garden in Estabrook Park.

Sunday we headed out to brunch at Benji's with Kathy, Drew, and Amy. Afterwards everyone headed home while Jo and I puttered around the house knocking off some chores.  We finished the day watching our Packer's continue their winning streak this year.

On Wisconsin

September is here and that means the start of the fall college sports season.  We took full advantage and trekked over to Madison to watch the first home football game.  First up though was enjoying the women's volleyball match against Kent State - yes they apparently do easy warm up matches in volleyball as well as football.  We joined Kathy and John for pizza on Monroe street before heading over to the Field House for the game.  The arena was packed full - well as full as you can get it since it isn't structurally sound enough to use the upper tiers (it is definitely time for the Athletic department to part with some of those big bucks and improve the Field House) - and the crowd got to enjoy a great game as the Badgers won in three straight sets.

Saturday morning we got our breakfast at the Farmer's market around the square which was a pastry and some fresh apple cider (which has to be non-pasteurized to meet Jo's strict criteria for good apple cider).  Kathy then joined us as we walked over to a tail gate party with some people Kathy knows before we hit the stadium for the 11:00 kick off.  It was nice to be able to walk everywhere taking advantage of our new downtown digs.  It was a perfect day for college football - blue skies, temps in the high 60's - especially since the home team won.  We enjoy seeing Bucky doing his pushups after the multiple Badger scores, the 5th Quarter with the Band, along with the game (I personally find it fascinating that the wave is still popular in stadiums - you would think in the last 20 years someone would have come up with a new stadium activity for everyone).

We finished the day with dinner at Kathy's place and then watched some of the Michigan State/Oregon game.  We were up early Sunday for the drive back to Milwaukee where we did a little harvesting in our garden, took in a couple of open houses during a nice walk, and got ready for another fun week of work/home maintenance.

Labor Day at the Lake

We spent all of Labor Day weekend with our good friends, John and Linda, at their place near Lake Geneva.  We had a perfect weekend with very warm temperatures which encouraged us to jump in the lake to cool off and to keep the boat moving when we weren't in the lake to enjoy some cooling breeze.  It was a very busy weekend on the lake as it appeared many other folks had the same ideas.  On Saturday we were joined by their daughter and fiance, Katie and Michael, who fortunately were willing to sit in the sunny seats near the front of the boat while the older folks (that's me now) took advantage of the shade at the back.

Sunday morning Jo, John, and I took out the jet skis for a tour around the entire lake.  Since there were only two jet skis I toured the lake clinging madly to Jo as she tried hard to throw me off the back end.  The woman does have a need for speed sometimes although I'm happy to report I managed to hang on for the entire tour around.  Afterward we all got in a little exercise, mostly to make up for the two fruit pies from Elegant Farmer that happened to show up for dessert, hiking for Jo's favorite breakfast of pancakes at Daddy Maxwell's.  Then it was out on the boat for a dip in the lake to cool off from our exertions.

Sunday evening we ordered a take-out pizza and ate it on the lake while watching the sun slowly slip behind the trees on the horizon.  It was a beautiful evening as the temperatures had moderated a bit with a nice breeze blowing - what could be better, good food, good scenery, and great friends to enjoy it with.  Monday dawned cloudy and stormy looking so we helped get their boat and jet skis stored for the winter and then headed home to some chores and catching up on three days of newspapers before getting a good nights rest from our busy weekend.

Nothing but Sports

We spent last weekend catching up on Wisconsin sports.  We attended games at the Brewers and our first ever Packers game.  Quite the exciting weekend.

First up was the Brewers for a Friday night game.  We were invited by Greg and Rhonda (Jo works with Greg).  We had a great time hearing about their new home purchase - they are upsizing as they near their retirement to have sufficient size for their ever growing family.  We decided to have dinner at the Stadium Club so I wasn't able to partake in my usual ballpark frank, but it made it much easier to have a nice conversation as we watched the start of the game.  We eventually made it to our seats where we had another nice plus - the Brewers won the game, something that hasn't happened too often this year.

Saturday we were up early to get in our workouts before making the 2 hour drive to Green Bay and our first ever visit to storied Lambeau Field.  We were able to find some free on street parking not too far from the game - of course that might having something to do with arriving 3 hours before the start of the game.  We spent the time walking around enjoying all the tailgating, sports bars, and overall show that happens outside of the Packer's stadium.  We then settled into our seats in the NM suite that they arranged for the first time this year.  We were joined by several field reps from Philadelphia office (it was a Packers/Eagles matchup) that Jo had the chance to get to know a little better.  It was great to catch up on a place we lived for 16 years and some of the folks even knew about Rohm and Haas (a company that will all stay near and dear to our hearts since it was our first real job).  Unfortunately for us, but fortunate for them, the Packers didn't look particularly sharp and lost the game (they had pretty much lost the game in the first quarter) but since it was a preseason matchup didn't hurt their Superbowl chances.

After the game it was 2 hour drive home along with a lot of disappointed Packers fans, leading to us spending most of Sunday morning in bed catching up on some sleep.