We spent the weekend in Madison, catching up with family, friends, and our renovations, since Jo was in Madison for a weeklong business meeting. We started off by checking on the latest progress of our renovations. Things have slowed way down as our tile guy is a very good tile mason and very meticulous, but also very, very slow. While we were thinking all the work would be done by now on the first floor, the master bathroom is really only beginning. However, the kitchen cabinets are beginning to be installed and look really great - but then almost anything new usually does.
After that fun, we headed over to the Memorial Union terrace to join our good friend, Sheri, for a beer (or two) in the sun while catching up on all the fun happening in CT and enjoying the lake views. Sheri was in town for some work with the university and we got to spend a couple of days catching up. As you can see in the photo, Madison is filled with 85 decorated Bucky Badgers (and yes, Jo has as one of her goals to find every one of them, so stay tuned for Bucky selfies). These are kind of like cows on parade or the whales on parade that happened back in CT. Anyway, I digress. We had a wonderful time with Sheri and hopefully she is a little closer to thinking that maybe Madison is the right place to live in the near future, with Bruno of course.
Saturday, much like last week, we spent the day searching for furniture. this time in Madison. While we weren't out nine hours like last week, we did put in a solid five. We were successful in scoring a mattress for the bed we ordered last week and found a sectional sofa. So things are looking up should anyone visit - there might actually be a place to sit instead of a folding chair or college age futon. We also found a cool dining table that might make the cut depending on the options available for the top. Saturday night was pretty low key as we were exhausted from shopping (it is amazing how stressful and how much energy it takes to shop for stuff). So Sheri joined us at Kathy's dinner for Gino's lasagna (best lasagna we have ever had) and a rousing game of Mille Bornes.
We came home early Sunday morning and enjoyed a walk along the lake front before buckling down and plowing through some reading of accumulated newspapers. Yes we are living the wild life.
I know you have been seriously missing copious garden shots. Since the weather finally warmed up enough to actually cause things to grow, I've included a photo this week. We decided to go a bit simpler this year. We are planted just carrots, parsnips, beans, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, and spinach. I decided to try growing dried beans (e.g., black, kidney) this year as my experimental crop. This is to replace the potatoes from last year's experimental crop which while great, took up a lot of room and the yield was just so, so. The only challenge with dried beans is that you need to grow a lot to actually have enough beans at the end to make a dinner with them. Anyway, as far as the garden goes this year, as usual the yellow and green beans are all doing great even with the weird weather we have been having - high 50's last week where we were considering turning the heat back on and 90 degrees over the weekend and today.
To fully enjoy the sweltering 90 degree weather over the weekend, we went to see the Brewer's play with our friends, Greg and Rhonda. While our seats were in the shade for 90% of the game, the 10% they weren't were a bit sweaty. Add to that the Brewer's didn't play particularly well and lost the game it made for a less than perfect afternoon event. But the tickets were compliments of Jo's work and we were outside it still made for an OK outing. Additionally, we had a great Italian dinner afterwards and got to celebrate Greg's retirement and birthday with a delicious flourless chocolate cake. 
Lastly, much like the garden photo above, I figure it has been a while since I posted the racing sausages, so I included that this week just for old times sake.
