It's Beer Garden Time

Jo took Friday off to enjoy some of the summer here in Milwaukee.  That of course would assume that summer actually comes.  It has continued to struggle to get into the low 60's much less the high 70's it is supposed to be.  We started her day off with our first long bike ride of the summer.  We got for a little over two hours and certainly noticed it the rest of the day.  Afterwards it was a haircut for Jo and then it was off to do some shopping.  We stopped first at Ethan Allen to pick up a lamp for the condo and to the container store where we spent several hours.  What a fun store especially for those of us that feel you can never be too organized.  We picked up some items to get our drawers a bit more orderly along with a few things for the kitchen.

Saturday we decided it was time to visit our favorite beer garden and the weather cooperated with a nice sunny day.  We made the beer and pretzel our lunch (aren't we eating great!) and we were going to head for frozen custard when we found that Jo's bike had suffered a flat.  So after pumping it back up we decided the smart thing was to head back to the apartment before it went flat again.  Shame to miss the custard though.

Our old neighborhood had a block party on Sunday and it was nice to catch up on the neighborhood doings since we left.  Also talked with the new owners of our house.  The garden beds are still intact and the strawberries are about three weeks from being ready for picking - too bad we won't be there to enjoy.

A Week of Concerts

Jo was able to get tickets to two concerts last week at our new arena.  First up was Pentatonix which is an a cappella group that we first saw with John and Linda at Illinois a bunch of years ago.  There were two warm up bands - which apparently is the new normal (the bands were Citizen Queen an all female a cappella group and Rachel Platten) - both of which were very entertaining.  Pentatonix also provided an enthusiastic performance with great singing and a fun show.  Very amazing for the person who does the beat boxing to make all those different sounds and do it in rhythm seems challenging.  The other nice part was now that we are living downtown we could walk to the show and avoid all the traffic tie-ups afterwards.

Next up was Carrie Underwood's latest tour.  Once again there were two warm up bands (although in my humble opinion, the warm up bands for Pentatonix won the battle of warm up bands).  Interesting stage for Carrie as it was located in the middle of the stadium versus being at one end and had all sorts of cool elevators built in to raise and lower the performers.  It was a fun several hours of entertainment along with enjoying some of Carrie's songs that we knew.  I still remain amazed that they would elevate Carrie Underwood fifteen to twenty feet in the air without her being strapped in at all.  Probably because I know I would walk off the edge at some point during the concert.

Binge Posting

Seems like many people are now binge watching their favorite shows online, so I thought I would try to do some binge posting to fill in what we have been up to lately.

A few weeks ago, I headed up to Lake Winnebago to help John put in his new dock.  This mostly consisted of me standing on his boat watching the dock installation company put in the dock.  Unfortunately, it was a wet day and we didn't get to enjoy a ride on the lake, but the new dock looks great and the boat is now all high and dry and ready to go into the lake at a moment's notice.

Later that week we headed to Madison.  We had tickets, with Kathy and John (different John - yes we have a lot of John's in our lives), to the Overture Center to see some improv comedy.  The show was fantastic and I had tears coming out of my eyes within 15 minutes of the start of the show since I was laughing so hard.  We then got up early Saturday morning to tackle the weeds in our community garden beds that we are sharing with Kathy.  The beans are already coming up - you can always count on the beans - but the squash, carrots, and kale was also showing some promise.  There was an amazing number of weeds, but that probably comes from this being our first years in these beds.

It was back home on Sunday so Jo could rest up before another week of work.

Racing Sausages

Jo was in Dallas for business at the tail end of the week.  But with the women's World Cup starting I was all set with things to do and watch.  She came home on Saturday just in time for us to join Greg and Rhonda for a dinner and an evening of cards.  The guys won this time (we were thoroughly trashed last time we played) which is always a nice way to end the day.  Sunday we rose to grayish skies with threatening rain, but it held off long enough for us to enjoy a bike ride out to Miller Park to catch our first baseball game of the season.  While we didn't enjoy a hot dog at the park, we did get to see the racing sausages race around the infield and I figured it has been a while since I posted a picture of them, so here you go.  The game was a thriller as the hometown team came back late in the game to win.  Really fun fact, one of the Brewers managed to belt a home run that bounced off a Toyota that is located in the right field stands.  This won a car for one of the lucky fans (unfortunately, not us as we could really use a new car).  First time it has happened since Toyota started the contest (about 6 years ago).  Would be pretty cool to go to the ballpark to watch a game and come home with a new car. 

Anyway, we had a nice ride home because all the rain happened while we were at the ball park enjoying the game inside.  And while our bike seats were a bit wet we didn't have to bike in the actual rain.

One Weekend - Two Lakes

We spent Memorial Day weekend helping our friends, John and Linda, move their lake house from Lake Geneva to Lake Winnebago.  They now have an actual lake house since their new place is right on the lake - the Geneva location was inland a bit.  Fortunately, there was time around all the packing and unpacking activities to get one last ride on Lake Geneva and one new ride on Lake Winnebago.  Unfortunately, the weather decided to act like March instead of May - so it was long sleeved shirts, sweatshirts or anything to cover up since it was quite chilly on the lake.  Even with all the moving activities it was a fun weekend especially exploring John and Linda's new house and lake.  They are positioned on Lake Winnebago with a view to the west leading to beautiful sunsets from their living room and yard.  A special treat was make s'mores around their fire pit - I even managed to not catch my marshmallow on fire, although I was really tempted to do it just for fun.

We got home just in time to pack back up to head over to Madison for the following week.  Jo had a business meeting in Madison for a couple of days and we decided to spend the rest of the week there.  I spent the time finally getting everything out of the moving boxes and doing a few needed chores - like setting up my new workbench and tool storage (I mostly managed to cram everything into the small storage room we have across the hall).  On Friday we spent the morning working with Jo's sister, Kathy, getting her community garden plots tilled and planted.  It will the first time in 17 years that we will actually have a vegetable garden that is in the full sun - can't wait to see the increased yields!!!  Might actually get enough brussel sprouts to make two meals.  Afterwards, we finished getting our kitchen semi-organized and then spent the evening having dinner and playing pool with Kathy and John.

All too soon it was time to load up the car and head back to Milwaukee.  We both can't wait till we can stop moving things between one of our two locations.  Pretty quiet week ahead, although Jo does have a business trip to Dallas at the end.