Trip to New Mexico

I spent last week visiting my parents in New Mexico.  As usual, this meant finding as many opportunities to eat Mexican food and sopapillas as possible in four days.  There is just something about the combination of cheese, tortillas, more cheese, sour cream, more cheese, and some meat or beans that hits the palate.  As we drove in from the airport I had to chuckle, yet again, at the apparent distaste that New Mexico has for my home state as the ENDWI signs were still up.  Nice to know that they are enlisting help and aren't tried to end Wisconsin all on their own.  I know this is to help curb drunk driving, something Wisconsin could really use a serious effort on, but it still makes me laugh everytime I visit.  But then I'm often easily amused.

I had a great time although it wasn't quite as warm as I was hoping.  I was thinking it would be run around outside in shorts and a T-shirt and it was more pants and long sleeve shirts.  But it was still sunny for the most part and there is always the food.  My parents are still going strong and we had several lively discussions as we tried to solve the major problems in the US, the world, current culture, and teenagers.  Now if only someone was around to listen and implement all of our great solutions.  We also enjoyed a visit to a new exhibit on Albuquerque's people, past, and present at the Albuquerque museum.  We have been going to visit the city for over 20 years so there aren't a lot of new museums to see, so it was nice to have a new exhibition to tour (same problems happens after about three or four visits to Milwaukee, see keep count of how many times you have come and expect some repeats).

I came home to cooler weather and a nice quiet weekend for Jo and I to kick back and watch way too much college basketball.  Fortunately one of our Alma mater's made it through the initial rounds of their tournament (Illinois was handily beaten in their first round NIT game) so we will get to spend another week in front of the TV routing for our team.

I can see my grass

We have had a dramatic temperature swing since last week.  One week ago we were experiencing wind chills of -15° and today we are expecting to hit 50°.  The best thing is that the entire week has been warm and I can finally see the grass in the front yard for the first time since December.  The back yard is still covered since it doesn't get quite as much sun, but I'm hopeful by the weekend.

We had a quiet week and weekend.  Jo traveled to Phoenix for two days for her final regional meeting for the year.  I decided to stay home since it was such a short visit and spent the time working in the pottery studio.  I fired up our pug mill for the first time and after several starts and stops figured out how to use it successfully to extrude clay already for throwing.  I then used our new slab roller which made making flat, even sheets of clay a breeze.  While there is a bit more clean up involved with the new equipment, it really streamlines the preparation of the clay.  Plus you get to play with fun, mechanical equipment.

Saturday we went over to the University of WI-Milwaukee's theater to watch a free showing of Birdman.  Thank goodness it was free, this was not a movie for me as my analysis was it started weird, stayed weird in the middle, and ended even weirder.  But then I'm not really a deep thinker when it comes to movies and the message/plot my have just escaped me.  Sunday we took in an Admirals hockey game along with some of Jo's HR team.  We continued our bad luck for the Admirals as they lost the game 5-1.   But we had the Badger's basketball game on in the suite and got to see them win against Ohio State so it all balances out - I guess.

Welcome to March

We have been home for a week from our vacation in the sun and are pretty much back into the routine.  Jo has been busy at work with a few new projects and I'm tackling the usual home repairs.  This week's challenge was repairing some scratches in the wood floors that were left by the previous owners.  This was a project I had put off for a few years as I fiddled around trying to find the best method for getting it to blend in by experimenting in places around the house where it wasn't obvious if my fixes weren't perfect.


For the weekend, we enjoyed a visit from Kathy and John.  The highlight was a visit to the local Sprecher's Brewery for their tour and beer tasting.  We were joined by Drew, Chris, and Angela (nephews and niece) and spent a lot of time sipping the multitude of beers available.  I find it amazing how many different types of beer are now produced since when I was a kid it seemed like all you could get was Budweiser and the like.  I guess it is like coffee, only used to have Folgers and now there is a designer coffee shop on every corner.  Anyway I'll stop showing my age and move on.  I love the Sprecher tour since you can sample all the their soft drinks for free which is more appealing to me since I'm not a big beer fan.  The cherry cola, cream soda, and root beer are phenomenal.

After the tour everyone gathered back at the house for dinner which was preceded by guava berry coladas (which Jo and I had to test out on Friday to be sure we could make them properly).  We were able to make ones that matched our experience in St. Maarten just without the warm tropical breezes blowing while you sipped them.  One note, drinking a frozen cocktail when it is 20 degrees outside isn't a recommended way to get warm.  Dinner was lasagna from a deli in Madison that Kathy brought.  It was one of the best lasagnas I have had although it might have been the ten pounds of cheese but into a seven pound lasagna.  We coupled this with some home made french bread and key lime pie or German chocolate cake for dessert.  Sunday morning we headed to a local coffee shop for a quick breakfast before Kathy and John headed back to Madison.  Afterwards, Jo and I got caught up around the house.

Just to remind us that winter still has some staying power even in March, we got another 3 inches of snow yesterday.  This added to what is already on the ground means we have about 18-24 inches of snow to melt before the grass will show again - probably May.  Also, according to the weather we are going to enjoy a few days of temperatures in the teens just to remind us how lovely winter can be.  Fortunately, the predictions are for temperatures to slowly rise into the mid-30's over the next seven days with the outside possibility of a 40.

I've included a few more photos from our vacation since I had room and wanted to be reminded of the sunny weather.

A Little Fun in the Sun

 To gather a little vitamin D and to escape the bitter cold of the Midwest, we headed to the Caribbean.  Specifically, St. Maarten which we picked primarily because there is a direct flight there from Chicago.  We went with our good friends, John and Linda, and had a wonderful time.  Of course, who wouldn't with temperatures in the 80's everyday, sun out every day, and no work for Jo for a week.  This was our first week long trip with John and Linda since we were all in our 20's and we are looking forward to many more - especially somewhere warm in the midst of winter.

While there we did a boat trip around the island with several stops for snorkeling.  We saw some turtles who can hold their breath underwater a lot longer than we can.  We also sailed in a 12-meter yacht that participated in the America's cup.  We raced against two other boats and won.  It was great fun, but a lot of work - can't imagine doing it in a real race.  It was amazing to see how far over the boats lean when catching the wind.  We also found some time to relax on the beach and enjoyed many, many guava berry coladas - so much that guava berry liquor found itself in our luggage for the trip home.  

We also took the ferry over to St. Barts, rented a car, and toured around the that island for a day.  The ferry ride over was a wild ride with the ferry cresting 6-10 foot waves, which we all weathered fine, but the woman behind us became seasick within 10 minutes of leaving port.  Thank goodness, it was only a 45 minute ride and we were all happy to get into port.  St. Barts was a beautiful island and seems to have a lot of great bays and coves worthy of a week long visit somewhere in the future.  Although, the airport is a terrifying plummet to land so we decided it would be best to take our chances with the bumpy ferry.

Another highlight was touring the butterfly farm.  We have seen several of these across the world and they always are fun and interesting.  Plus, having a butterfly land on you seems so peaceful and serene.  But all too soon, we were sipping our last coladas on the way to the airport and landing back in sub zero temperatures.

Fortunately, this week the temperatures have been really low so we can re-acclimate to winter rapidly.