My Kind of Lunch

Turning 15

My aunt and uncle from South Carolina are in town for a week. They are staying at my mom and dad's house, and brought their oldest two grandchildren for a visit. Plus, my cousin from Tampa just took a job and moved to Wisconsin -- I guess I can't call him my cousin from Tampa any more. Anyhow, his wife, Amy and their two daughters are visiting for a few weeks. Last week was my nephew's 15th birthday. I'm not sure how in the world he got so old. He's such a nice guy, and a really great person to be around. For his birthday, he just wanted to have his family over for a hamburger bar, which was completely ok by us. And of course, no party at my family's is complete without fireworks.

(Oh, earlier in the day, I went on a bike ride with my sister, her husband, my cousin, and Brian. It was so much fun getting out, and for sure a fun group to be with, but definitely not a great ride for me. It was scorching hot out, and while I did fine on the flat areas, it's a really hilly area, and they absolutely got the best of me. I had to get off my bike more than once to even get up them -- something I've never done before. There's a road near us with one big hill -- needless to say, I better get my behind over and start practicing.)

25 Year Party

One of the design agencies Brian worked with when he was at SRAM (not the one he currently works at) celebrated their 25th anniversary today. In honor, they hosted a 25 hour party for employees, clients, family and friends. Seriously, this thing is going on for 25 hours straight. Brian was going to it earlier this afternoon, and called us around 3:30 to join him. The earliest Brian's been home from work most of this week is 11:30 p.m., C's had the stomach flu for two days, and I've been working on a big project, so we've been home for three days straight -- needless to say, we ran out of the house as soon as he asked us to come. And we made it just in time for the break-dancers. I couldn't help but remember the time Brian showed the boys "The Worm."





We went right outside, straight to a motorcycle show featuring Bubba Blackwell. Turns out, the guy is pretty famous in the stunt motorcycle circuit. Even breaking records of Evel Kenevil. Right before the show, the boys found a frog that they put in a cup. Of course, C was holding it, and the silly thing hopped out -- right into the Bubba Blackwell's course. But I have to say, watching a motorcycle stunt driver shooing a frog out of the drive was pretty funny. Plus he was pretty impressed I grabbed it. (I used to love frogs when I was a kid -- and toads -- I'm ok with anything except bullfrogs.)



Here's the boy's frog. We did let it go. No worries. But they did really want to keep it as a pet.




As a finale (for us), just as Paul Cebar was playing, Eric and Brian had a not so friendly monster bike race. H joined in the fun too. We had a great time. The party is still going on. In fact, the fire dancers start soon. I'm just wondering how many people are going to make the a.m. yoga class. Good stuff!

Matthew Brandt

For Matthew Brandt's "Lakes and Reservoirs" series, he took color photographs, and soaked them in the water from from the location of the picture. Brilliant. It's pretty incredible how the different water affects the final image. I thought every single piece is absolutely amazing. I'm not even kidding. (via Design Crush)

Alone

For the last number of weeks -- since Summer vacation began -- the kids have been spending one night a week (at least) at my parents house. H plays golf, and C takes tennis on Tuesdays, so they spend Monday nights with them. It's such a great break. This week, however, my parents have friends from Manchester, England in town so they were busy entertaining. Which meant, Brian and I got to take the boys to their practices this morning. Brian was going to chaperone golf, but it was tournament day and parents were not allowed to go with their children, so he went with a group of little girls who asked him why he had earrings. I watched C -- who proceeded to place two tennis balls in his shirt like they were women's breasts and strut around the tennis court. Totally embarrassing.

After tennis, we had about an hour before we met up with H and Brian, so we went to the beach. We were the only ones there for a while, and it was amazing. Of course, he didn't want to leave then and put a big ole' fuss on. Frankly, my little rascel has been a big giant pain in the behind the past couple days -- I blame the fact that Tina, his sneak-out-on-the-porch-and-eat-ice-cream-buddy, is not here any more. Thankfully, Brian saved the day, and he and C had a nice lunch together, while H and I went down to the beach for our own date. I feel like I never get to just hang out with him, and it was absolutely great. Even if it was just for a few minutes.

P.S. H came in 6th out of 12. Not bad considering he's never played golf before!

Water Balloon Attack

Our Last Day with Tina

We had to take Tina to the airport and say good-bye. I'm not sure where the last three weeks went, but they sure flew by. We saw and did a ton, and all of us are sad to see her go. We had so much fun. Yesterday our families came over for dinner to bid her farewell. And on our way out of town, we stopped at Kopp's for one last cheeseburger. Or two, in Tina's case. She was smitten by them. And the ice cream. We ran into a teacher of C's at the library the other day. I introduced Tina and C said "She really likes cheeseburgers and ice cream. In fact, that's all she eats. And she usually doesn't eat dinner." Totally called her out. Too funny. We had been looking forward to this visit for a long time, and are sad it's over.

Café Hollander

Seriously. We have not taken advantage of the Wisconsin tradition of the Friday Night Fish Fry nearly enough. In fact, this is the second time we've gone out for one. Brian was working late, so we met at Cafe Hollander. We had a great table outside. The weather was perfect. The food was delicious. The boys were a bit hyper (what's new, really....), so I had to entertain them by taking their pictures. Here they are:

Wisconsin Dells :: Too Small

Don't worry, C had just as much fun as everyone else. And I bet by the next time we take a trip to the Wisconsin Dells, he'll be able to ride everything too. Although, he did get a little bummed that he had to sit a couple out.

Wisconsin Dells :: The Park

Well, I didn't get many pictures of the water park. Probably because I was having too much fun in the water to worry about my camera. So much fun. As soon as we got to the Wilderness Resort, an adrenaline rush hit over all of us. We spent the entire day on the water slides, wave pool, lazy rivers. The kids even went on the go-karts. It was a blast. Late that night, we ordered pizza and hit the arcade. We were up at the crack of dawn (thanks to my boys), and were raring to go right when everything opened -- hence the empty photo of the wave pool. We spent a couple hours swimming and sliding again, then drove home. Exhausted.

Wisconsin Dells :: The Ducks

The three kids and I just got back from an overnight adventure with my mom and my sister's kids to the Wisconsin Dells. It was so much fun. The first stop we made before hitting our hotel/insane water park, was a one hour ride on the Original Wisconsin Ducks. It's cheesy and the jokes are always the same. But it's really fun. And if anything, it does give a glimpse into some of the scenery of the area. In fact, the rock formation in the photo above (Hawk's Beak) was featured in the 1962 Life Magazine.



Here's what a Duck looks like in the water. This one passed ours up.



And here's what it looks like on land. We had a really good time.

Bliss at Kopps

We've been to Kopp's plenty of times with Tina while she's been here. She loves it, and that's good enough of an excuse for us. But we told her she couldn't leave without trying their cheeseburgers. We right -- she loved them. And bonus for us, the flavors of the day for the frozen custard were Peanut Butter Cup and Red Velvet Cake. Delicious.

100 Years

This afternoon we drove out to the country club, which was having a big 100 year birthday celebration, and met up with my parents, my sister and her family. It was so hot outside, it was almost ridiculous. But it was still really fun. Tons of food (and adult snow cones), games, giant inflatable slides -- that kind of thing. The highlight was watching the Badgerland Water Ski Club put on a private show, and jumping in the water in between the acts to cool off. Of course, the day wouldn't have been complete without my sister and H singing karaoke -- Bohemian Rhapsody, of all things. H stood up there more for support but my sister definitely stole the show (and the mic). While C stood behind the big movie screen with the lyrics and showing his "thumbs down." It was all pretty hilarious.