Vacation

Just finished a week of vacation.  We get 3 weeks per year - normally I request vacation in the winter months so that Bry can join me.  This one turned out ok - one of the most beautiful weeks of the entire summer and it was all mine!  I crammed in a lot of knitting, biking, sleeping, friends, family and baseball.  Also a lot of house cleaning, starting with us steam cleaning our entire apartment.  It's amazing how much better I feel with a clean house! 

The first oder of business was a trip to Tomah to visit my cousins - Dave, Heide and the kids.  We went on an awesome bike ride on the Elroy-Sparta trail.

 Getting started.

 Teaching my God-Daughter, Pearl (3) how to pee in the woods. 

 Our friend, Jenn and her girls joined us too.  Finley loved the bike carrier.

I spent a few days in Tomah playing with the kids and helping Heide with some stuff around their new house.  We also enjoyed lots of games of Ticket to Ride after the kids went to bed.

I came home to help Bry mourn the end of summer softball season.  We had a lot of fun this summer with both his Church league and with his Elm Grove team, Dickens.  Now I might actually have to start cooking dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Thursday I met up with Jesse and Lindsay and took Lucas to the park.  He's all about running around and going down (and up!) slides.  He's quite a little bruiser.

 He LOVED his ice cream.  He would scream when we took it away - too funny. 

We finished the week up with a visit from friends Abby and Mike from Michigan.  We had an awesome day with a Miller Brewery Tour, hours of Tailgating and a Brewer's game (they won and looked really good!)  It was super fun.  We finished today with going to OUR church (that makes 2 weeks in a row!), lunch at Sobelman's and a day lounging on the couch complete with a nap and episodes of The Office.  A pretty good end to my first vacation.  (My next vacation is not until March - we're thinking of a trip to China.....)

Have a good week!

Happy First Birthday!

Can you believe it's been a year since my niece and nephew were born?  You can find those posts here.
Well they are both walking, talking, mess making machines, although I think the boy has the girl beat in the mess department.

 Birthday Hat by Susan B. Anderson

from Itty Bitty Hats

Bry and I have really enjoyed being Aunt and Uncle this past year.  We have had a bunch of fun buying them gifts and playing with them.  We look forward to watching them grow even more. 

I will have to get some photos of the nephew's party - I had to work so I couldn't be there.

Next up will be a post about our first trip to Target Field - also very exciting!

MIL's Visit

 

Look at that fancy Blogging!  I found myself with an unexpected afternoon off and decided to update the Blog.  You'll notice that I posted another post today, too.  I'm getting back on this wagon after all!

The projects are (clockwise): 1. Squares Baby Sweater by Susan B. Anderson

 Yarn: Louisa Harding Hulda in pale blue.

2. My own design raglan short sleeve sweater

Yarn: Freebies acrylic yarn that I used up from my stash.

3.On the Sunny Side by Melanie Hoffman

Yarn: Arucania Pomaire Cotton in purple and green

4. Birthday Cake Hat by Susan B. Anderson

Yarn: Peter Pan 4 ply in pink and white

This post will be mostly about this past weekend.  Bry's Mom came to visit us for the first time.  (Mother-in-law-cleaning thus commenced!) The apartment was spic-and-span which was kinda nice.  She and her friend came in on Saturday morning.  We headed downtown for lunch at the Milwaukee Ale House.
This is one of our favorite spots - right on the river with a nice, cold beer!

After a lovely lunch we headed out to the Lakeshore to show off Milwaukee.  The weather was absolutely perfect and we had a nice walk out onto the pier.  The day was just truly gorgeous - unbelievable!

 

Bry and Abi

 

After the walk a short driving tour of Milwaukee commenced before we headed home to pick up necessary tailgate supplies.  Barb is not a beer drinker so we opted for wine instead (if you read the previous post I happened to have prepared for this!).

We had some pretty gourmet burgers and enjoyed the sunshine in our favorite Molitor Parking Lot.  Alas, I did leave the wine opener at home but thanks to my Aunts (Judy C and Nancy!) I knew how to poke a cork down INTO the wine bottle and thus enjoy the beverage!  It worked pretty well and we were the classiest tailgaters around!  The game was pretty good too - although the Brewers did lose in the 10th inning to the Reds.  Luckily this helped to thin the crowds out so we didn't have too much traffic when leaving the game.

 

So classy you can't even stand it!

Sunday was equally as lovely a day.  We went to Church (finally at our own church!) and then out to brunch at Cafe Centraal.  This place has an AMAZING brunch spread.  Bry and I realized we need to come up with a brunch guide to Milwuakee too as we have tried many many places and have enjoyed them all.

So there - 2 whole new posts for you and a fancy blog picture thingy!