From Bloody Marys to Margaritas and lots of things in between

Yesterday (Saturday) John and I started our day with breakfast at Schwefel's in Oconomowoc.

We had never been there before, but had heard good things.

We are really not "out to eat breakfast" people. we prefer eating our bowl of cereal, but we decided to give it a chance and we are so glad that we did.

The food was so good and the waitress was so nice, we even decided to have bloody marys with our breakfast and they were yummy.

We may just have to do this breakfast thing more often.

After breakfast, we headed into Milwaukee for some serious shopping.

We started at Northwester Publishing where we found some birthday and Christmas gifts.

We shopped at a music store, Michael's, and Brookfield Square, we had success in all these places.

Slowly my Christmas list is winding down.

We ended up at Kohl's.

On our way home we stopped at El Mariachi and ended our day with Margaritas.

It was a pretty busy day, but we did get lots accomplished and sandwiching it between Bloody Marys and Margaritas certainly helped.

A Blog ABC

My teacher's mind is on the Alphabet lately.
I decided to go through the Alphabet here on my blog and say a little something about each letter.

Here goes:

A - Apples.  We just finished one of my favorite units in Preschool.  I always love telling the kids a fun story about the star in the middle of the apple.  It always amazes them.

B - Blogging.  Sometimes I wonder if I should keep up this blog.  Not sure of its purpose.

C - Christmas.  My favorite time of the year.  I have started some shopping which I do online.

D - Dad.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of my dad and it is usually with a big smile on my face.

E - Eggs.  I made hard boiled eggs today for our salads.  I just really like a salad with eggs.

F - Friday.  Looking forward to this Friday when we go to the Pumpkin Patch with my class.

G - Garden - Ours produced lots of tomatoes and cukes this summer.  I am missing the fresh taste of them.

H - Hunter House.  So happy that Alissa and Nathan are finally in their own beautiful home.

I -  Ice cream.  I love it, but I always end of eating way too much.

J - Jesus circle.  Best time of my day in preschool.  Love teaching the little ones about Jesus.

K - Kevin.  My brother who is always there if I need something.  Reminds me so much of our dad.

L - Lunch.  The same everyday at school, Diet Coke, pretzel sticks, and yogurt.

M - Marge.  My mom who shares a house with us.  Sometimes she talks way too much for my taste, but I know there will be a day when I will miss it.

N - Nine O'clock.  I love that time because it is when I go to bed and read for an hour.  It is my time to be still and reflect.

O - Oscar.  The code word for a lockdown in our school.  I pray we never have to hear that word for real.

P - Pray.  I love to teach my little ones to pray.  There is such power in prayer and I want them to know that power that we all have in prayer.

Q - Quiet.  I love peace and quiet most of the time.

R - Real.  I am always trying to keep it real.

S - Soliana.  My sweet Soli, I love her more that she will ever know.

T - Tizita.  My sweet Tizita, I love her more than she will ever know.

U - United States.  The best place in the world even if it is a bit messed up right now.

V - Voice.  I wish I had a better singing voice, but luckily my Preschoolers do not mind.

W - Weights.  I have been using the weight machines at the Y.  I like it.

X - X-ray.  Hope I don't need one any time soon.

Y - YMCA.  So glad we joined the Y thanks to Mal.  Makes me accountable to exercise.

Z - Zoo.  I love a zoo.  No place better to take the girls.

There I did it.  

I may have to do it again soon.

It was fun.

Another Busy, Fun filled Weekend Comes to a Close

This is the weekend that I had hoped to take the girls on our annual pumpkin patch trip to Waldvogel's in Beaver Dam with the girls.

The weather, however, had different ideas for our plans.

We woke up to a cold, rainy Saturday with no promise of an end to the rain, so we came up with a different plan.

We met the girls and Courtney up in Fond du lac at Schreiner's Restaurant.  My mom and dad used to stop at this restaurant often on their trips up north.  My mom tells about one time when they pulled into what they thought was Schreiner's.  (I am still not clear on how this mix up actually happened)  My mom and dad walked in and my dad proceeded to order two bloody marys.  Well, he was quite surprised when  the waitress told him they did not have any alcohol at the I Hop.

Yep, they had walked into any I Hop thinking it was Schreiner's.  My mom seems to say they both had blue roofs and that explained their confusion.

We all just laugh about the story.  My dad can still make us laugh years after he died.

Anyway we had a great lunch and told the girls the Ken story.

Courtney left to go home and we took the girls to the museum.

We thoroughly enjoyed this museum.  It is smaller than other ones we have gone to, but the girls found lots of things to do and seemed to have a really good time.

One of their favorite spots was the pizzeria where John and I were there customers over and over again.  Random kids were also serving us, we were definitely overfed.

There was also a transportation with a bus, a train, a plane, and a few boats.

Another taught kids about physical activity and had stations where you did exercises.

After the museum, we went to a cute little ice cream shop about ten miles south of Fond du lac, Kelly's Creamery.

The ice cream was so yummy and the flavors were so unusual.

We took the girls back to Oshkosh, did a little shopping, and had dinner at Fazoli's before heading home to Watertown.

It was a fun Saturday.

Today, (Sunday) I went to a Holy Henhouse Workshop with Pam Wilke at our school.  It was an interesting presentation and it was good to spend time with Pam.

Now it is quiet time to relax and get ready for another fun week.

VIsiting the Hunters in their new house!

This weekend, John and I were able to take the girls on a road trip to visit Alissa and Nathan in their new home.

They waited a long time to find the perfect home and after seeing it for the first time, I think they have definitely found it.

It is beautiful and we all had so much fun visiting with them.

We picked up the girls at Culver's in Waupun on Friday night.

On Saturday we left about 8:30 for Bloomington.

We made our usual stop in Rochelle for treats and magazines.

We spent the afternoon playing wii and just hanging out at the new house.  It is so much nicer to be at a house instead of at a motel!

We took the girls to a nearby school that had a nice playground before we went out for a pizza dinner followed by a trip to Barnes and Noble to buy a few books for them.

Soli fell asleep in the car on the way back so she was out for the night and Tiz had a sleepover with Cheddah which went well.

We enjoyed a nice Sunday morning of more wii playing and visiting.

Our ride home was very nice, I sat in the back with the girls so I could read to them while John cheered his Packers on to a victory.

It was a great weekend all around.

 Beautiful new kitchen

 It was so good to see Alissa's pretty table back out of storage and put to good use.

 Entryway and living room

 Plenty of room for cartwheeling until the new furniture arrives.

 Lofted area  where Tizita and Cheddah had their slumber party

 View from lofted area

 Wii dancing

 And still more wii dancing

 The Hunter home

 A nearby playground

 Bathtime after the playground

 Out for pizza

 Sunday morning, waking up to skittles and TV, it doesn't get much better than that

 Ninth golf hole right in the Hunters backyard

 The girls found a tree in the backyard for climbing

 The bench on the path to the golf course

 Saying good bye to the Hunters.

So much fun making new memories in this lovely new house.

A weekend of beer, wine, rummaging, and old friends

We are coming off of another fun filled weekend.

This time it did not include the grandkids.

I need to remember that weekends can be full of great times even without them included.

This weekend brought that home to me.

On Friday night we met Kev and Vikki at Rock River Pizza.  We found two gift cards that they had given us as payment for taking photos at their wedding almost a year ago, so our meal was paid for with the gift cards.

After a few beers there with our food, we went over to Lyons Irish Pub and had a few more beers, at least Kev and I did.  Vikki and John were the designated drivers, so they couldn't indulge as much as Kev and I could.  We had a great brother/sister bonding over a few too many beers.  There was lots of fun conversation about our old relatives, always funny stories there.

It was a great night and I could tell by the way I felt the next morning, but a refreshing shower and a glass of milk took care of that.

Mallory texted and asked if I wanted to go rummaging at the city wide sale with her.

Since I can never pass up a good sale or a chance to hang out with Mallory, we did just that.

One treasure that we found was this boot.

Oh, the memories of a boot just like this and a night at the Essen Haus in Madison.
In case you don't know about the boot, it comes filled with beer and you pass it around the table taking turns drinking from it.  When the beer gets down near heel level, there is a burst or air bubble type thing that happens and you can get sprayed with the beer.
It is a fun experience, for sure.
Well, we had just gotten our filled boot and no one knows exactly what happened next, but that boot walked, by itself right toward the edge of the table, where it broke into a zillion pieces, many of which were on me and in my coat pockets.
My coat was soaked with beer as were my jeans.
We (Alissa, Courtney (who had pink eye at the time, Paul, John and I) high tailed it out of the bar and fled to our motel.  It didn't help that is was well below zero that night.
Too funny!
I was picking glass our of my coat pockets for weeks after that incident.
We have gone back and successfully used the boot since the incident.
.So when Mal saw this boot at one of the sales for $7.00 we could not pass it up.

We also found a few other little items but nothing close to this treasure.

After rummaging for a few hours, John and I left for dinner at Doe and John's house in Waukesha with my college roommate, Joan.

Doe served the prize winning state fair "very dairy" lasagna.

It was yummy.  I brought a salad and a dessert and Joan had brought a appetizer.

We all brought wine.

It was a good night filled with wine, conversation, and good friends.

We had not seen Doe and John since Christmas 2012 so it was high time to catch up with them and it is always a pleasure to visit with Joan.

Here we are at the end of the night.

We all agreed that the sixty of today is very, very much different from the sixty of our mothers' generation.

In other words, we look hot for old chicks!

Today, Sunday, it is church, then the Packers, then some meal prep for next week, some school prep, and a relaxing evening.

Good times all around.

Reflections on our walk/run for Children's Hospital

We have been fortunate in that our children and now our grandchildren have not had to make use of Children's Hospital.

When we decided to walk in this particular "fund raiser" we just wanted to do it because we wanted to be a part of a big group of people walking together for a good cause.

We felt it would be a good way to celebrate a Tiziversary, something we would remember.

It turned out to be so much more.

I was humbled and moved by all the "teams" that were walking for children who were either fighting horrible diseases, had already lost their battles, or the lucky ones who had survived and thrived.

I was feeling blessed by the good health of my children and grandchildren amongst so many who had been dealt a very different hand.

Everywhere one looked, this is an example of what we saw:

While I don't know any of their stories, it was amazing to see all of these brave people walking for their loved ones.

Tizita and I would look carefully at each and every shirt and then talk about what story that shirt might tell.

We could tell which ones told the story of a child who had lost their battle because often the dates of birth and death were on the shirt.

It was sad to see those which often had a picture of the child, too.

Most of all, it made me say a big prayer of thanks to God for the health of my children and grandchildren.

That is nothing we should ever take for granted.

A Sixth Tiziversary Celebration

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Tizita and the day she came into our lives.

On Friday night, we started the celebration with dinner, a pink cake, and her presents.

We gave her a gift of gymnastic lessons, a personalized water bottle, and gymnastics bag.

Sorry, these pictures are not very good.  I think I had the wrong setting ont he camera, but at least I did get these two.

Tiz really liked her gifts and we had a great night of celebration.

On Saturday we got up bright and early to head into Milwaukee for our walk/run for Children's Hospital.

It was a cool, fall day, but we were dressed for the weather, so that was not a problem.

We parked at the Summerfest grounds and then took a shuttle over to Marquette University where the walk started,

What a fun place, there were cheerleaders, beauty queens, bands, dancers, basketball players, face painting, and many other activities.

The girls had lots of fun checking out all the activities.

 The girls had these cute crowns painted on their forheads.

 This is our team.  Soli didn't want to be on the picture so she is hidden behind Courtney.

 John needed to pose with the princesses!

After our three mile walk along Wisconsin Ave to the lake, Tiz and I were the first ones to cross the finish line.

There were lots of fun activities at the Summerfest grounds after the walk, too.

 The girls got to go up on stage with a band and sing along.

It was lots of fun for them

There were inflatable jump houses set up, too.

After hanging out there for an hour or so, we went over to the Ethiopian Restaurant,

This year we tried a different one and liked it just as much as the other one.

 Tiz loves her some mango juice.

 The happy family celebrating six years of Tizita.

 The yummy food and beautiful presentation of the Ethiopian food.

It is so nice to just be able to eat it with our fingers and by using the injera bread to scoop it up.

Tizita lover the spicy red lentils, I really like the beef tibs and the lamb dish.

And here is our family.

What a great celebration for Tizita and for all of us.

We came home and just hung our for the rest of the day and night.

Church and a walk to the park today ended our perfect weekend.

Happy Tiziversary Sweet TIzita, we love you.