Category: Family

Posted on

Family vacation #1 in the books

R said that last night as we went to bed, and he’s right. This weekend really was our first little family vacation, and it was awesome. We took tons of pictures (surprised? i didn’t think so), but I haven’t had a chance to go through them all and get any uploaded yet. I promise I will post a full photographic recap of our brewery tour weekend as soon as I do though, so you can get a little glimpse into the extracurricular activities of these Wisconsin beer lovers.

In the meantime, here’s the low down on everywhere we went. It sounds like kind of a whirlwind excursion, but we actually did everything at our own pace, with no set schedule or agenda, so it felt very leisurely and relaxed. Exactly what the doctor ordered!

Friday: After taking roughly an hour just to get out of Milwaukee County on our way out of town (mind you, it’s only a distance of about 15 miles), and being thoroughly disgusted by the traffic and highway construction in our city, we were finally moving at highway speeds on our way westward. We arrived in Mt. Horeb around 7pm, checked into our little motel, and headed to the Grumpy Troll for dinner and a sampler. And just as last year, it did not disappoint. Oh yeah – as we were unloading our stuff in our room before dinner, D took her first nose-dive, right off one of the beds onto the motel room floor. Lovely. The good thing about kids, though? They’re apparently made of rubber, so fortunately she survived unscathed. Not even a scratch, just a little shaken up. Whew. Nothing a good beer sampler won’t cure. 😉

Saturday: We took D for a couple mile walk on the Military Ridge State Trail right after breakfast, which we were able to pick up just blocks from our motel. Then we packed up, checked out, and headed over to New Glarus. For those of you who have never been to the new New Glarus brewery, GO! It is out of this world fantastic. I never visited the old brewery, but their new facility is beautiful – it’s a little over a year old now, and they have the outdoor bar set up and the inside tasting room is complete. The tour is self-guided and free, and you can buy either a 3-taste sampling or as many full pints as you’d like. We sat outside on their patio and enjoyed a couple pints while enjoying the day. D had a blast playing in the grass and entertaining everyone at the tables around us, and they also had a bags game set up that a couple people were playing. We both agreed that we could have easily spent the entire day there, lounging around and drinking down their delicious brews. However, more places awaited. We stayed at New Glarus until mid-afternoon, stopped at a super old timey awesome bar in the little downtown area called Puempel’s Olde Tavern for a drink, then headed further west to the Mississippi River and Potosi. This is another really cool place. The town itself is nothing, so if you’re not going to the brewery then I don’t think I’d recommend a stop. But the brewery has a beer museum attached, so we checked that out too. The tour is $5, which also gets you a complimentary 12 oz. pour from the bar afterward, and it was very interesting. They have a ton of old beer memorabilia housed in a couple different levels, so it made for a really neat place. The bar is a nice arched stone, open room, and they have a beer garden patio outside as well. We had samplers and ate dinner there, and their food was tasty too. After our free beers from the tour, we hit the road to our rest stop for the night, Galena, IL. It was only about half an hour south of Potosi, so we were there in no time. We did get a glimpse of the might Mississip on our way out of Potosi, for the brewery doesn’t sit right on the river. We stayed at the Irish Cottage Boutique Hotel in Galena, and it was great – cute Irish theme, nice rooms, extremely comfy bed, Irish dancers in the pub downstairs Saturday night, and a complimentary hot breakfast in the same pub Sunday morning. We were spent by bedtime that night and a little sun-kissed from the hours at New Glarus (not D though, no sun on that fair little skin please), so thankfully D decided to be nice and sleep in until 8:00 Sunday morning. Thank you sweet Jesus, our prayers have been answered by room-darkening curtains.

Sunday: After that nice breakfast, we checked out and drove into downtown Galena for some sight-seeing and moseying. That is an awesome town. It’s very quaint and historic, and the main street downtown is beautiful. Full of shops, bars, restaurants, and an outstanding winery (in Galena, IL? who’da thunk it). And guess what else we found? Another brewery! So we spent a couple hours meandering through town, having a sampler, then doing a little wine tasting at the winery on our way out. Their wines reminded us a lot of Door Peninsula’s wines in Door County, which we love. So of course we got a couple bottles as our souvenir from Galena. Then it was off to Madison – wahoo! We headed right to the Great Dane downtown, and our friend G met up with us there. We had one of their giant 15 beer samplers, of course, and lunch, then went out to the east side to Ale Asylum. Neither of us had been there before, so we were excited to check it out. It rocks! We got one of their samplers, of course, and sat out on their patio to enjoy the gorgeous weather (finally!). I was very impressed there – their beer was excellent (i’d only had a couple of their brews before) and the place itself was really nice. So we chilled there for a few hours, bid G farewell, and started to make our way home. We’d originally planned on spending Sunday night somewhere, but decided it was unnecessary. We’d gotten all our stops in in those two days, so why not just sleep in our own beds that night and save the hotel fare? Okey dokey smokey. Just a short ways outside Madison we were in Lake Mills, and guess what’s in Lake Mills? Tyranena, duh. This was the last non-Milwaukee brewery on our list for the weekend (we decided to scratch Minhas and save it for another trip), so we popped in for a pit stop. I got a sampler since I couldn’t have one when we were there last year, and R got a couple pints. D again made friends with everyone and their dogs there, so she was in heaven. It was late evening by the time we finished up at Tyranena, and then we were homeward bound.

Monday: Yesterday was a rare vacation day at home, and it felt great. We started off with some nasty thunderstorms, so I thought it was going to be a hunker down kind of day, but the skies cleared by mid-morning and the sun came out blazing. I got the hammock out of its winter storage in the garage and spent an hour lying in that, then we walked over to Sprecher for a late afternoon tour to cap off the weekend. Nothing like a local brewery in your own backyard! It was a steamy walk, but I lathered up D with sunscreen, put her sun hat on her, and got the extended canopy on the stroller to try to give her more shade. Sprecher’s tour is fun too, if you’ve never been. It’s short, sweet, and to the point – their beer. $5 gets you a 10 minute tour (it’s not a big place), then you get 4 good-sized samples afterward. Yesterday they were in production bottling their delicious root beer, so the whole place smelled great. R grilled up some outstanding brats for dinner when we got home, and we called it a weekend. And a mighty successful one at that.

Oh, in case you’re wondering why we did all these brewery tours, R joined the WI Brewers Guild this year and got a ton of coupons for tours, pints, schwag, etc., at breweries around the state. Well, that, and we just like good beer. 🙂 And don’t worry, at no point were we too impaired for driving. That sounds kind of bad that we went and had samplers, drove to the next place with more samplers, drove to the next place with more samplers, and so on and so on around the state. But I assure you – there was plenty of time and food mixed in with every stop that no one was in danger of an incident at all. We’re not that stupid (i think).

So there you have it – the wonderful world of WI breweries. And there are so many more we want to visit! We think the next one will be a central/northern WI tour. I think we’ve found our annual spring mini-getaway theme.

 

Posted on

Road trip!!

Yesterday after work we loaded up the car and headed west. Before you start picturing us trucking through wide open spaces and the wild wild west, let me tame those ideas of grandeur. I mean more like Mt. Horeb, WI. 🙂

R, D, and I are taking a little family vacation, a much-needed respite from the daily grind. D’s been on longer car trips than this before and did great, so hopefully this one turns out to be equally as uneventful for her. (we drove up to Minneapolis for a long weekend when she was only 6 weeks old, and she traveled splendidly)

Last May R and I did a similar Wisconsin weekend getaway to the Madison area and had a blast. So this year we decided to extend it by a day (we’re taking Monday off – 2 3-day weekends in a row, yay!!) and see a couple new places.

The over-arching theme of that trip was Wisconsin breweries, and we have a couple on the agenda again this time. Last year we visited New Glarus’s new brewery, and it was amazing! It was completed that winter before we went, so everything was brand new and shiny. We loved it so much that it made the list again for this year.

Then we’re heading over to the far western edge of the state to visit Potosi and their brewery along the Mississippi River, then down to Galena, IL, for a night to see what that little corner of the world has to offer. After that tiny sojourn we’ll head up to one of my favorite places on Earth, Madison, and bum around it and its local breweries for a day or two before making our way back east.

Monday we’ll drive home through southern Wisconsin, possibly detouring down to Monroe to check out the Minhas brewery, but most likely at least stopping in Lake Mills to quench our thirst at Tyranena. Last year D was cooking away so I couldn’t fully partake in the tasty adult beverages, so this year I’m planning on making up for that. Work has gotten me kind of down lately, so this little break will hopefully be just what the doctor ordered!

I’m sure we’ll throw in plenty of sight-seeing along the way, too. We’re planning on talking D for a walk on the Military Ridge state trail, maybe visiting Cave of the Mounds, and basically just exploring the natural wonders our great state has to offer.

The southwestern corner of Wisconsin is beautiful, and now that the weather has finally warmed up it should make for some great scenery. There will be plenty of pictures taken along the way, so I’ll be able to give you a full report upon our return. Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Posted on

It was a family affair

Did everyone have a nice long weekend? I certainly did. I LOVE 3-dayers! We usually have an annual Memorial Day party to kick off Summer, but this year we changed things up a bit and decided to push it back to later in the season. So this year we had the whole weekend free, and it was blissful.

Friday night my mom came up to spend the night and get her requisite monthly Grandma time with D. Saturday afternoon R’s mom came down to babysit D while we went up to Kohler for one of their Festival of Beer weekend events, Cheers to Beers. One of our good friends planned a surprise get together for his wife’s upcoming 30th birthday, so we headed up to be a part of it. It was a blast! Cheers to Beers was a 3 hour beer tasting held in the Kohler Design Center, and it was a lot of fun. What’s better than sampling some of the best beers from around the country while moseying through some of the finest toilets in the country?

Sunday my dad came to town for the afternoon, and despite the cold, rainy day, we had a really nice visit. Plus he brought some of my favorite sandwiches up from Peoria, always a bonus. 😉 Yesterday was fantastic. We woke up to blue skies and what turned out to be some blazing sun, so we took advantage. We walked over to a park a few blocks from our house for a round of frisbee golf, which D enjoyed immensely by taking a nap. It’s quite obvious I haven’t played in a couple years, judging by the number of discs for which I had to go foraging in the woods surrounding the course. R trounced me, as usual, but that’s ok – it was fun to be out on a course again and enjoying some finally nice weather. (i usually don’t even keep score during frisbee golf. my lack of aim and arm strength make for a discouraging combo when i do) Afterwards D and I headed out to some friends’ house to see their 2 week old baby boy, K, and he is just about the cutest, tiniest peanut ever. He snoozed the whole time we were there, and he looked so little and scrumptious in his swing. Congrats again, Ds! When we got home R fired up the grill for some outstanding brats, we sat in the driveway and listened to the Brewers on the radio, then enjoyed a fire in the fire pit until it was time to call it a night.

It was the perfect way to ring in the summer. Family, friends, warm weather, ahh… Thank you to all of our servicemen and servicewomen who have allowed us to enjoy these times.

 

I love frisbee golf

 

 

Posted on

Back to the roots

R and I watched an awesome documentary tonight, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John”. It was about a guy who grew up on a farm in northern Illinois, took over said farm when his father passed, turned the farm into kind of a hippie commune as he actively farmed it in his 20s, went broke and had to sell almost everything at age 30, and his subsequent return to the farm and eventual transformation of it into a CSA. (side note – we joined a CSA last summer. wonderful premise, but unfortunately we were disappointed with ours. so this summer we’re just going to try to get more veggies going in our own gardens and frequent the local farmer’s market)

The movie also showed the sad demise of so many surrounding family farms in the 1980s. Seeing a farmer actually start crying as he spoke of watching the concrete being poured for all the neighborhoods that sprung up on the beautiful farmland brought tears to my eyes. And it got me thinking, as I have so many times before – what’s going to happen to R’s family’s farm when his dad dies?

R grew up on a 400 acre farm about an hour north of Milwaukee. His dad’s parents started it, his dad and aunts grew up on it, and his dad has been farming it ever since he came back from California in his 20s to take over. It used to be an active dairy farm, but now it’s mainly crops. They have a few cows left, but not nearly as many as they did in the milk-producing hey day. There are also some pigs and lambs, but it’s definitely not a meat producer. We occasionally reap the benefits if his dad slaughters a hog, but it’s not like we get all our beef and pork from there. They used to raise chickens, but those are gone as well. His mom still tends a magnificent garden each year, though. And when you’re on a farm, your garden isn’t your little run-of-the-mill thing like we have in the backyard. It’s a garden. I can’t even list how much stuff she grows in there, but the first time I saw it I was like this isn’t a garden, it’s a field!

R’s brothers both still live in the area of the farm and have helped their dad with the farming and chores their whole lives. R was much more sports-oriented in high school and then went away to college, so his days as a farm hand ended years ago. We have talked seriously, though, about maybe someday moving back to the farm and starting a rural life for our little family. He has a plot of land on the farm that consists of roughly 40 acres, and it’s beautifully situated on the river that runs through their land. He has said how he’d love to build a little cabin up there for a weekend house or something like that, but we’ve also discussed relocating up there to start a hops farm. These are all just pipe dreams right now, but it’s something that I know would free his spirit and take him back to his roots.

Every time we start talking about this I can’t help but ask myself, would I really be good on a farm? To tell you the truth, I actually think I would. I obviously have never done farm chores (save the one time i helped pick stones in a field, but that doesn’t really count since i got to drive the tractor the whole time), but I absolutely love being able to spend days outside and see and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I think that’s one reason I’ve taken so well to gardening. Yes, I know gardening and full-on farming can hardly be compared, but I’m just saying I think I can picture myself in that setting.

And if we were to someday move to the farm, like I said, we think it would be to do hops farming. There is currently a rental house on the farm land that we could remodel and fix up to live in, then we could dedicate just a little plot to the hops. This is an enormous undertaking, and one that would take years to bring to fruition, but the more we talk about it, and especially when I see documentaries like the one we watched tonight, the more I can see it happening someday.

I’ve always said I never want to live up there, and I still have a hard time picturing myself living in Sheboygan Falls, but a rural life would be pretty great. It takes less than an hour to get there from Milwaukee, so we could still come down here whenever we needed pretty easily. And if I’m perfectly honest with myself, what’s the big thing we do around here now? It’s not like we’re going to the museums or theaters every night, or even out to eat. I would miss our friends most of all, but then I’d just have to come down for girls’ nights that much more often. Plus with all that land, we could have everyone up for cook-outs and camping and visits whenever they could come.

Having seemingly endless property like that to roam and explore would be wonderful for the kids too. Assuming D has a brother and/or sister someday, but even if it ends up just being her, having acres and acres of nature as your backyard is something amazing that there’s just no way she’ll get here. And instilling in her the importance of respecting and nurturing the Earth by experiencing that daily would be pretty cool. Obviously we could teach her that from the city (i grew up in the city and learned that lesson at a very young age), but being able to play in the wild blue yonder every day I think would help her appreciate that firsthand.

(another side note – we’ve also contemplated moving to a more rural area just north of where we live now, not going all the way up to the farm. that one is much easier for me to accept. i already love it there, and if we really wanted to get hops farming started, R could get up to the farm as often as he needed more easily than from where we live right now. and as long as need be, i could keep my current job because that move wouldn’t make my commute impossible, whereas moving to the farm would)

R thinks his oldest brother will probably take over the farm after his dad. I know his family has expressed interest in actually living there in the farm house after R’s parents, which would be fantastic. While watching the documentary tonight I just started worrying that no one would want to take on the full responsibility of the farm after their dad and all that spectacular land would end up being sold like so many of Farmer John’s neighbors’ farms. That’s what always spurs me to ask myself, “Could we do it?” “Would I be willing to sacrifice our city life to save the farm if we had to?” And I think that answer is yes. Because if I saw concrete being poured over all that precious black soil, I would cry too.