Good times – Page 11

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011

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.

May 16, 2011August 28, 2014

A closer walk

This weekend we took R’s parents to The Fireside, a dinner theater about an hour from our house, to see “A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline”. I’d never been to nor really heard about this place, so I didn’t quite know what to expect, but it was outstanding. Your show ticket includes a meal beforehand, and ours consisted of cream of watercress soup and their homemade bread to start; a breaded chicken breast, 3-4 ribs, a steamed veggie medley, and scalloped potatoes for the entree; and panna cotta with berries and a little pecan pie bite for dessert. It had a very supper club-type feel, but the food was delicious.

And the show? Phenomenal. The theater has a very unique floor plan – think of something similar to how a boxing ring is situated, but on a much smaller scale. It’s designed so the stage is in the middle at basically floor-level, with seating on all four sides plus 2 rows of balcony seats. The rows have plenty of leg room, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a bad seat in the house. It was a layout like I’d never seen, but it worked perfectly. The actors ran to/from the stage from the aisles within the seating area, as well as rising up through the movable floor in the stage itself.

The storyline of the show revolved around an old-time radio dj playing through Patsy Cline’s records, detailing her life as he went. Throughout each segment the actors sang her songs, and the woman who played Patsy herself was amazing. Her voice gave you chills she was that good and that spot-on to Patsy Cline’s voice. I never knew she had such a tragic life, dying at age 30 in a plane crash, just as her career was finally taking off.

If you’ve never been to The Fireside, I highly recommend it. We were definitely some of the youngest there – a number of 40+ year anniversaries and 90+ birthdays were being celebrated – and the whole place has kind of a Branson, MO, vibe (i’ve actually never been there either, but this is kind of how i’d picture it), but the talent they attract is unbelievable and well worth navigating through the sea of bus tours that visit daily. They have a Scrooge Christmas show playing next year that R and I both thought looked really good.

Plus their gift shops aren’t half-bad. I’m definitely not big on gift shop trinkets and junk, but I actually got a beautiful new hummingbird feeder (totally random, yes) and a little something for D. I mean seriously, how could I pass these up??

May 11, 2011May 11, 2011

Take me out to the ball game

Last night was D’s first Brewers game, and she had a ball! We seriously could not have ordered a more well-behaved baby for the evening. I picked her up early from daycare so I could get home, bathe her, and get a quick jog** in before we went, and thankfully she cooperated and napped for an hour right before we left. We got to the stadium at 5:30 and didn’t leave until just before 10:30, which is a good 2-3 hours past her bedtime, but she was awake and happy the entire time. I figured her 6 teeth weren’t quite sufficient to handle a brat, so I fed her some delicious jars of turkey and mixed veggie dinner and peas and rice (both organic, kudos to Roundy’s) while R fired up the grill. She was all done and ready to soak in all the tailgating action by the time the adult food was ready, so that worked out perfectly.

We had ridiculous seats – 4th row, directly behind the Brewers on-deck circle, which made for some great viewing pleasure. R snagged a Fielder-foul-tipped ball that was tossed into our section by one of the bat boys, so he graciously gave that to D as a souvenir of her first game. And then I prevented her from putting it immediately into her mouth to try and lick off all that good diamond dirt. 🙂 Shockingly enough, I caught another one later in the game, which I gave to our friend S. No need to be greedy. It was cute, too – R took D over to the guest relations booth shortly after we got there, and they printed up a little “My First Brewers Game” certificate for her. It wasn’t anything fancy, we just fill in her name and date and stuff, but still a nice gesture for the littlest Brewers fans on their first appearances.

It was an awesome night all around. Good weather, the roof was open (which made for some chilly wind by the end of the night, but better than rain), great friends were able to join us, the Brewers won, and little D once more made us so proud with her smiley, happy, easy-going spirit. She had made friends with everyone in the seats around us by the time we left. R joked on the way home that maybe we should just stop at one – D is so good we have to have used up all our good fortune in this kid. Will all of the bad stuff we’ve so far avoided with her be channeled into the next one if we give her a sibling? Or is she just saving it all up for the teenage years? Oh please god, not option #2!

The only lowlight of the night came at the end of the game – we were hoping to get a picture of D with R’s cousin who plays for the Brewers on the field, but he didn’t come over our way after the team victory handshake. R was pretty bummed, because he thought his cuz for sure saw us a couple times during the game, so I felt bad for him – I knew how much he wanted that picture of little D on the field with a Brewer to cap off her first game. Hopefully sometime this season we’ll be able to get one to make up for it.

I had to snap a picture to document D’s first baseball game, but it was on my phone so it’s not the highest quality. R took many, many more on his good camera, so I’ll have to get some of those up here once they’re uploaded.

Go Brew Crew!

**run stats – 1.44 miles, 11:23, 7:55 pace. holy smokin’ fast! i’m not going to count that as my normal pace because it’s a really short route and i was in a hurry last night, knowing we had to leave shortly after i got done. i am encouraged, though. i’m going to try a 5k route later this week, so i’m sure that will be more along the lines of my 9:00+ pace.

May 9, 2011May 9, 2011

Happy birthday to me!

Well, it was yesterday, but I was too tired by the time I went to bed to hop on here and tell you all about my day. 🙂

Amazingly enough, I survived turning 32 without the sky falling or the world ending, so I guess it’s not that bad. And I had an absolutely wonderful day, just what I wanted. It started off with R getting up with D so I could sleep in until 8:15. Ahh, that was heavenly. He surprised me with pancakes for breakfast, which were warmly waiting in the oven. Delish! A sweet card and gift were on the dining room table, too. R had a beautiful wooden picture frame made that reads “Happy First Mother’s Day” across the top and “Jocelyn and Della Jolee, May 8, 2011” across the bottom. I love it! We took a really cute picture of me and D to put in it yesterday, so I can’t wait to display it on my desk at work. D went down for her morning nap shortly after 9:30, so we made it family nap time. R put some nice chill Allman Brothers music on the speakers in the living room, perfect sleeping tunes, and we both dozed for a while to take advantage of D’s nap time.

The sun was shining and it was relatively warm, so we walked up to the little grocery store in our neighborhood around noon once we were all up and dressed. R humored me and we took the long way, so we got some nice exercise in for the day too. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with D, R smoking ribs for dinner (ribs aren’t usually my favorite meal because i hate messing with the bones, but he made these so fantastically that the bones pulled right out with not an ounce of meat left on them. i’ve never had ribs that good before!), and pretty much just hanging around to enjoy a lazy Sunday.

After dinner came the best part. Last week R said he’d make me a cake for my birthday, even a multi-layer one, so I requested red velvet and funfetti with chocolate icing. He is such a doll! It turned out splendidly, as does everything he makes, so that was just the perfect ending to a perfect day.

It was so special having my very first Mother’s Day on my birthday. And celebrating with my little family was the most magnificent way to spend it. Thank you, R and D, I love you!

April 25, 2011April 25, 2011

I have a huge crush on three day weekends

One of my friends had that as her Facebook status last night, and I could not agree more. Too bad they always go so quickly and end way before they should.

It was great having a long weekend this week, though. We had a wonderful time at my mom’s, and D thoroughly enjoyed her first Easter. She helped Daddy hunt for Easter eggs, and the Easter Bunny brought her the most ridiculously fluffy, cute bunny coat ever. Doesn’t this just kill you?

Saturday morning I was sitting on the deck after a jog, cooling down and just quietly counting my blessings – 65 degrees, sun, warm breeze, blood pumping after some good exercise, beautiful baby girl napping peacefully upstairs, nothing else on the agenda for the entire day except looking forward to steaks on the grill for dinner, surrounded by loving family. It was such a fantastic time and very relaxing, just what the doctor ordered. I just wish it happened more often and lasted more than 3 days.

And now it’s Monday and back to the grind. Blllleeeecchh. Even after regular weekends Monday mornings are the worst, but at least they’re only a couple hours long. It’s funny, too, how it almost never fails that after some time off my attention always turns to planning the next day off or vacation. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she? 😉

Did you all have nice holiday weekends?

p.s. Run stats for that jog mentioned above – 2.17 miles in 20:25. Little slower at a 9:25 pace, but there were lots of hills and I was intentionally going slowly since I hadn’t gotten out for a run in over a week. Another notch on the running belt.

April 18, 2011August 30, 2011

One more bottle

Last night R grilled porterhouse steaks and Texas toast and made smashed red potatoes for dinner. I am so lucky. And we paired another delicious bottle of wine with the meal:

Penfolds_Koonunga_Hill_Shiraz_Cabernet — Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet

Funny name, fantastic taste.

April 16, 2011February 8, 2012

It was a lazy day and a wine night

Today we had all the best intentions to get a lot of work done on the house, since we’ve been extremely remiss in that department lately and the four year mark of this remodel is knocking on the door. Honest.

However, an early rise by D, followed soon after by a 2 hour nap for her that allowed R to sleep in and me to go back to sleep too resulted in us turning this day into a fully lazy family day. And it was pure bliss.

We don’t get these often, and the skies have never come tumbling down when we’ve put off house work before, so we took full advantage. I did no cleaning or laundry, R hung not one inch of trim, D got to be in jammies all day after her bath this morning, and we spent the entire afternoon and evening catching up on and finishing the series Big Love. Ahh….

D’s cold is back – AGAIN – but her usual smiley little self was in full effect between naps, complete with laughing, squeaking, and scooting around the house. This afternoon I was blessed with 2 hours of my left arm full of this, though:

Followed by a little of this:

Tonight we cracked open 3 bottles of wine, simply because we can. They were great, too. I can’t remember the last time I actually thought each bottle we opened was really good. Here’s what our personal wine tasting entailed: