Tag: Friends

I have great friends

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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

 

 

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My first 5k in at least a year and a half

Is coming up on Saturday morning in our neighborhood, so I decided to try out the route last night to make sure I could finish it. I knew I’d be able to complete 3.1 miles, but I wanted to be able to do so without stopping or walking. And I did. Turns out I actually did more than a 5k last night. I had written one of the streets toward the end of the race route wrong on the little map that I took with me, so I just improvised what I thought would equal the full 5k. Guess I improvised a little too much. I ran 3.82 miles in 34:17, which comes out to a pace of 8:59. Since I thought I was only running 3.1 miles last night this would have put me at roughly an 11:00 pace, so I was kind of surprised. I knew I was purposely going much slower than usual, but I was hoping to be able to finish the race on Saturday in 30:00 or under. Now that I’ve plotted the route I did last night I feel a lot better about that 34:17 time, and I think I’ll be able to reach my goal this weekend. I’ll keep you posted.

The race route goes right past our house, so I told R that he and D can sit on the porch and cheer me on as I go by. 🙂 I’ve been trying to think of the last 5k in which I participated, and it would have to have been at least a year and a half ago, before I got pregnant. It’s probably actually closer to 2 years now, sometime in the summer of 2009 I’m guessing. I honestly can’t think which one it was, or when. I did do a 4 mile race last summer, but that doesn’t count – I was almost 8 months pregnant and I just walked it. Well, I did jog the very end of it, but that part was all downhill into the finish line. When you’re that big, you’ll definitely use gravity to your advantage whenever possible.

We also heard some great news last night – our dear friends the Ds welcomed their second baby yesterday evening, a little boy, K. Congratulations!! I can’t wait to meet the little guy. They now have a girl and a boy – how awesome. I’ve noticed the waves of new babies kind of go in spurts, and right now is apparently high tide. This little man, a girl I work with is due with her second boy in just under a month, my old boss is due with her first (a little girl) the end of June, we have 2 friends here that are both expecting boys in August, and another friend in Madison is also due in August, but I don’t think they have found out the sex.

I must admit, all these wonderful new little angels joining the world… I’m starting to get a yearning in the uterus area… 😉

 

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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.

I love the Brewers!

 

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.

 

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20 bars, 20 beers (& maybe a shot or 2), and the rest is history

Here it is, the long-awaited, highly-anticipated Riverwest Pub Crawl 2011 recap. We made it to 20 bars, took about 9 hours, and walked almost 12.5 miles. They had originally advertised it as 24 bars, but there were actually only 20 bars on the official list – the other 4 places were listed under “Other Local Favorites”, so we disregarded them. We did take some liberties by bypassing 3 of the listed bars and adding 3 of our own past favorites. Much fun was had, many pictures were taken, and many memories were fogged by the sweet elixir of hops, yeast, and water.

Here’s the rundown of the order of our stops, along with the times we arrived at each bar. Surprisingly, I kept up with my time-taking pretty well, unlike in years past where I failed after the first handful of places. You can see that we tend to make this more of a sprint than a crawl, since the longest we stayed at any one place was about half an hour to 45 minutes.

  1. The Gig – Noon
  2. The Squirrel Cage – 12:30
  3. Gee Willicker’s – 12:50
  4. Rio West Cantina – 1:10
  5. Uptowner – 1:30
  6. The Tracks – 1:57
  7. Klinger’s East – 2:23
  8. Bosco’s – 2:50
  9. Riverwest Tavern – 3:15
  10. Art Bar – 3:45
  11. TWO – 4:28
  12. Riverwest Public House – 5:10
  13. Club Timbuktu – 5:47
  14. River Horse – 6:00
  15. Stonefly Brewery – 6:20
  16. The Foundation – 7:00
  17. Falcon Bowl – 7:15
  18. Club 99 – no time noted
  19. Bremen Cafe – no time here either; I sense a pattern…
  20. Rick and Donna’s – 8:10; ah, the time is back!

I seriously love this pub crawl – it is one of my favorite days of the year. Here are a couple shots from along the way. The beer’s effect becomes quite obvious by the end, ha! (hey don’t judge, it was 20+ beers, people. i’d like to see you try that) Until next year, RPC…

Group shot outside the starting bar

 

My little friend Pleepleus there was my drinking buddy along the way

 

Mustaches were the order of the day

 

Another group shot - we totally lucked out with the weather that day

 

Giving pub crawlers glass bottles? Bold move, Klinger's!

 

R playing with some cool camera settings

 

I can totally squish that building. Look, it's tiny! 😉

 

Outside bar #20. If you think I look sleepy here, wait til you see the next one...

 

Yikes! I'm done

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FF & RPC

We meet again, Friday. It’s so good to see you! Here’s a little sumpin’ sumpin’ for this week’s Friday Funk that I thought was hilarious:

If you stick your head in the sand you risk being kicked in the ass.

Love it!

And for those of you scratching your heads trying to figure out what RPC stands for, I’ll clue you in. It’s the Riverwest Pub Crawl, and tomorrow’s the day! Good lord, SM, do all your weekend plans always revolve around beer? Possibly. 😉

The Riverwest Pub Crawl is only the funnest (yes, i know it’s not a word, but i like it) pub crawl EV-AH, and it has become an annual event for us and some of our friends. It’s always held right around this time of March, so it helps us get outside, shake off the winter blahs, and usher in Spring as well (even though it’s only supposed to be 48 tomorrow, but whatevs). A little history on the RPC for those of you still confused…

R discovered this pub crawl back in 2005 and roped two of our good friends L and A into going with him, despite a strong lack of desire on their part due to significant hangovers from the night before. Funny how R has a way of generally getting anything he wants. Weird. But I digress… I dropped the trio off at the starting bar to begin their journey through the Riverwest neighborhood, which was pretty much completely unknown to us at the time. I was heading out of town for the weekend, so was unable to partake in that maiden saunter. Long story short, after over a dozen bars later (a few of which require a buzzer for entry and get quite sketchy after dark), a pile of garage sale records that were purchased/lost/and subsequently found, and a cab ride home for R from a corner on which he had never been before, they were hooked. And every year since our group has grown and fallen more in love with the RPC. One of my sisters, A, joined us for a couple years too, which was great fun. There was even a year or two in there where the *official* crawl was canceled, so we used prior years’ maps and just made our own. ‘Cuz we can, and we’re cool like that.

I’m especially looking forward to tomorrow’s RPC since I had to sit out last year while D cooked. Walking around all day and night while 4 months pregnant, unable to drink, and dealing with everyone getting more and more intoxicated and ridiculous isn’t exactly my cup of tea. So tomorrow I’ll be right back in there with the best of ’em. It is an official crawl this year, and so far there are 23 bars on the list. 23?! Good god. I hope we all survive. I looked at my map from 2009’s RPC, one of the years when we made our own, and R only put 17 bars on that one. Needless to say, 17 beers results in sufficient drunkenness even with all the walking around in between that you do. I’m almost afraid to see what will happen if we try to make it to all 23 this year. Not that I’ll really remember #23 if we get there… 😛

R suggested that I post along the way tomorrow to document the RPC live and in-person, but I said I’m not so sure I want my increasing intoxication publicized. 😉 So too bad, so sad, you’ll just have to wait for a recap afterward. But I promise to take pictures and copious notes along the way so I can give you a full run-down, assuming I’ll be able to read said notes when the time comes. I guarantee there will be plenty of shenanigans and hilarity throughout the day to report.

Until then, here are a couple snaps from past RPCs for a glimpse of some of the fun we experience:

Me & R at the end of 2009's

 

Group shot from the start of 2008's

 

Me, sis A, L, and his A toward the end of 2007's

 

Crazy no-teeth, no-lens, plush m&m guy from 2006

 

**No, we did not know that odd guy in the last pic, but who can resist getting a shot of a man with a stuffed m&m in an empty cigar box?!**

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Hooray!!

I just heard the news that one of my dearest friends went to the hospital early this morning to have her second baby. Yay!!! What an exciting day for her and her family. My thoughts and prayers are with you, C, for a smooth and easy delivery.

I can’t wait to hear the good word!!

** p.s. It’s a girl!!! Genevieve Louise, born this morning. Congratulations, G family!!

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Why haven’t we done this before?

Last night we went to a birthday party at a friend’s house, and the theme was fantastic – a beer tasting! Everyone brought a 6 pack of their choice concealed in a bag so no one knew who brought what. Then our hosts wrapped each bottle in foil and numbered them by 6 pack, so you didn’t know which beer you were trying. There ended up being 19 6 packs in all, so they were divided up into 4 stations of 4-5 beers each. Once arranged, you moseyed your way around to each station and judged all the beers. Each beer was rated on aroma, first taste, mouthfeel, aftertaste, and overall impression, with the highest- and lowest-scoring beers getting a prize. Brilliant! Why have none of us thought of this idea before?

Another fun aspect was that it was our friend’s “Ron Dayne” birthday. A number of our friends are turning 33 this year, so in honor of the great Badger running back, each person gets to wear the #33 Ron Dayne jersey on his/her birthday. R started the tradition by purchasing the jersey for his birthday last summer, so it’s now making its way through the group. I’m definitely washing that thing before my turn! 😉

It was a great night spent with great friends. I feel like we’ve all been hibernating through this miserable winter, so it’s awesome knowing that this season is finally close to its end and we’re starting to see everyone again. Happy Ron Dayne, G, and thanks for a great party!