Weekend Recap: Memorial Day & Stine's Birthday Celebrations

Friday:

Adam and I both left work a little early and drove down to my parent's. It was Christine's birthday party with my mom's side of the family.

 The party was fun and it was nice to see everyone.

Chester had been staying with my fam all week, so he was beside himself with excitement to see us. We were really excited to see our little baby as well! 

Saturday:

In the morning, I helped my dad put the numbers and registration on the fishing boat. Then I helped mom with some yearbook pages while dad and Adam ran some errands.

We all met at HuHot for lunch because it was storming out. The place was packed!

Running out to the car in the pouring rain, my ever-graceful-self completely wiped out because the stupid yellow ramp on the curb was slippery. I got soaked and bruised. My sister thought it was hilarious.

After Church, Christine opened her presents from us.

As always, Chester wanted to help really bad.

And he got mad when he couldn't have the little stuffed animal pug toy. He thought it should be for him instead of from him.

That evening, Dad, Adam and I went down to the boat slip. Dad and I worked on putting the numbers and registration on the pontoon boat while Adam did some fishing.

Adam and I met up with Laura and her boyfriend Ethan for dinner at Big Al's around 9:30. Adam and I split a small Spicy Treat pizza which was DELICIOUS. It had pineapple, pepperoni, jalepenos, minced garlic and banana peppers on it.

Then we all went to the Starlite Lounge for martinis. My Hazlenut Tiramisu martini was out of this world good. Adam just had a regular gin martini. Ish.

Our last stop was at Del's for Bloody Mary's. I don't think we can go out in downtown La Crosse without making a stop there.

Sunday:

Sunday was by far the most beautiful day of the weekend. It was in the 90's, so we of course were out on the river in the new pontoon. Mom and Stine couldn't stay all day because they went to graduation. We also met up with my Uncle's family.

I enjoyed reading my book, Atonement, on the rear lounger as we cruised up and down the river.

I also got sun burnt. Every year I rediscover that the spray on sunscreen is not a good idea when it comes to my skin.

Then we went and had a late dinner at The Freighthouse to celebrate Christine's birthday. I had crab legs which were great. Adam had halibut.

Monday:

I didn't feel very well on Monday morning, so I slept in. Adam and dad did some fishing.

We hit the road around 3:30, and were back by 5:45. Not bad for towing the fishing boat with the car. Adam's excited to have it up here for the summer.

So it was a busy weekend, but we had a lot of fun!

Milwaukee Part 3: Beach, Car, New Glarus, Car

On our final morning in Milwaukee, we checked out of our hotel and got going around 10 am. Our first stop was the North Point Light House. It wasn't open, but I liked that you could walk around it.

Adam looking down toward the beach

 From there, I spotted the beach and convinced Adam we had to go down there. I put my feet in the icy cold water, but Adam didn't want to mix wet feet with sand.

Then we left Milwaukee. We stopped in Madison for gas, before heading south to New Glarus, which was in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. I lost my data signal which made navigation tricky...
We went on the self-guided tour. They pretty much just let you walk all over their brewery with one person standing there to "answer questions" aka make sure you don't touch anything or go where you aren't supposed to go.
Everything was very new and shiny, but I wish they had actual tours (other than the 3 hour hard hat tour only offered on Fridays). Also, it was a Sunday so they weren't bottling or anything.

 

The self-guided tour here was free. If you wanted samples, it was $3.50 for a small sample glass that you got to fill 3 times or $7 for a full (souvenir) pint glass and $3 for refills. Guess what Adam picked? The pint glass of course! He had Spotted Cow and Moon Man. They have a nice area out back with tables where Adam enjoyed his beer and I enjoyed my root beer.



We also hit up the gift shop, and then the liquor store area on the first level. Adam got a mix-and-match case.

Our drive back was really long. There was road construction and major back-ups by Osseo. Painful! Though I did finally get to try the Confetti Cake Blizzard when we got off to take side roads in Osseo. We didn't get home until after 8. It felt like we had been in the car all day!

Milwaukee was a fun trip. Though we probably spent as much time in the car as when we went to Kansas City, but that actually felt like we were far from home. Milwaukee? Not so much. Maybe it was because it's in Wisconsin, or maybe it's because I went there often when I was little.

Milwaukee Part 2: Another brewery, another Twins win

Day two brought brewery tour #2. You know I love my beer. NOT.

We had the first tour of the day (11 am) at Lakefront Brewery, which is actually right along the river, not the lake. While we waited for the tour to start, we got a few of our beer samples. I took a few sips and discovered I still hate beer.

Here's how the samples worked here-
You pay for the tour. You get 4 wooden tokens and a sample glass. Each token is good for 1 beer sample. 2 tokens gets you a bottle of their Maple Root Beer (which I didn't discover until the end). At the end, you turn in your plastic glass in the gift shop for a free pint glass. Pretty cool.

Anyway, on to the tour...
The tour took us on the brewery floor where we learned about the brewing process from a guide that was drinking.

Then we saw Bernie Brewer's old Swiss Chalet and glass of beer he used to slide into at County Stadium (slide has been removed), learned the history of it, and waited in line for more beer samples.

Next we went into the packaging/kegging area where we learned how they use to keg beer. It involved a lot of "bunghole" jokes. Lastly, we stood in bottling and sang the Laverne and Shirley theme song. Yeah...

Adam liked this tour the best, while I liked it the least. It was a lot of standing and listening to info about brewing that I just wasn't interested in, mixed with crude frat boy jokes. I just wasn't into it. But I did like the root beer!

After the tour, Adam enjoyed his last beer sample and I enjoyed my root beer at a table along the river. It was lovely.

By the time we left Lakefront, it was past 12:30 and time for lunch. We went to AJ Bombers, the winner of the Food Wars challenge of "best burger in Milwaukee." I agreed. They were the best. My burger was awesome (and I'm not even a burger person...)! I had the Colonel Mustard Burger (burger w/ fried onion strings, cheese and bomber sauce on a pretzel bun), Adam had a Milwaukee Burger (double cheese, double bacon and Schlitz onions) and we split an order of poutine. Delicious!!!

Lunch was really quick, so we had some time to kill before the game. We drove over to Lake Michigan, saw the interesting art museum building, and napped in the grass in the park. It was refreshing!

We headed over to Miller Park around 2 for the 3:10 game.

There I was excited to find a mini Brewers helmet filled with candy to add to my collection. I was slightly disappointed they didn't sell ice cream helmets though like every other ballpark we've been to. Oh well, I still got my helmet.

Adam had a few beers and a brat at the game, but since we had a bit of a late lunch we weren't very hungry.

My guy Ben Revere started and had a great game. Of course I wore my Revere shirt the day before. Oh well. And it was highly entertaining to see Carl Pavano, the pitcher, at bat.

The famous Sausage Races were a highlight!

And even TC made the journey!

The Twins dominated the game until they let the Brewers tie it up! Nerve wracking! We finally won in the 11th when my nemesis Plouffe hit a home run. He's so streaky...

I wish I had a tri-pod with so I could have gotten a really good motion blur photo - but I can't hold the camera any more steady than 1/8 second.

Since the game went into extra innings, it didn't get over until after 7. We went down to the park by the lake and walked around until it started to get dark.

 We were getting hungry, so we went to a Mexican restaurant that had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives - Cempazuchi. Except it wasn't any of those; it was actually really nice.

I had a very tasty blackberry margarita along with some perch tacos. Adam enjoyed a chicken and pork burrito.

It had been a long day, so we went back to the room to relax and watch baseball highlights.