Weekend up north

We headed up to Shawano, WI over the weekend, where my husband’s family has a cottage on the lake. I didn’t grow up going to a lake cottage or cabin, but it’s a tradition in Craig’s family.

I drove and was feeling sleepy halfway through our trip, so a trip to Starbucks was much needed. I tried a White Chocolate frappucino for the first time.

We stopped in Oshkosh, where the EAA flyin was going on and we saw the Good Year blimp and some fighter jets.

Here are some pictures from the lake.

We ran into town on Friday night and I picked up a salad and some Chobani at the store.

Craig supported the girl scouts and got a hot dog.

On Friday night, I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, but admittedly spent a lot of time on my cell phone because I was a little bored. They weren’t horrible (especially if you knew that Boyle was creating the first live movie) in my opinion, I just get bored during those in general. I like the parade of nations part best.

I enjoyed this cider finally.

We ventured out to Wausau to hike Rib Mountain on Saturday.

The views from the top were beautiful.

We went on the yellow trail and it wasn’t that tough or long of a hike.

The top of the observation tower offered the best views of the area.

It was nice to get a change of scenery over the weekend. I didn’t get to do any reading of magazines or books, which was a bummer. I did watch a lot of Olympics and Craig learned just how excited I am about the summer games. I was so happy Lochte won a gold!

My one complaint about the weekend? Getting a cappucino in town at a local coffee shop. Let’s just say that the girl admitted that she didn’t know how to make one and when she started to make it, kept asking if I wanted it flavored with vanilla. Then another lady took over making it, asked me if I wanted vanilla flavoring and it was finally done about 15 minutes after I ordered it. I think there was something wrong with the machine or the barista. I should have complained or walked out as the capuccino was not very good in the end. I don’t think Shawano will be getting a Starbucks anytime soon, so I know to just be happy with my instant coffee when I am up north.

AJ Bombers Milwaukee

We wanted to try a new restaurant when celebrating Craig’s birthday this past Thursday, so we headed down to AJ Bombers on Water Street in downtown Milwaukee.

I liked that we could fill out our own orders.

We played one round of “soccer” and realized we weren’t too good at it.

We had some peanuts to start.

Then our cheese curds arrived and we gobbled them up pretty quickly!

Craig ordered the Milwaukee burger, which was on the Food Wars show.

I had the veggie burger on a pretzel roll.

To me, the interior was very manly. Peanuts on the floor, peanut filled “bombs” that fly through the air, etc.

Craig and I both really liked the food we ordered and would return to AJ Bombers. This mostly vegetarian might even try a hamburger next time!

AJ Bombers
1247 N Water Street
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 221-9999
info@ajbombers.com

Life this past week

I never got around to blogging last week. It seemed that we had something going on every day after work or I was just utterly exhausted.

Here’s what I was up to from Monday to today.

I got a bunch of veggies from my brother. Check out his huge garden!

I picked up some stuff for my parents and I picked out some tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and broccoli.

I am still researching traveling in Europe and where my mom and I will go, which is exciting.

I’ve also been watching lots of these videos on YouTube and they are helping me remember the German language.

I had vegan pizza for the first time this week. It had tofu on it and obviously, no cheese. I really didn’t mind that the cheese was missing at all.

We got to the new Orange Leaf near us. I wasn’t too thrilled with the two flavors I got and think I like Orange Leaf’s fruity flavors better than their chocolate/peanut butter ones.

It was my husband’s birthday on Thursday! He woke up to a card I made on Tiny Prints and doughnuts.

We celebrated with cake later that night.

On Saturday, we hung out at my brother’s new pool.

We took a book from a Little Free Library. Now we have to find one to leave there.

We’ve been watching our cat Tanzi slowly destroy a brown paper bag. It’s been pretty hilarious seeing him fashion new ways of sleeping in the bag throughout the week.

Today, we went to the Dark Knight Rises because some friends had free passes. It was sure action packed and a very long movie!

And as always, the weekend flew by. It didn’t help that I had to work late on Friday night. I am looking forward to a week in which I only have to work four days. Woo hoo!

This Saturday I…

…played tennis against Craig and lost again! It was another good workout and we happily skipped the gym and traded it for an awesome outdoor workout.

I washed my car by hand when we got home and then I mixed up Fitmixer amino acids in Fruit Punch for the first time!

The taste was delicious and I felt a bit full from the drink.

I also went online and did this today, so now I have a 1500 calorie meal plan to follow if I want to.

I played with Karma for a bit. He was asking for pets all afternoon.

My July Birchbox arrived today! Spoiler alert up next.

I liked all of the items I received this month. Can’t wait to try out the new goodies.

I was so excited when I saw that I got headphones in my Birchbox. I needed a new pair to keep in my gym bag and these actually match my iPhone case and the iPod nano I use at the gym. I tried them out already and the sound quality isn’t as good as the headphones that come with Apple products, but I adjusted the equalizer and they do sound a bit better.

I also researched trips to Europe because my mom and I might go next spring. She’s never been to Germany, Austria or Switzerland and my dad and Craig don’t really want to go, so I’ll happily travel with my mom.

I get the travel bug and then start to excitedly research a bit early. We need to decide if we’re going to go on a guided tour or if I will just organize the whole thing, which I have done many times before. It kind of would be nice to sit back and let someone else do the work this time. Plus, we’d get to more destinations with a tour.

Here is my favorite route so far. It even includes a night in Lugano, which would allow me to show my mom where I lived for 6 months!

And then I made a Target run for the $1 Chobani before the sale expires tonight and I was pleased to find some new jean shorts that are better than the ones I purchased last weekend.

We’re just staying in tonight. I think I am going to watch Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and just chill out on the couch. Hope your weekend is going well!

Lucky Friday the 13th

Did you know that 2012 has had 3 Friday the 13ths? It’s my lucky day and year I guess! 13 is one of my lucky numbers.

I spent my lucky Friday feeling unlucky in some ways. I met my friend Laurie at Panera to teach her how to use WordPress and blog in general. Unfortunately, we ended up at different Paneras on accident and wondered where each other was. We finally connected and my luck turned around when she bought me breakfast! I enjoyed a yummy egg and cheese sandwich on ciabatta.

Later in the morning, I met my mom to go shopping. We got our free refreshers drinks at Starbucks. We both tried the berry and it was yummy!

After doing some shopping and having no luck in the clothes or shoes department today, we treated ourselves to Yo Mama in Brookfield. It was my first time checking out this location.

I got the cake batter with fruit and assorted borba balls, gummies, etc. Aah, I missed frozen yogurt.

The interior of this location was more spacious than Tosa.

They had the same cute lights I love so much though!

And the same funky, super tall chairs.

I loved this water fountain, or bubbler, as we call them in Milwaukee.

So cool that it has a spot to fill up water bottles and track how many bottles the fountain has filled up.

Back to the bubbler–here is a fun explanation posted above the water fountain.

The frozen yogurt fueled us up for a trip to Costco! My mom is a member, so I stocked up on a bunch of stuff–nothing too exciting though. Mom and I basically had our lunch there in samples too!

What do you call a drinking fountain in your town? What are your favorite fro yo toppings?

Feasting for Fido

On Thursday night, Karis, her friend Jen and I went to Feasting for Fido at the Milwaukee Humane Society.

Jen and Karis

Karis and I

We paid $50 in advance for our tickets (they were $60 at the door) and they included unlimited wine and water, two tickets for beer and/or soda and all the samples of delicious vegetarian foods and desserts you wanted.

Restaurants that offered samples included: Blue’s Egg, Cafe Manna, Cafe Perrin, Honey Pie Cafe, Juniper 61, Le Reve, Tess, Sven’s European Cafe, Ristorante Bartolotta, Simma’s Bakery, The Fast Foodie, The Green Kitchen, The Rumpus Room, Zaffiro’s Pizzeria and Bar, Umami Moto, Meritage, Mr. B’s and Maxie’s Southern Comfort.

The event took place indoors and outdoors. After trying some Stone’s Throw winery Merlot, we headed inside to check out the eats and the animals.

Le Reve was offering an array of beautiful and appetizing desserts.

I chose this passion fruit one and it was to die for!

If I could have chosen two kittens to bring home with me, it would have been these two guys (or girls). I have a thing for gray and white kitties with blue eyes, especially when they look this adorable sleeping.

I am definitely a cat person. The dogs were adorable, but I melt when I see the kittens or even the really fat cat available for adoption.

Outside, we found the eventual winner of best food sample, Meritage. I really enjoyed their watermelon, strawberry and feta salad.

Cafe Manna had some of my favorites available–limonade, a lentil burger and they had bone shaped cookies for humans!

We all ended the evening with beers. Karis and I tried the Hinterland Door County Cherry Wheat and it was tasty! Jen had the Glacial Trail IPA.

I’m so grateful to Karis for asking if I wanted to go to this event! I really loved everything about it–giving money to help animals, the vegetarian food and the setup.

Up next is a Feasting for Felix at the Ozaukee campus on August 9th. I think we’ll attend that one next year!

Tennis > Gym

I haven’t talked about my fitness routine lately, but I’ve been hitting the gym, just not as much as I usually do in the winter. I really prefer to be outside as much as possible in the summer. Now that it’s not as hot it was over the last couple of weeks, I really want to take advantage of the gorgeous summer weather.

We played tennis tonight, for only the second time this summer, and I prefer a game on the court over being stuck in the air conditioned gym.

It felt good to use different muscles with only a ball, my legs and a racket.

At first, we just practiced, but I really prefer the challenge of a game so we started one. I ended up losing 4-6, but that’s ok, it was just a friendly game. 🙂

The weird thing about the courts we played on was an opening in the middle of the fence. We thought it was strange at first, but it actually didn’t bother us at all.

Do you like playing tennis? I didn’t start playing it until I was a Junior in high school. Everyone in my family seemed to play it, but I wanted to try other sports. I finally broke down and tried it and fell in love with the sport. Watching Wimbledon off and on over the last week really got me wanting to hit the court again.

Side story–I actually played tennis on a clay court when I lived in Switzerland and it was so tough to play on! Plus, courts there were really expensive to rent and I definitely appreciated our free courts in America.

The 4th

It’s been wicked hot here. The 4th of July saw temps of over 100 degrees. I didn’t even want to drag myself to the air conditioned mall, so I shopped online and bought my favorite Gap work pants (Modern Boot) and a new watch on Amazon. Needless to say, this oppressive heat is depressing me. I am sick of being cooped up inside. I want to go on walks outside, play tennis and go on bike rides. I just want a normal summer!

So, we didn’t go to any cookouts or watch fireworks this year. It’s just too hot to do any of those things.

We celebrated our independence by going to Mexico, well sort of. We went to El Beso in Greenfield for dinner last night.

Their margaritas are really strong and yummy. We shared a half pitcher of raspberry flavored margaritas. These made my husband very smiley and funny. 😉 Well he is usually both of those things, but those characteristics were heightened a bit with some alcohol in his system.

Craig was happy with the chips and salsa. Their salsa is also very good. Trust me, Craig is a salsa aficionado and is picky about his salsa.

I liked the decor.

Well, maybe not the animal mounted on the wall.

I had vegetarian quesadilla for my meal and it was very good. I’d have it again next time.

Hope you had a good 4th of July!

MAM, Anaba and Thirst and Vine

I was furloughed today, so I enjoyed my afternoon by doing a couple of things in Milwaukee.

I checked out the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Posters of Paris exhibition. I am always impressed by the exhibits there and this one was no different.

I went to Alterra after and had one of their Sportea Iced Teas. It was green tea with electrolytes, etc. and really tasty. Just the pick me up I needed after walking in the 100 degree heat.

Then I met my social coordinator for the summer (she keeps coming up with cool places to check out and classes to take so this is what I am calling her now), Karis, who asked me to check out a Portraits of Milwaukee exhibit with her at Anaba tea room in Shorewood.

The photographs were great and I’d recommend going to check them out! The photographer, John O’Hara, shot various scenes of Milwaukee, such as the state fair, nature scenes and Milwaukeeans enjoying our wonderful city.

We went up to the rooftop garden, which would make a lovely place for a wedding or a great place to escape to and enjoy a cup of tea.

Then we headed over to Thirst and Vine on Oakland Avenue for dinner.

I liked this sign, of course.

After reading positive reviews about it, I ordered the lunch portion of the four cheese mac and cheese, which was very comforting.

The size was perfect because I managed to finish it all and I don’t think I could have done that with the dinner sized portion.

It’s back to work for me tomorrow, which will feel strange after being off for two days!