Wow what a Weekend

We are just going to pretend that this was actually written and posted on Tuesday.  We will also be overlooking the reasoning that it was not written yesterday was due to the inability to conform a thought from the activities Memorial Day Monday.  Yep, let the suspense of Memorial Day Monday kill you as you read on about the awesomeness of the weekend.

Now since the title of this little gem didn't tell you nor give you a clue of what actually happened this weekend, let me clue you in on the goodness to come.  Recollections of the first camping trip of the "summer" season.  "Summer" Memorial Day weekend weather in Wisconsin equals High of 59 and low of 37.   This is the number one reason why we regularly pack sleeping bags rated at 35 degree plus.  Since I am the craziest in the family, I enjoy the lovely chill and sleep in boxers and a tank.  TMI, serious.  Why not though when Charlie the chiweenie sleeps in your sleeping bag with you.  And seriously you can not pass up waking up to this....crawling out of the depths of the sleeping bag.

 

Being the first camp trip of the season, we managed to remember everything.  Well except for the hubbie's water bottle and Forest's precious axe (not the stinky spray, thank goodness since he is a teenage boy).  These managed to go MIA before even leaving home.  And to date we are still looking for these gosh darn things. The place we went to was/is beautiful, peaceful, and just downright amazeballs.

 

 

 





Another one of my all time favorite perks of being there is the ability to leave my jack russell terrier, Bullet, off leash.  This is not a common occurence at all.  Jack Russell has no attention span, squirrel, bunny, bird. At camp, he is given a border and listens.  Of course with his stubbornness he does push it sometimes. Greatest thing to see him off leash, happy and running about.   And hiding from the chiweenie, of course.

Now let's just get down to business and take a look at some more awesome things from this little excursion.

• Cocktails people - My drink of choice for the summer season, just in case you missed that in one of my prior posts.  Now tuck this little tidbit in your brain it will resurface later.
  
 
• New food taste testing. Lemon Marshmallows. Now I can finally say that I am not the only one who enjoys subjecting the family to new foods.  This was the hubbie's idea. Clearly not as extreme as some of mine. This is a "hey let's try these out when we are camping, ok". Hey I do to you, I let you do to me. Minds out of the gutter people. Anyway the conclusion:  boys equal icky, girls ok.
   
• Checking off an item on my Summer Bucket list.  Lighting some dandelions on fire.  Thank you pinterest for this idea.  You have to be pretty darn quick to catch these things on fire.
  

•  
  Treasure hunting.  Great idea from the hubbie to bring along the metal detector.  Kept the teenagers busy.   Hubbie also hit it big bringing home a whole two cents and the mega find, a fork (the other tool was just hanging out).  Rather surprised at the minor amount of beer bottle tops.   Great job folks on not littering.

• Charlie the Chiweenie eating a marshmallow. It is as big as his head.  Enough Said.
  

Now as everyone knows along with all the glory of the day, there generally seems to be some form of a shitstorm.  You just have to buckle down and hope it is not a bad.  On that note, grab your umbrellas and let's take a glimpse at ours.

• Squeakers and Dog Treats.  Now when one has slightly too much cocktail awesomeness things have a tendency to happen. Hard to belive, I know. After the wonderful indulge, one drifts off to slumberland without a care in the world.  Completely clueless that the squeaker and bag of dog treats is still calling your sweatshirt home. Now the puppies are completely aware of this and notify you via squeaking the squeaker during the middle of the night until you wake.  After that is secured thinking it is the only issue, you awake to realize you also forgot the treat bag.  Which now looks like this:
  
 
• Folgers Instant Coffee. Seriously people have you read the instructions on this stuff. Well we did and though we thought we were adding the correct amount of scoops to the cups.  Let's just say that the coffee was like mud.  Especially the boys who added like 3-4 scoops. This would be the glorious container stating 45 cups.
  
In our container, there is about 1/3 of it left after our three cups of coffee.  Yep after all the math is done, we had 30 cups of folgers in 3 mugs between three of us. No wonder why there were sour tummies.  See it wasn't related to the cocktails at all.
 
• Snake. Really there is nothing more to say than snake.  Last year the steppie almost stepped on quite a few toads....now we have a close encounter with a snake. Goodness, I hope this is not an inclination of things to come.
  

 

Hope you all enjoyed getting a glimpse of our little weekend adventures.  Now what was I saying earlier about the delay due to the Memorial day Monday activities.  That they were the reason why this did not get wrote sooner.  Well my lovelys, you will just have to wait a tiny bit longer for the Memorial Day glimpse.  This little gem is getting a little too large.
 

World Turtle Day

Let's here it for the TURTLE! 

 

Today according to one of those ingenius websites I found has declared it to be World Turtle Day.   Turtles. Turtle. Turtle. Absolutely love them.  No idea why.  Not like you can snuggle with them or they follow you around like a cute little puppie.  Nor would I ever own one. No offense to the turtle owners out there.  You are awesome for doing that.  Since I am sure you are dying to see it...here is the little World Turtle Day surprise for my family.

 

And as I said to my hubbie once on the way home from the grocery store passing one of the ponds in town:  "there is not even a place to put a turtle".   Because you know someone goes out there and would strategically put the turtles on the log.  The log was under water so they had no where to sit. 

That little statement went down in his books.   Anyways...bring on more of the turtle parade and what the family got for World Turtle Day.

 

 

See how awesome these little guys or girls are.  Didn't lift the tail yet.  We will just leave that up to the selector of the turtle.  Oh yeah, they are awesome obviously because they are Lucky Turtles.   Their own day and they are lucky.  Hoping this won't go to their head.

 

Or maybe it already did.  Nice crown turtle.  All hail the turtles.  HAPPY WORLD TURTLE DAY

 



Race Day Race Day

Butterflies in my stomach, feeling like I am going to puke.  Oh how I flippin' love race day.   This day it would only be a 5k though.  This run, unlike my others, was actually close to home for a change.  Oh how grateful the hubbie was.  Extra bonus today was that my daddie was volunteering. Ha, now he had no choice but to watch me run...boom.

So now my peeps let's review the glory of this day.

Bag  Swag...another water bottle for my steppie (yeah she has a water bottle addiction, story in itself)

 

 

If you noticed early that I said it was a 5k, yet on this picture it says 3.2.  Here is the story on that.  After being disappointed with my time and thinking that the course was crazy hilly though, I of course in my overanalyzing manner had to go to mapmyrun.  Ding ding...and here is the snapshot of that folks.

Hilly?!? Oh heck yeah!  What? 3.2 miles! How can that be? They said it was a 5k.  Google.  Just to double check that my brain is correct on the fact a 5k is truly only 3.1 miles. Bam confirmed.   My time seems so much better now.  No more tears here. Happiness!!!

 

And thanks Dad (and of course the other volunteers) for watching out for us crazy runners.

And this makes it official the last race for me before it gets to awfully hot up here.   Hello Wisconsin Girl here. Like the cold weather or maybe I should say acclimated.  Coming soon will be the support your friend, aka bust their butt to make them better, silly runs.  Welcome Summertime.

Oh Sweet Sweet Summertime

Dear summertime, How I have missed you so.

The enormous joys I get from laying in my hammock looking at my beautiful flowers. I am ever so grateful for.

Your lazy days of barbequeing with my family.  Providing me the inspiration on our first glorious cook out day to indulge my sweet tooth.

 Why yes we do get one of every flavor they have in case to sample and eat until our tummies ache.  Don't judge.  We love.

Without you it has been so much harder to justify drinking a few of my favorite cocktails on the deck or while indulging in my Sunday garage cleaning.  And oh was the garage a disaster.

 Thank you for a glorious weekend with my family. Summertime you are amazeballs!!

Romance and Intrigue Vegas Style

Maybe  I need to speak more clearly or could I have an accent, no way. Let’s just disregard it was very early and this is my first stop after waking up in the morning. Here is how my name sounded to the starbucks guy:

 

One of the days in Vegas I was seriously looking forward to. Basic plans for the day, super date.  Not like this whole entire trip wasn’t a super date.  How about the romantic day. Or something like that.  Anyway no better way to start the day (after starbucks, of course) then some champagne with breakfast at Il’ Fornaio:

 

This place was amazing by the way.  Highly recommend. 

My hubbie got me beautiful earrings prior to leaving wintery Wisconsin. Our last day in Vegas so figured today would be the perfect day for these.  Then it had to be a good day, right. Started good and he even agreed to go to a mall. Now if you knew how much my husband loves shopping you would completely understand. The mall at Ceasars palace huge.

And that last picture in the group would be a spiral escalator.  Oh yes I was amazed by this.  Easy to please. Really we did not spend much time in there. Just had to get my stuff from Mac. Then it was off to our gondola ride at the Venetian. Beautiful day to float around in a gondola while someone sings to you.

 

 Serendipity 3. If you are in Vegas, this is a must stop place on my list. Rumor had it that the frozen hot chocolate is awesome.  I know frozen hot chocolate.  What kind of an oxymoron is that. After waiting very patiently, hello peanut butter  frozen hot chocolate.   Absolutely amazeballs.  

 

Afterwards it was time to get ready for our night out. Dinner at Emeril’s restaurant. Great service, Spectacular food. Best crab cake ever.

 

Then off to see the dueling pianos and gamble for a bit. Then back to the room after an exhausting day. And then we decided to get room service.  Never had room service before.  We ordered a night cap. Cookies, milk and chocolate covered strawberries. It was so awesome. Such a perfect end to our last day in Vegas.

 

 

Goodbye Vegas. We love being home with our kids & puppies and getting my garlic knot fix at our home airport.

 

And our maid service was probably very thankful that this sign finally came off the door knob.  Hey we like quiet on our adult vacation time people.

 

Time to Drop it Old School Style - Vegas Round 2

Number one priority of the day. New shoes for the hubbie.  Turned out that his running shoes just couldn’t cut it walking the strip.  Thankfully there was this glorious adidas store right across the street from our hotel. As I (key word I) patiently waited for the adidas store to open, we decided to do the CSI Experiment at the MGM.  This was ok.  Think that maybe we are just setting our standards a little too high for Vegas. Is my expectation for everything being over the top too much to ask for? Probably.

Of course we had to lunch before the adidas store.  Can not take a man shopping without a full belly. Especially seeing the store we were about to conquer was two stories…and I (my feet) love adidas. OH and back to the food, pizza place in our hotel.  Yummie.  Of course we ate the whole pizza.

Now onto business….adidas store. Glorious.  Had the opportunity to try on some new running shoes that adidas has out. And believe it or not I ended up with nothing.  Here is the wonderment my hubbie came out of the store with:

Being the persuasive woman I am, I managed to talk my hubbie into trying out this oxygen bar.  Hey there were like four other guys sitting there….kind of looking like pigs.  Yeah see the picture, no that is cute. Right.  By the way as cute as I looked (hey don't judge), Hubbie hated it.

Since it was a little too cloudy for the pool, we ended up napping again in the afternoon. Yes, napping in Vegas people.

Now like it says time to drop it old school style.  Off to Old Vegas aka Fremont Street.

First off get the lay of the land.  We walked the entire street.  This place was definitely old school.  It reminded us a lot of our trip to New Orleans.  There is no traffic allowed on the street, so you can just walk with your cocktail and enjoy. And serious people who isn’t up for one huge dirty street party.

Now my dad is completely about the Golden Nugget.  Mention Vegas and be prepared for the endless conversation all centered around the Golden Nugget.  Doing what every good daughter would, I took his money and put it in the gigantic slot machine in the front that he kept talking about.  No big winner here.  I tried and was able to give him back what he gave me.  Awesome daughter right here people.  Now if I was the person that we saw win the $81,000 jackpot on a slot machine bet I could have gotten the super duper awesome daughter title.  Also managed to check out the golden bar dispenser, yep you read that correctly, for the little brother.  $93 for a bar that is like a quarter inch.  I like my brother…not that much.

 

One of my mission for the year and this trip was zipling. Check it off as mission accomplished.  Ziplining is awesome.  We met and awesome couple in line.  And my hubbie is hilarious. Especially when he went with the whole comparison of what he looked like in the harness and what a giant blue wrapped sausage looks like. Just in case you are curious the end conclusion was they look the same.  

We managed to stay until it was dark.  Seriously who could go home when there is a big party going on?!?! Saw the light show which was Bon Jovi.  Then headed out.  I am very thankful for the super nice transit guy who helped us figure out the bus system.  We made it safe, sound, and exhausted.

Ooeey Goey Chocolatey Goodness

That can only mean one thing...celebration of yet another food day.  Who could pass up the excuse though to have chocolate chip cookies.  Happy Chocolate Chip Day!!

 

While you are salivating some information to add to that brain of yours:

25% of all the cookies baked in the United States are chocolate chip. 



Happy Mothers Day

Whether you have kids, dogs, husbands/boyfriends, no one, etc. whatever Happy Mothers Day!

My mommie disappeared on me.  Forest had to work brunch for Mothers Day. So where did that leave me....teenager and obligation free.  The hubbie and I did end up going out to brunch with my little bro.  Absolutely awesome idea by the way.

After all who can complain about having this for brunch....

Why yes that is a wonderful glass of mimosa

 

 



Forest did manage to remember his mothers day gift to me (shout out to the biology teacher or this probably wouldn't have happened) on Monday. Thankfully it was still alive after spending a weekend in the depths of his locker.  Teenage Boy locker equals very, very scary place from my experience.

Happy Mothers Day

You ate a what !?!?

You ate a what!?!? Seriously we really did eat this.....

 

cactus

We live in Wisconsin.  This is by no means a staple in our diet. Seriously is this a staple in anyone's diet.  Wonder how the heck this prickly little prince ends up on the dinner table then? Store flyer comes in the mail advertising cactus on sale.  Extremely amazing idea pops into a brilliant womans head and BAM added to the grocery list.

Now one can not forget that shortly after the brilliance the scouring of the interenet to find recipes occurs. And perhaps this is validation that someone actually eats these prickly princes.  Conclusion on this matter: this really is not a popular food or there is only one way to cook these things up.  There would be no stopping this awesome idea, of course. Settled on a good ole saute in garlic butter.

Next part of the mission, sneaking it into the house. No way are these people going to know what I just fed them until after they take a bite.  Seriously though my family are amazing good sports on these let's try random foods missions.

Let the cooking begin. At this point you just got done trying to get all the little pokers out of this thing, hopefully not wearing to many bandaids, and trying not to drip blood into the pan. Kidding. No mom's were harmed in the making of this. Of course you can not  yelp to much from being stuck by all the random little pokey things sticking out.  Can't have the family in here seeing what is about to go down.  Dear cactus I get it, you should not be eaten...you win.

Of course I get busted getting this ready and inform the hubbie what will soon be gracing the dinner plate.  Glutton for punishment that he is, he agrees to try it.  Seriously people what other option was there try it, watch me have a tantrum, or suffer the wrath.  Try it usually wins.

Everybody tried; hubbie and steppie definite no no no.  Myself and little brother..concluded it was icky but yet kept munching on it either from the pan or on top of the quesadilla. Go figure that one out.

Thankfully we did survive this experiment with the prickly prince... but we will not be going down this path again.

Viva Las Vegas

And so instead of boring you all with it all at once, the wonderful Vegas vacation will be in a few different posts.  Here is number one. Enjoy

Friday night was a hard night to sleep. We had to get up at 2:30 in the morning to make it out the door for our flight. I was so freaked out that we would miss the flight. You know what that means just really laying there in an ok sleep tossing and turning. Of course, we didn't miss the flight. Thank goodness.

Airport moments: After you go thru security, our wonderful airport in Milwaukee has this sign:

Flippin' love this since I have a tendency to say that I am discombobulated. My world is complete I now have a place to go to get it back together. Then the funny moment in the airport when they come over the speaker saying if someone couldn't find their gum they should head back to security. Needless to say at that moment Hubbie couldn’t find his. If only I had the camera the oh is it me, what should I do face...priceless. All the way to Vegas we thought it was him who left his gum behind. Of course shortly after our arrival he found it.

Vegas day 1 :  Took the cab to our hotel, New York New York. The hotel was huge. Thought we would end up getting lost in there to never, ever find our way out. At that point in time you are grateful to realize there are food places here, so at least we will not starve.

 

   

 First problem was how to actually get to the strip

 

 One dead end later and we made it!

After we finally get out (ha you think we are getting released from prison at this point), we decided number one priority should be breakfast.  After all it was 11:00 o’clock back home and we have not had any food.  Way to go Frontier, no snacks on the plane….rude.  On day one we managed to venture in the majority of the casinos and shopping malls on one side of the road. Also was able to sneak in a nap in the afternoon and a little sun time by the pool. Surprised to have knocked off one whole side of the strip within the first day.  Trying to get the concept down of what to see in each casino was also interesting. 

 

Ready to rock-n-roll here is our snapshot – Day 1

 

 

Aria                                             Ceasars Palace

 

    

Treasure Island - Darn pirates trying to blow up the girls' closets

Bellagio

Then Dinner at the Venetian Italian restaurant with gelato afterwards (love gelato dates with my hubbie). Already found my Pandora bead for our little Vegas excursion at the mall within the Venetian.

Took in some more sights on the way back to our little home away from home.

        Watching the volcano at the Mirage

Sad to say we had no luck gambling today. We owned the strip today.  As the hubbie would say..."Like a Boss"