Super Bowl +

I took off Friday for a long weekend up North in St.Germain and Presque Isle. The Fox's cabin was good, as always. Not a lot going on (in a good way) - lots of cards played - some good fish - and all around good times.

From there it was off to Presque Isle where a friend of ours is staying at a resort called BayView Lodge. While the owners of the place are taking in the winter someplace much warmer - he and his fiance get to live in a really nice place. Not a bad deal normally, but I bet it's even nicer when you can have 20 friends come visit you in your giant lodge!

Talk about a small world - the resort we stayed at was very near to where my aunt Linda used to live. And even more random - Monnie had actually stayed here before with her friend Emily who used to vacation here every summer! What are the odds of all that?!?

To end the weekend Monnie and I took in the SuperBowl at Becky and Shane's in Janesville. One of the more exciting SuperBowl games in recent memory. Thank goodness the right team came out on top! I'm sure we Packer fans will be hearing quite enough from the Bear fans this off season, at least this way they can't say they won it all!

Pictures!

Ok, so it's been a looong time since I uploaded to Flickr. Monica has been doing most of our photo management of late - she's a big Picassa fan, so you can catch a lot of our stuff out there. So... some of these will be repeats but some are new... anyway, here goes.

St.Germain Add another to the list of great trips to St.Germain. The highlights of this one included 30 degrees in June, Rusty getting his first taste (with us) of the water, and some fun lawn games. Good times and some great Rusty pics.

Mike's Graduation Mike's MCW graduation was tons of fun. We got to see lots of people that we hadn't seen in a long time, play some football, have some good food, and just enjoy a great day.

5-21-06 Monica, Melodie, and I did some quality eating. We hit the new taco place (Texas Tubbs) followed by the new ice cream place (Ben and Jerry's).

Mallards Game Monica, Emily, Emily's father, Dion, and I went to check out the 2nd game of the Mallards season. They came up short but the Mallards keep things really fun with plenty of between-innings games and a mix of both on and off field fun.

Grillin Out Monica and I grilled up some zuccini to go with our chicken fingers. Good stuff.

Brat Fest Monica, Tivoli, Michael, and I went to check out the world's largest brat cookout at the Aliant Energy Center. As always it was a great time and the prices are awesome. The picture is the grill for the event - it's a semi-trailer that opens (on hinges - it's modeled on a real grill :) ). We even got to pick up a bratfest Christmas ornament for the tree!

Mother's Day . Claire brought her family to join the Sun Prairie crew for a fun Mother's Day. Mom got a shiny new iPod nano! Of course, the wikipedia Chocolate Truffle picture (featuring Monica's creations) came out of the event as well!

Farmer's Market Monica, Mom, and I went to the farmer's market on the square in downtown Madison. As always we picked up some cheesy bread and other goodies that are always a hit!

Gas Prices Sadly, this picture is no longer even impressive but at the time... it was A LOT!

Disc Golf. Monica, Rusty, and I went out to Token Creek to get in some disc golf. We really need to get back out there. It's a lot of fun and Rusty is actually surprisingly well behaved (doesn't retrieve the disc for you if you make it clear that isn't what you want).

Relaxing Weekend

We returned today from the last summer trip (first fall trip?) to St.Germain of 2005. As always it was a very relaxing weekend, this time shared with Mike and Steph Fox, Kevin Burg, Monica and I.

The only work of the weekend involved getting the dock and pontoon out of the water. It was probably for the better that we had the work to do as it got us in the water for one last time (surprisingly warm actually). and while Kevin and Mike returned the pontoon trailer, I got to take a lap in the kayak.

When we moved the pontoon there were several bullheads and crawfish (crayfish) scared up that had been setting up camp under there. We had a little fun with them before finishing up the work. Here's one of each up close and personal.



The only casualties were Mike getting stung by a bullhead and Kevin being attacked by a leaping crawfish. I didn't know they could jump as high as this one is in the picture.




Matt (Fritsch) paid us a visit on his way back through from spending the weekend in MN. He got to have his first in-person look at the condo, along with his dogs Goose and Sera. For some reason I feel like I got to see these dogs about 5 times in a 3 month span... but that was a year and a half ago and I hadn't seen them since. Goose is literally 4 times bigger than he was when I saw him as a puppy. He's absolutely massive now.

Independence Day

Yes, the day that we won our independence from the shed. Today saw the shingles being scored and trimmed to fit the edge of the roof (along with one of my fingers). The door's saw some work but we just didn't quite have time to finish things up. Maybe if we hadn't lost those hours on the 3rd we would have finished... At any rate though, we got it far enough that a couple of these Fox's should be able to polish things off over the next month or so.



The trip home was uneventful (good thing) and the traffic actually wasn't too bad.

It was a very good weekend.

Day3. Roofing, facia, and some door frames.

Today we were really making some good progress. The tar paper was on and the shingles were underway when a storm started rolling in (about 3PM). We had already gotten quite a bit done but we were really hoping to get the roof completely shingled. It wasn't to be though as the rain didn't let up enough to let things dry off. I don't have a picture of where we left off on Day3, but actually this is pretty much how much we had shingled on one side of the roof when we quit (and the other side had nothing done at that point).



It turned out just fine though as we got to climb off that roof and jump in the lake. Swimming in the rain is always a good time.

Sticking with our theme of great meals, tonight we went to Monical's in Minocqua for pizza. The long wait ended up being worth it, although a fight almost broke out when Brunner couldn't get his garlic bread (they were all out).

Day2. The shed really takes shape

Day2 found us resuming work early (or at least it felt early). It was really gorgeous out and the executive decision was made that after a long day of work day1: today we would work until 2PM, then head out on the lake for a few hours. The break really hit the spot - the boss' idea really improved morale.

The end of Day2 saw the shed really coming together. The roof was up and the plywood was up.



Another good dinner tonight as we got some tenderloins going on the grill. A campfire was in order to cap off the day.

A shed is born

I spent my 4th of July extended weekend up at the Fox's cabin. It's up there near St.Germain.

While spending some time on the lake was in the cards, the goal for the weekend was to build a pretty large (12x12) shed.

After arriving Thursday evening, we began Friday morning with the outer perimeter of the shed in place for us.



We worked pretty much solid through the day until early evening, before breaking for an awesome fish fry at the HoneyBear. The HoneyBear's fry, by the way, is a must have if you're looking for some fish in that area.

Another day1 picture. By the way, if you click on these photos you should be taken to the flickr site with all of them...