Those that know me also know how much I am enjoying life.   Warm weather, was in the low 80’s today.   Sunny, a light ocean breeze!  The intercoastal waterway was full of boats and the ocean beaches full!!   Just a perfect day.

And the Packers won a big game today, now NFC north champions and get an off week next week.  Very concerned when Aaron Rodgers went down, but now no doubt he should be league MVP.     A little nervous while we were watching the game at 2 Georges, tradition for us when we are in Florida.  But fun and turned out well.     I will miss the Monday morning at work, which is always positive when the Packers win.   But will work Monday with the wind blowing through the palm trees.

And now I will find a good beer in the fridge,   a good cigar from the humidor,  and go outside with my shorts on and relax a little.

A very  Merry Christmas to you and yours.   OK,   December  seemed to have gotten away from us this year.   We did not get Christmas cards sent out as the weeks flew by.  But I wanted to let you know we think of all of our family and friends and wish you the best for 2015.   Chris and I are blessed and 2014 was good to us and we pray for those continued blessings.   We had lot’s of fun in 2014 and had a chance to spend time with many of our friends.   We did not get to Door County for the first time in 30+ years, but for that we spent time in Germany and Switzerland which we will never forget.   Our thanks again to the cousins in Switzerland who treated us so well.  And special prayers for Annemarie recovering from surgery, that recovery comes quickly and 2015 is pain free.

We had some extra time with Mary Jane and John this year and they contributed to my beer tasting!  While we did not get to Albuquerque we did spend a lot of time with Marie!   Special prayers  for her good friend Betty which cancer took Christmas morning.   The pain is over for Betty but she will be greatly missed.   My Mom is doing well.   I have seen her age have more effect this year, but at 93 years that is not a surprise.   We had a nice Christmas Eve with her and she was in great spirits.   The wheel chair makes getting around difficult but she is thankful she is pain free and her days go quickly.

Chris, Mary Jane and I switched things up this year by taking advantage of air fares and flying Christmas Day.   Even though recent Wisconsin weather has been mild,  it is nicer to be at 77 degrees even though today is cloudy.  But sunshine ahead!   I am confident that when I do retire I will not see snow very often, South Florida is a great place to be in winter!   So we have a some days of relaxation ahead, and Chris and I will both be working some days- with the door open and breeze blowing through the condo.  New Years Eve we plan to see the Enders.

Chris’s eyes are doing well.  The second eye surgery took a little longer than the first, more to what they told us to expect.   And she is very happy.   Another couple of months the eyes should be to their new normal and she can decide on glasses, likely for computer work.   We are blessed, and the many blessings to you and yours for 2015.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Hope you all are doing well, and that those that had a Thanksgiving weekend thoroughly enjoyed it!  Charles we wished we could have shared a Thanksgiving dinner with you!   We had a wonderful weekend.   The house we rented had a couple of issues but overall was a very nice house.   We had a relaxing time, lot’s of good food and some visits to Paw Paw and Kalamazoo Michigan.   The weather has been up and down.  We had some weather above freezing on the weekend and then dove down into the single digits.   And being home during the daylight at the end of the week I see it has taken a toll on the lake, and our lakefront.   These early freezing nights have formed good thick ice on the lake but still enough water to allow it to float and expand.   And for only the 2nd time I have seen in 40 years we have some pretty good ice shoves along our lake front.  The ice has buckled up along most of our shoreline, and where it has not buckled it has pushed the land inward.   We have areas that the land has pushed up and buckled the frontage up a foot.  There are a couple of mounds in the lawn that were not there a couple of weeks ago.   The force of nature is mighty powerful!  Amazing.

Time continues to fly by.   We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.   A long weekend to enjoy here in the states, at least for those of us still working!   Some day I will get to retirement and it won’t matter as much for me!  For now I am looking forward to a short work week.  We will be traveling.  To Milwaukee Wednesday night, then to Kalamazoo on Thanksgiving.  We rented a house again, and will get together with John and MJ, Skip Claire and Denise.   Then some sightseeing for a couple of days!  We will relax and enjoy.   And the same to all of you!

Chris had her second eye surgery and all is well.   The first one was so perfect and this one has been as they tell you to expect.  A little more discomfort and taking a little longer to heal.  But still great.  She is seeing better than she ever has, but will have to wait for it to fully heal before determining the next step.  Since one eye is distance and one eye is reading (as her contacts were) and she will likely need glasses for computer work.  She had her week after surgery examination today and all signs positive.

Not so positive, winter has been here in full swing for Wisconsin.  We have had plenty of cold (which I hate) and last night had 6 inches of wet heavy snow.  We had a little warmup in between the cold and snow, with some rain.   I am not sure that was a positive change, but we deal with what we have!  Now some cold (well below average)  and I see the 10 day forecast shows another warm up.

Take some time to enjoy life, give thanks for our blessings, and tell someone you love them!

 

We are into November, and it looks like from here on in the temperatures will be going down!   At least that is the 10 day forecast.   We have had some nice days and the yard is in pretty well prepared for winter.    Unfortunately my ATV/plow is not ready to go and it will need to go in for some service.   But I won’t need to plow anytime soon, will I?  We have had a bunch of fun!   This weekend my homebrew club, the Society of Oshkosh Brewers, SOB’s,  held their charity event serving all homebrewed beers, wines, and meads.   And it sounds like we exceeded previous years attendance.  Which is great, we were hoping we could give $10,000 to the food pantries this year.   It seemed like a good time was had by all, and we had a good crowed of happy people!

Chris had cataract surgery today,  and first results are excellent.   Trying to look out from the eye shield on the way home she said she was seeing better than she ever has in her life.   Went back for a check up this afternoon and the doctor said it could be 2-3 weeks before the eye is fully healed and all swelling gone, so things should only get better.   Chris did great.   We will see how she does the next couple of nights trying to sleep, she needs to protect the eye for a week.   And in two weeks she has the other eye done.    And Marie recently had cataract surgery and says she is doing great.   All good news.

I wanted to share some photo’s from Cousin Charles in Switzerland!  He has been doing some hiking and shared some photo’s of the areas we saw this summer.   The views in Switzerland are awesome!  Thanks Charles,  I will include a little of his e-mails that came with the photo’s. (If you click on the photo you should see and enlarged version, I need to use the back arrow to get back to the home page)  Wish I was hiking with you and Walter.

As promised in your blog 2 photos from the top of the Grosse Mythen which I climbed end of Sept. To the south you see lake Lucerne and 4300 ft below the towns Schwyz and Brunnen. We had actually planned to take the boat from Brunnen but as there was no parking space, we drove on the Flueelen and boarded the boat there and passed Brunnen again – this time on the water – on the way to Lucerne. In Flueelen we met Emil who astonished us again with his fabulous memory of the good old times in Milwaukee. To the north you see part of Einsiedeln at the far end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I was enjoying together with my brother Walter probably one of the last warm days before winter is coming on one of the surrounding hills. One of the photos you see part of Einsiedeln. On the left you see the inrun of the ski jumping hill and just behind even part of Lake Zurich. You also see part of the Sihlsee with the bridge. On the second photo you see some snow covered mountains. Glad to say that I have been on all of them.

 

 

Nothing overly exciting going on lately,  just living a good life!  House still for sale, we have an accepted offer but they have had no offers on their house.   And we knew that offer may never come to fruition.   So still waiting for the perfect couple to look at the house.   In the meantime we think positive and keep getting deeper into our cleanup.  We keep moving things out of the house!   More for sale, gift, or charity.  Amazing how many things we collect over the years.   Some are harder to get rid of, but still just ‘stuff’.   When it comes down to taking a hard look at things most are just ‘stuff’ we can do without.   And in many cases have stowed away for years with hardly a look anyway.   And ‘stuff’ being saved will be used!

Otherwise time keeps fly by.  We are preparing for winter.   With any luck I cut the grass and moved leaves for the last time this year.   We had a nice weekend so good time to catch up outside.   And I had taken down a TV antenna tower and still had the base in the ground.   And I managed to take that apart and out yesterday, through lot’s of cutting/drilling/pounding.   I could have used one of the heavy duty chisels I got rid of last week!   But it is done and no worries about someone tripping on it anymore.   We have 5 face cords of wood for the winter.   Less than usual, but hoping to be in Florida for some of the winter.  Hoping (but not expecting) for a winter not as cold as last year.   And pretty darn sure Chris will be gone for part of it, which means no 24 hour a day burning during the coldest months.   And still confident we will not be in this house all winter!  Chris and I managed to spend Saturday night in beautiful downtown Neenah.   We actually enjoy it a lot, and I had bought a night stay certificate last year for the Holiday Inn.   So Saturday we went to the last outdoor Oshkosh Farmers Market of the year,  partook of a chili fundraiser downtown, and made it to Neenah.  Last weekend I went to a great Packer Win with good friends, our planning goes on all year and this year was better than ever.  Helped by the Packers playing so well!   And the weekend before I had a chance to help out at a brewing of Mike Engel’s pumpernickle rye stout recipe at a local brewpub.   That was a fun way to start the weekend.   Work remains very busy for me,  now in the midst of preparing lots of files for 2015.   And this coming weekend my homebrew club hosts Cask’s and Caskets for charity.  Last year we donated $7000 to local food pantries and hope to go well beyond that this year.   A number of very familiar beer signs will be on the silent auction.   www.casksandcaskets.org     So we hope you are out having fun.   Winter will be upon us too quickly,  I did hear the weatherman mention snowflakes in the 7 day forecast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(click on the pictures to enlarge them)

We are into Wisconsin fall, time continues to move quickly!   With our travels this summer was especially short. And my worry is we will have another early winter and fall will be gone in a few weeks!   So time to enjoy some good weather that is predicted for this week and start to make winter preparations. The garden did not do well this summer, a combination of lack of care and a cool wet summer.   So I think this week I will pull plants and start to dig up the soil.   Our hope is we will not be at this house for next planting season, but it is best to prepare!   We do have an accepted offer on the house, but it is contingent on the couple selling their house, which may or may not happen. So we continue to do little things around the house and have showings.   We had some positive comments from a showing last week but they felt the bedrooms were too small, so it must have been a family.   Our extra bedrooms were set up to be more guest bedrooms than full time living. So still not the perfect motivated buyer yet! And it may be time to have some firewood delivered to get us through at least early winter.

Chris and I continue to have some fun.   Labor day we went to Michigan to meet Mary Jane and John.   We left our car in Milwaukee and took the Lake Express over to Muskegon. We enjoy the trip even though this was the roughest water we had crossed Lake Michigan on.   But we did fine, a few guests struggled with sea sickness.   John did the driving for the long weekend and we stayed in Grand Rapids, which has a wonderful small brewery community.   We toured 10 breweries, and of course (I at least) had lot’s of fun!   Most had very good beer varieties and good food.   So when we got home we had to diet for the rest of the week.   And this last weekend we went up to Marquette Michigan with friends.   Friends had friends who live there, and set up some private beer tours for us in the local micro breweries.   Again great beers and a lot of fun!   Saturday turned into a beautiful day and we spent lots of time walking Marquette and sitting outside.   Sunday started out much colder with some rain but it made for very interesting sight seeing along Lake Superior.   I look forward to going back for a more extended stay!

In between we will manage to have some fun, and always little projects to do.   Our bar room now has almost all of the beer signs taken down and a quick coat of paint.   Most are going to our beer clubs charity fund raiser for the silent auction. www.caskandcaskets.org , last year we gave $7000 to local food pantries and hoping for $10,000 this year.   The day after Halloween, a great way to support the local charities and try some homebrew beer and wine!

And I need to make another list of items for sale.   Getting down to less things to deal with.   Air compressor and tools, portable generator, roto tiller, tread mill, radial arm saw.   May as well keep cleaning and thinking positive. We hope this finds you well and enjoying life.

Some brewery links if interested!

http://www.mittenbrewing.com/

http://foundersbrewing.com/

http://www.breweryvivant.com/

http://www.hopcat.com/

http://www.osgoodbrewing.com/#home

http://www.oddsideales.com/

http://www.crankersbrewery.com/

http://www.blackrocksbrewery.com/#first-pic

http://ore-dock.com/

 

 

 

 

Switzerland was the favorite part of our trip, for several reasons.  The first week was fun, but hectic with frequent traveling, so when we got to Einsiedeln we were able to settle in for 5 days.   And Switzerland is beautiful where ever you look.  The sights were awesome, and everywhere our tour guides took us was more spectacular than the last.   And our tour guides, Marie and Chris’s cousins’ were just great to be with.   They treated us so well, and spent so much of their time with us.   It was just easy to relax and have fun.  And have fun we did.   We were looking for a ‘low impact’ trip, without so much planning that we could not stop and have a coffee or a beer to relax.  And we were successful throughout our trip, and made especially enjoyable to be with the family.

Einsiedeln was the birthplace of Chris and Marie’s Grandmother and our home base.  People here in Wisconsin only know Kato Kaelin, but in Einsiedeln Kaelin’s are everywhere.   Back in the 800’s Meinrad, a Benedictine monk came to Einiedeln to try to live a hermit’s life of prayer.   But his advice was still sought out and people came to the Dark Forest.  Around 835 he was murdered, but Meinrad’s tame Ravens led others to the murderers. And the raven motif remains in the heraldic arms of the monastery.   A chapel was built at Meinrads site and maintained for hundreds of years and a Benedictine community founded.  In 948 the first monastery church was consecrated, St Mary’s monastery of hermits.  Somewhere in the 1400’s the statue of the black Madonna was moved into the church at that time.  Many changes over the years, but Marie said this would be the most beautiful church we would see and she was correct.  Never having been to Rome I could only imagine the great churches and this would match my imagination.   The color and detail of the many paintings and beautiful altars leave you awe struck.  There are not as many monks now as there once was, and there is lot’s of locals employed to keep up the grounds, tend to the horses, and the many needs.

So that was our base, our hotel the Drie Konigs was right across the street.   We started each morning and ended each night with a view of the monastery.  Einsiedeln itself is not a large town, large enough to have it’s own brewery and a number of businesses.   Charles says years ago there were many more tourists that came to the monastery and stayed for days, and now the buses come and leave in a day.  So some of the small hotels are being converted or rebuilt.   It was an enjoyable town to walk.  We spent time at the cousins’ houses, they took us up the Holzegg, me for a walk the girls for a ski lift ride!  And enjoyable drinks and food.

We did a Lake Lucerne boat trip that I loved.   And we started out on the far end of the lake so we could meet cousin Emil before we left.   And we all wished we would have had more time with him.  The views on the ride were breathtaking, and lunch in Lucerne and some sight seeing were enjoyable.   We went to Amden, home of the Gmur’s where Karl Gmur’s father was born.   I can’t find enough different words to talk about how beautiful it all was.

Charles and family thank you so much.   You made this trip a “Trip of a life time”.   I felt honored to spend time with all of you.  A special thanks to Marie who made the whole trip possible for us.   Thank You.  Marie has headed home now, a chance for her to see friends, and her house!  We will see her next in Florida.

 

I will post a few more pictures here.   If you cannot get enough of pictures scrolling across your computer screen I have loaded all of Marie, Chris and Randy’s pictures at:

http://www.photoshow.com/members/rtomb/all

And there is a button to watch full screen in the bar at the bottom of the photoshow.

If you ever have a chance to go to Switzerland, don’t hesitate!

 

 

 

Saturday we left Munich for a 1.5 hour train ride to Salzburg Austria.   Denise said Salzburg was special and Chris and Marie’s Mom was Austrian so we made this one of our stops.   No train transfers at all today, an easy trip by train.   I had planned to walk from the Salzburg Bahnhof and along the way the girls thought I was crazy lost.  The thought occurred to me, but it really was not That far!  And the girls did well again.   The Crown Plaza Pitter was a very nice hotel.  There was construction on the upper floor, adding a top of building restaurant, and luckily we missed the construction for the weekend. The hotel staff recommended some good restaurants nearby and after settling in a little we got our walking shoes on and headed out.   The shopping/restaurant district was close, it looks like they are just finishing redoing a lot of the streets.  It was a very cool area to walk, and the restaurant recommendation was excellent.  A relaxing meal and back to the hotel to settle in, settle in the bar area actually.   We found very accommodating bar staff and I tried some local beer and schnapps, and the staff filled us in on a lot of information about Austria.

The next morning we found a close Café for coffee and light breakfast.  Then we hailed a taxi to take us to the High Fortress at the other end of the old city.  Hohensalzburg Fortress, built in 1077 by Archbishop Gebhard, considerably enlarged by Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach (1495-1519), largest, fully-preserved fortress in central Europe.  During its long history the Hohensalzburg Fortress has always remained unconquered by enemy troops.  This was well worth the trip.  We took the tram up to the fortress and the views are tremendous.  Salzburg and surrounding Austria look beautiful.  The Fortress itself is amazing, and amazing to try and imagine how it was built!  We spent a fair amount of time sight seeing before heading back down the tram.   Luckily on the way up I spotted the Stiegl Keller!  It was getting to lunch time and being at the base of the fortress was convenient.  That and the fact I recognized Stiegl as one of Europe’s amazing beers.   So we made our way to the bier garden and settled in for a little relaxing.  The food was excellent, I had a seasonal wit beer that was excellent.    A great stop, and then back to walking!  We were in the old city which is full of amazing buildings, Salzburg the Rome of the north.   Everything from churches and shops, course open air cafes and street performers.  I think MJ picked up a keychain along the way and we did stop for a refreshing drink in front of Mozart’s birthplace.   We left the old city walking along the Salzach River and taking in more sights, heading back towards the hotel.   A short distance and we came to the Mirabel Palace and Gardens.   Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had Altenau Palace built in 1606 as a token of his love for Salome Alt.   And in the gardens we were reminded of the Sound of Music.  Salzburg hosts a number of sound of Music tours as a lot of filming was done here, some in the gardens.   We have to watch it again to try and recognize sights.   The gardens remain beautiful and while we were there a school band from England was playing American big band favorites! We spent a fair amount of time there and then continued our walk back to the hotel.   We managed to find some ice cream along the way.  Everywhere on our trip they seem to like their ice cream and sorbet and from stands to all cafes you have choices. We made it back to the hotel after a full day.   I took my net book to the bar to download some pictures and the girls took a break.   We decided on supper in the hotel, the Pitter-Keller, one of Salzburg’s oldest beer cellars houses the restaurant.  We needed to have our reservations in as tonight was the World Cup Championship which generated a fair amount of interest in Germany and Austria!  And they added some screens to the restaurant to watch the game that night, and we had a great view.   We had another excellent meal and as the game got late the sisters headed to bed and MJ and I headed to the bar!   MJ for her new favorite dark Mozart liqueur and I think I tried some more schnapps!  We hung on a long time but still no score, when we left and went back to the rooms we did see the Germans win!  It was a good Sunday in Austria.   Many of the stores were closed because of Sunday, as is the case most places we visited, but still a very full day.  We could easily have spent more time in Salzburg.  On Monday we needed to get a fairly early start, for us,  to catch the ICE to Zurich.  A 5 hour train ride this time, but just the single high speed train.   Coffee and breakfast delivered to our seats and amazing views of Austria and Switzerland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left Rothenburg on Thursday, taking 3 trains to get to the main Bahnhof in Munich.  From there it was a short taxi ride to Hotel Torbrau.  The taxi driver gave us an introduction to Munich traffic, the guy would be good in Chicago or New York.   We picked a hotel in Old Town to be close to sights we wanted to see.  And the Torbrau exceded our expectations for convenient.   After arriving we needed to eat and wanted to visit the Hofbrauhaus, although the front desk had other recommendations.   We thought we were at the wrong place when we happened across the Hofbrauhaus a few minutes later.   But there it was.   Started in 1592 it is a must stop.   But we figured out why the desk person pointed us elsewhere, at 6pm the large hall and all tables were jammed.   Loud, noisy and a band about to start, at another time may have been fun, but after a long day of traveling our thoughts were on a comfortable table not pushing in to make 4 places on a long family style.    So we moved on, unfortunately I had my ideas in place when the desk person gave us directions and I took the girls on a longer than necessary tour to find the Spaten Haus!  But we were sight-seeing, right?   The Spaten Haus turned out to be the perfect choice.  The beer selection was one of the best we saw, and the food was excellent.   And even though we arrived ‘without reservations’ we ended up with our own little room to relax.  The next day on Friday was a full day of walking, well maybe not full day, we did make some stops.  We made our way to the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), originally completed in 1488.   Here is the tomb of Ludwig IV  and the church is quite impressive.   Unfortunately one of the towers that has the elevator to see the city, was closed!  From there we walked to the Marienplatz at the center of the shopping district.   The New Town Hall dominates the square and is breathtaking.  And at the center is the 43 bell 28 foot Glockenspiel, which we arrived just in time to see it perform.   From there a short walk to the Viktualienmarkt.  One hell of a farmers market.  Lots of vendors along with everyday food stands.   And a central bier garden.   The highlight was getting a large pretzel and beers and sitting down next to 4 gentlemen who brought sandwiches from the Norse stand.  Hard rolls with probably pickled fish and onions, Chris was in heaven.  And then more walking.  We hit Schneider Weisse  by accident but I could not walk by.  The girls placated me by stopping for a beer, and although I love their Weisse I could not pass by ordering a half liter of Aventinus. Yum.   More walking, lot’s of people walking and lots of bicycles.  And we had a beautiful day.   A number of stops along the way.   And being real tourists we even stopped at Hard Rock Munich.    And we did get to eat at the Hofbrauhaus, on a second floor balcony and it was well worth going back for.   And of course we got to know the restaurant and bar staff very well!   Munich would be the one stop we all agree we would have taken out to spend more time at the other stops.  Yet I can’t think of what I would have wanted to miss.