Since we have been back from our Florida trips we have managed to stay busy.  Work has been busy for both of us but we have been trying to take plenty of time to relax as well!   Our Wisconsin weather this April is unpredictable.   We have had a first full week of good weather with temperatures above average.   That has been the Only week like that.  Chris and I have volunteered the last couple of Fridays at the church fish fry.  The first Friday was during a winter storm warning, and when Chris and I left church it was howling winds and snow.   But we did get back to some nice weather and I have had a chance to do some yard clean up and clean up in the boat house.  But the warm weather is only flirting with us.   This weekend Oshkosh had 6 inches of rain, which finished with about 3 inches of snow this morning.   Snow covered roads and jack knifed semi’s this morning.  This week will stay well below the average temp of 53 for this time of year.    We had someone who wanted to tour the house last week, but still not the right person,  no offers yet.

A few weeks back we went to the Heidel House in Green Lake Wisconsin for a brew fest!  The Heidel House has been a resort for many years and a group of us took advantage of reduced room rates to make a weekend of it.  We had a great time.  The resort is wonderful and the company was great!  And I think we had a few good beers!    This last weekend we took a northern Wisconsin tour, heading up to Marinette county.  We got away with friends Steve and Janet.  Unfortunately the weather did not co operate, with cold and rain.   But we still got a quick look at their cabin and driving through the country side.   We had a nice lunch at the 4 Seasons Island resort on the Michigan border.  The drive in on a single train bridge is a nice welcome to a nicely maintained resort with lot’s of character.   We headed from there to Marinette to spend the night at a bed and breakfast.  A completely redone early 1900’s house, full of character with stained glass windows and beautiful wood work.   It was a lot of fun and certainly interesting.   And in the house also resides a “70’s Martinni Bar”.   Interesting to have a beautiful Victorian house that includes a full bar and living areas with zebra furniture.  Oh and the bar is always open to guests, on the honor system!  Our room certificates from the MPTV auction included some drinks, which we took full advantage of!   Before the weekend was over we also managed to fit in a winery and a couple of brew pubs.  It certainly was relaxing and we probably ate more than we needed.   But I did get on the treadmill tonight, probably another week of that and I will wear off half the calories I put in this weekend.

Easter weekend coming up, and we hope for good weather.   We hope everyone’s basement is dry, and you have a nice Easter weekend, what ever that may be for you.

Heidel House crew

after brewfest party

Our room at the Victorian Inn

Victorian Inn living area

Bar room

Back in Wisconsin tonight.  Hated to leave Florida, it has been such a great winter in south Florida.   And we had another great 10 days.   We have good friends we enjoy spending time with and the time was special.   Noel and JoAnn spent a weekend with us and we had a very relaxing weekend including a picnic at the pool.  And ended with a St Patrick’s day dinner.

And actually coming back to 38 degrees was not bad.  Certainly better than every other time this winter!  And I am very surprised at how much snow has melted in the last 10 days.  Although we saw cars driving on the lake when we got home, the water under the ice is probably 34 degrees, so that will be with us for awhile.  Although it looks like we could use some melting of culverts and ditches so some water can continue to run off.  And it looks like my neighbors may have been working on getting the ice off our road, which is in better shape than I thought it could be at this point.  So if Spring is really coming that will be welcome by all of us.

So now getting back to our regular life, what ever that is!  I will check out the house and yard tomorrow. And I have some issues at work to dive into.   But hopefully it won’t take much to get back into the groove.  And we have a weekend beer festival at the Heidel House to look forward to.  So life continues to be good, even if not as warm.

picnic on the water

Our daughter painted us a picture for the condo

Life is good!   Had a great Friday night catching up with cousins and brother and sister in law,   had some good food and beer at St Francis Brewery.    Then on Saturday made our way back to Florida.   This is just a different world than home.  7:30 pm and just came in from sitting outside with neighbors, having a few drinks and catching up as the sun went down.   Took a walk to the beach this morning, a nice breeze coming in from the Bahama’s.    Did a little work on a bathroom today, a project I started in January.   But it just feels so good to be warm!   You have to try it!      Hoping my driveway does not get snow while we are gone.  There should be some better weather in Wisconsin while we are gone,  glad to hear that for everyone.  But for me I will take 80 degrees and sunshine!

Boating was busy today on the intercoastal

Things are flowering here!

At the ocean this morning.

I know as we grow older the age affects how we think. I think at times the car I would like now probably costs upwards of $50,000, heck pick up trucks can cost upwards of $50,000, and you know in 1980 we bought a brand new Dodge pick up for $5000??

When my mind goes down that road I remind myself of my Uncle Augie. I always remember Uncle Augie as being pretty negative. And the many weekends in our neighborhood back yard I always remember at some point Uncle Augie saying the world was going to hell, how could a loaf of bread cost $.25?   Clyde would tell me a story of his father-in-law Augie coming over to the tavern when he saw Clyde go in, and Clyde would always buy him a brandy. And Augie would rage on that Clyde also paid $.15 for a snit of beer on the side, and the snit of beer should not have to be paid for. And then Augie would excuse himself with a promise to buy one next time.
OK I digress. But I heard when you let your mind go negative like dwelling on criticism, those parts of the brain just take over and those parts of the brain are so strong the rest of the brain cannot do anything.    Even with the evil people in the world I have to believe we are inherently good. In all of us is the desire to be happy   and to make those around us happy. We let our environment pull us down, but we just need to give our selves the chance to be positive. Thinking of Clyde and Uncle Augie brings a smile to my face.

And the point of this is really to have you watch something that touched me this morning. Watch this and feel good about the world, maybe with a tear in your eye, but still feeling good about the good things we are all capable of.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-8-year-old-turns-20-into-priceless-gift/

Wisconsin winter keeps going on!  I am back in Wisconsin and Chris came home now!  Not sure she is glad she did come back.  We have had a few decent days, lot’s of snow, and now going back to the deep freeze!  We will break the record for a winter with the most days below zero farenheit.  That will be this week.  Going into March!
But we have been blessed with enjoying the  above average south Florida winter.  So that makes this more tolerable.   I have made some progress on the ice and snow in the driveway.  And the sun is warmer than it was a few weeks ago, and is doing some melting even in the cold winds.   So there are things to look forward to (our next trip to Florida).

We celebrated Mom’s 93rd birthday last weekend.  And she had a good time, so it was a great day.  She continues to do well.  Chris and I made it to see the Monuments Men, which we recommend.  We made the Oshkosh winters Farmers market last week and will hopefully make the one next Saturday.  And we made it to the SOB   beer dinner and a beer and cheese tasting last week.  So we are not letting the cold weather keep us inside!  Marie is back in New Mexico and the weather there has gotten nice.  So she has enjoyed the winter!  We hope you all are making it through this winter, Enjoy life!

A quick update.  Life is good!   We were able to come to Florida after a very nice Christmas.   We spent some time with Mom who unfortunately had the flu.  It went through her complex.  But she came through well, which I find hard to believe because when we left her and Milwaukee I came down with it.   And I did not know if I would survive!  And Mom says she had it twice.   But MJ Chris and I made it to Florida which felt great even with the flu.   I was able to work from here until the first week of January and had to head back to work.  When I left Marie came down to warm up and keep Chris company.  And they have been enjoying themselves, while I was home in the cold Wisconsin weather!  This is a long and very cold winter, showing no signs of getting better.  I was very happy to make it back down last Wednesday.  Although my 3 hour flight took 8 hours, long story,  but I made it!   And it has been beautiful here while schools we hear are closed in Wisconsin because of the cold weather.  Friends Dick and Carol have come to Florida this winter and are spending a week near us, so the last few days we have been tourists.  The pictures show a theme of eating and drinking!  And today we took a ride to Key Largo for lunch, and had a great day.   Now relaxing and thinking of plans for Tuesday.

Hope all are doing well, and for those of you back north I wish you could all be here in the wonderful weather.  Unfortunatately I will join you soon.

Key Largo lunch

at the pool for lunch from the grill

Having a great time in South Florida.  There is no better place to be right now. Has been in the 80’s but today only upper 70’s.  After the very cold weather at home this is paradise.   And winter starts next week?

This was our chance to open the condo for the season.  Everything came through the summer just fine, except our Florida car.   I took it in to get oil changed and some of the noises checked out.   And now have new drums/wheels/complete braking system except master cylinder.   The salt air and 176,000 miles took its toll on the metal.  But now the system is safe and will outlast the rest of the car.  And the air conditioner is working, at least for now!  And installed the late arriving slides for our kitchen pots and pans drawer and restrictor clips on the doors, so kitchen is good.  We had forgotten what the new kitchen looked like, but are very happy with it.

Noel and JoAnn came to visit, we saw the Boynton / Del Ray boat parade go by on the intercoastal on Friday night.   It had more boats and bigger decorations that past years so very enjoyable.  We had grilled out before hand and ate down in the clubhouse.   A good crowd from our association gathered at our pool to watch the parade, and desserts and coffee were served afterwards.  Noel and I skipped the coffee.  We had a great time with Enders, ate and drank almost too much (can you eat and drink TOO much?).   And topped it off by watching the Packer win at a local outside restaurant.   What a game!!

So back to the cold and work soon.  But with a rejuvinated attitude!  Jackie we will be back after Christmas!

Just a couple of lines to say we hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Most of us have been very blessed, and it is good to reflect on that once in awhile!  Our life has been good, and we have been enjoying the last few weeks.  I had the opportunity to go out for the Wisconsin deer hunt.   Some of us received a Fort McCoy hunting permit this year.  Fort McCoy has there own permit system above the state permitting process.  So we send that in early in the year, and Noel, Andrew, Lou, Pat, Denny and I all received permits.   And Lou, as an Army retiree was able to get us rooms on the fort for a GREAT price!   And that makes the early morning trip to our hunting area very convenient rather than having to drive in from town.  Since we get out there well before sunrise some extra minutes help.  We had a great time,even though none of us filled our tag!   It was the coldest hunting season opener in 23 years I heard,  below zero Sunday morning.   But there is something very relaxing about the woods!  And for me after the long weekend it was back to work for a couple of days, then the Thanksgiving weekend.  We made it down to Milwaukee first and spent some time with Mom.  Then Thanksgiving morning off to Holland Michigan.   Mary Jane and John drove over from Detroit, and Skip Claire and Denise came over from Wisconsin.  We rented a house that we had rented 5 years ago.  It is a very nice 5 bedroom house that works out well for us.  We had our Thanksgiving dinner there after Mary Jane and John made it back from the Packer game!   And there was foosball and air hockey.   And then a couple of days of sight seeing.  The group was good to me,  as I like micro brews and wanted to take advantage of some of Michigans offerings.  Founders Brewery in Grand Rapids is one of the best in the country, and while I have had their beers I had never been there.  It’s taproom was larger than I imagined, and very well done.  A fun place, and a large outside patio that with heaters was being used even this weekend!   And the beer selection was worth the trip.   Then we stopped in downtown Grand Rapids to see HopCat brew pub.   RateBeer rates it as the #1 brewpub in the country, at least that is what HopCat says!   I did not check, but with the large variety of tap beers and world renowned bottle beers besides their own brews,  I can see why it would garner that rating.   I had a Rodenbock on tap, we had some appetizers and took in the ambiance.   The State of Michigan beer scene is growing in leeps and bounds.   Leaving Grand Rapids to head to our weekend home I found 2 brewpubs in a small town of Hudsonville that are both fairly new.   We stopped at Pike 51 brewery, originally a winery the owners have added their love of beer.   I was very impressed by their large selection of unique brews.   I had the chance to talk to one of the owners and he even showed me 2 bourbon barrels in back that are aging their first sour beers.  They had a smoked pumpkin scotch ale, a belgian quad- 15 beers on tap.  In addition to their wines!  had a tasting flight, and we left with a case of wine!   Then to White Flame brewery near by.  Another impressive list of beers, we did a flight of all their beers, and we decided to order food their!  Interesting the food is made in a mobile truck parked at the door, but it was very good!   And on Saturday we did our usual tour of downtown Holland.  Which is interesting and fun,  we spent some money on small business Saturday!   And managed to stop at a new brewery, OUR,   and New Holland brewpub that is one of my favorites.   again some great beers (MJ had a 12.2% stout) and we decided appetizers were in order.  And when we got home for the evening Skip and Claire made us some chili.   We had lots of food and drink, and a great time.  We even got a sheepshead game in.    I had to shovel the driveway from overnight snows when we got there,  but then the weather was good.  Saturday was fairly warm, and the drive home was good with partly sunny to make it a good drive.   The long drive home is not the fun stuff, but the weekend was worth it.   Now getting back to a week of ‘catch up’ at work.  But we have a Florida trip coming up soon, and will look forward to that.    So good times to you,  God Bless.

White Flame flight

Founders

HopCat

I must be getting older, time seems to keep getting away from me!    Not that I live that interesting of a life, but I keep meaning to post something here just so you don’t forget about me!   Life does stay busy it seems.   And we keep looking forward to what is next.   We have had our house off the market for a little while now,  and made more progress getting rid of ‘stuff’.  From small stuff to boats and lifts, and a camper.   Had the help of friends to get the lift moved on to a trailer, from McFarland of all places.   But was glad to get that sold and moved, it would not have been the easiest to deal with should a house sale happen.   So just the Bayliner left and I will deal with that in Spring.   That is easy to move around and we can always keep it and drop it in the water from where ever.   We just signed with a new realtor and the house will be listed starting this week.   We did some paint and carpeting that was recommended and dropped the price.   We had it high priced, and it was worth a try, the new realtor thinks we will have a lot more interest now, so we will see.

Fall is here, the weather is getting colder and there was ice on the lake the other morning.   The fireplace has been burning for some weeks already!   Last week Chris and I participated in my homebrew clubs event for charity.  It turned out very successfully thanks to the people on the committee who did a lot of work.   There will be a lot of dollars donated to local food pantries, thanks in a little part to some of our ‘junk’ that went on auction!   But the thought of winter is not pleasant for me.  I do like the thought of warm weather.   So we have some plans for Florida in December.   But I also do enjoy the Wisconsin deer hunt, and that will be coming up shortly.  I’ll get my good clothes out, and it will be good to spend the weekend with good friends.   We will have a good hunting party together again this year, thanks to the Enders clan.   I am hoping for venison,  Chris is not!    And right after that we head to Michigan for Thanksgiving weekend.  Always enjoyable to spend time with Mary Jane and John in Southwest Michigan.  We have a house rented this year that will be home base for our travels.   After that comes Florida, and in the meantime planning for a Germany/Switzerland trip next July.   Date is flexible yet but starting to think ahead for that which is exciting.  This time I will get to meet Chris and Marie’s relatives and we will add some sight seeing before we get there.

So we hope you are ready for Winter, where ever you are.   May life be good to you!

lift lifting

Hi All,    It has been awhile since I did an update!    Life seems busy as usual, but life is good.   We are currently in Albuquerque visiting Marie.  Weather is beautiful, no clouds in the sky.  Cool mornings quickly warm up to the upper 70’s.  We have seen lot’s of old friends and kept Marie busy cleaning house!   We went through a few things that she was ready to sort and she was good about making decisions.  So a number of trips to Goodwill and neighbor Joe took me to the dump, and there is a lot more space!      And we have been busy eating and drinking as usual!  Diet next week!    The beer scene in the Albuquerque area is exciting.   We have been to Turtle Mountain, Marble, Bosque, Cazuella’s  brew pubs and had a few tastes of other beers.   In honor of Octoberfest most have had good hefeweizens.   We even went to an Octoberfest celebration, New Mexico needs a little work on being German, but they did have a couple of German style bands and 4 breweries, and brats!   And I have gotten a little walking in, the country side is very nice.  Marie is out far enough in Rio Rancho to have lots of rural areas to walk.  The desert, but the Sandia mountains are close by.   Even saw some hot air balloons, but this weekend is ballon fiesta so there will be 100’s of balloons when we leave, and we leave Tuesday.

September saw a fun wedding for the Enders. Congratulations to Andrew and Alison, the outdoor wedding turned out amazing, and of course fun was had by all.   And Chris and I remain busy on our own house cleaning.   The 5th wheel camper is sold, a utility trailer, the pontoon boat should be gone this week.  And truck is up for sale and Turn Key Auto thinks it should sell quickly once we get a couple of things taken care of. So still working on the Bayliner and the boat lift, and may have a line on someone for the boat lift if I can tell him how he can move it easily.   Otherwise we are getting to the point that those may need to wait until Spring.  And if the house would sell before then we will have to write in a disclaimer to leave them on the property awhile.

So we hope you all have had a wonderful summer and that your fall is full of sunny refreshing days!

Wedding party

Octoberfest

Sandia Mountains across the Albuquerque valley