I am at the airport, getting ready to head back to Wisconsin.  I hate to go.  I was on the porch this morning drinking my juice, feeling the warm sun on my body, looking at the deep blue sky.  It looked like there was some rain in Appleton the last couple of days.  And the temperature dropping today.  So when I get to Appleton late this afternoon the car should be an ice cube when I get to it (after I remember where I parked).  I am sure a lot of scraping and swearing will be involved.   How can the weather be so different?   Just a few hours away and yet a world away.  I hate to go.

And I leave my wife behind, not that I won’t miss her.   But I think she should be able to enjoy life as much as she can, and that is not scraping, shoveling, bringing in the firewood.  Life is just so more enjoyable and social when you can enjoy the outdoors, sit with the neighbors, not worry about what to get out of the closet before you go outside.   I put socks on this morning, it might be the first time since Dec 30th.

But work and paying for our fun gets in the way!   Just part of life we need to deal with.  I am blessed to have a place to come to, and now my job enabled me to be here these 2 weeks.  So I will continue to work hard and hope I am repaid with continued flexibility on where I have my physical presence.  Life is good.

I worked a lot of hours while I was here, up early and no drive time so I can log right in.  The company comes out ahead.  And it is worth it to have the window open and look out at the palm trees.    I did make further progress on our kitchen remodel and we have cabinets on order.   More to do but making good progress.   And I will be back in a few weeks, so I have lot’s to look forward to.

Chris will have company, Marie is with her and the sisters can bond.  It is good they have those opportunities.  Hopefully they get lots of pool time and take full advantage of being here.  I know our great neighbors will be there to help them and they will make new friends before I return.

So we hope the New Year has started well for you all.  Stay away from the flu that is everywhere (sorry Jackie).  Take time to enjoy life, damn the expense, life is short.

At the pool!

view from the pool

Happy New Year all.   Our wishes that you have brought in the New Year well, and that this year may be filled with Health and happiness for you and yours.

We were lucky enough to be guests of Darren and Sheryl in Orlando.We brought the New Year in with style, great food, drinks and friendship.   Thanks D&S.   It was a great time.   Now back in the condo in time to catch Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.   Partly cloudy and a beautiful day in Florida.  I will be working from here for a couple of weeks, I see it was 2 degrees in Omro this morning.   That makes the start of the New Year even better for me!  So more notes to come but I did not want to miss the chance to wish you all the best.

Our hosts

The Kleins

Happy New Year!

Steaks coming up.

Just in case I don’t have time tomorrow, I want to wish a Very Merry Christmas to everyone from Chris and I.   It has been a good year that is coming to an end.  And we truly do have a lot of blessings to be thankful for.

So through all my complaints (did I mention we had a foot of snow this week, and the temperatures have been in the teens?)  I still feel so very lucky.  Chris and I have our health and live a good life.  We have good friends and family to keep in touch with.  And we will shortly spend some time in Florida’s good weather.   My job seems solid even though there are no guarantee’s anymore, and work has allowed me some welcome flexibility.   Our plan is to put the house up for sale in 2013, time for a change.  So as we celebrate Christ’s birth we give many thanks, and we pray that 2013 will bring you many blessings.

wet snow sticking to the branches

the field off the driveway

We are preparing to head to the airport after a number of beautiful days in Florida.   It is currently 76 degrees in Boynton Beach and 18 degrees in Omro.  So why are we going back?    I guess it is about finances supporting our lifestyle.  We came down last Wednesday night and it was great weather when we arrived.  The first few days Chris says were perfect.  The last few is unusual higher humidity for this time of year.  But that will changed back in a day or two.   They had predicted a lot of clouds but we have had a lot of sunshine each day.  I love it.   We both have been working each day, so that cuts into some fun time.  But it is worth it to look out at the palm trees and to log off by 4 pm and walk out into the warmth.   I am hoping my boss lets this continue!   We will be back soon and will start the New Year back in warm weather.

We had come down for the Christmas boat parade on the intercoastal.   I have been trying for years to get good pictures, but a moving boat at night is hard.  Actually Chris’s phone did a better job!   We have had fun, the parade, the pool, Farmers market and cigar shop!  For now I need to go home and hook up the plow to the ATV.  We hope all are doing well and the Christmas season treats you well.

It has been awhile, so time for an update!  Life remains busy for us, mostly things we do to ourselves (Chris would say things I commit to!).   So it seems we are busy all weekends and many nights.   Work remains busy for us both.  So that is a good thing, we have to fund our fun.   Of course the fall is always busy just getting ready for winter.   The boats are out of the water and ready for winter, the boat lift out of the water, dock out, wood stacked, ATV oil changed.  All the fun stuff.

We had the Omro sanitary district merge with the Algoma sanitary district, which quickly found we had a leak letting ground water into the sewer system.  but that is now fixed.  It will just need some more landscape fixing when it settles in spring.

Mom is doing well.   She needs her wheel chair to get around but maintains a good attitude and is happy for company and e-mails.  And always has ideas for what she can change in her apartment or Chris can buy her on line!  Next time we will get her Christmas decorations out, and she has enough to change those every week through January.

I had a permit to deer hunt on Fort McCoy this year, after several years of not being selected.  Good friend Noel also received his permit, and made the trip back from Florida to participate.   Unfortunately we left the deer in the woods, we had been hoping for venison.   But the weather was good and it felt good to be back in the woods again.   And being back in the city of Tomah allowed us to visit some old haunts for supper and a cocktail after a long day in the woods.  Maybe next year!

And for Thanksgiving we made our usual trip to Lower Michigan.   Chris and I saw Mom Wednesday night and then Thursday morning headed out for Saugatuck Michigan.  Skip and Claire were not far behind with niece Denise.    And Mary Jane and John came over from Detroit.  We rented ‘The Red House’, having a house allows us a kitchen for a Thanksgiving meal.  We grilled a turkey, and had ham, potatoes, stuffing, cauliflower and all the trimmings.   The southwestern Michigan towns are very much about relaxing.  Lot’s of small gift shops, restaurants and bars.   And even a couple of breweries mixed in,  Right up my alley.    We had a great time.  And lots of card playing  and game playing.

So now back to the work week.  A homebrew club meeting this week and some house keeping projects.    We hope your Thanksgiving holiday was a good one.   And for those of you out of our country we hope things are well and life is relaxing.  For Chris and I we look forward to a Dec 5 trip to Florida for a long weekend.  Take care!

Noel coming out of the woods!

The Red House

Saugatuck Brewery

Skip, Denise and Chris packing up!

Fall in Wisconsin

It seems we keep ourselves pretty busy,  at least time gets away from me quickly.  Fall is quickly moving by here in Wisconsin.   Chris and I were camping the last 12 days with our friends Noel and Jo Ann.   And the trees and vegetation changed color a lot during that time. Someone had predicted very little color because of the drought this year.   But as goes with predictions, they were wrong.  The colors are beautiful and we enjoyed our time in the countryside.  N & J’s daughter Tiff and son in law Steve joined us for a week.  I worked everyday, the park is closer to work than my drive from home!  But I tried to hurry back for happy hour, seems I always missed the beginning.   We did get a couple games of golf in which was very enjoyable.   And lot’s of good food, campfires and cocktails!   Now home again, for a few days.  Chris has the trailer cleaned up for the winter.   I have 5 face cords of wood in the driveway that will need to be moved.  But yesterday was another planned outing!   My annual Packer game with my homebrew buddies.   We had a full day. Lot’s to eat, a fair amount to drink.  Lambeau field is always wonderful.  And we saw a Packer win, topped off by the UW Madison marching band and their 5th quarter.   It just doesn’t get any better than that.

And this week we head off to see sister Marie!  So the fun continues. It sounds like the weather is beautiful there, and we will happily leave behind an artic front coming down from Canada.   Warm it up please before we return!

Our camper

UW Madison Band

Summer is slipping away.  I get up and it is dark yet and the sun sets before 8 pm now.   We have had some cool nights but this weekend should hit back near 90 degrees again.  So we still get to enjoy good weather,  we are just being warned the season will be changing too soon!  We had a successful SOB picnic here last week. Around 50 people, everyone had fun, too much to eat and drink – hold it is there such a thing as too much to eat and drink?   Well they had fun.  Thanks for the board for helping out and the Enders for being here to help and Captain Noel for taking groups out for pontoon rides.

Then we had a Thursday to relax, and on Friday after work headed to Milwaukee.   Irish Fest weekend, and Chris circles it on our calendar.  We love the music and just being there.  More to eat and drink!   And saw lot’s of old friends.   We had a full Friday night, and thanks to the Ender’s hospitality we had a place to stay for the weekend.  Saturday we saw Mom, and got to spend about 10 hours  at Irishfest.    And on Sunday as usual we made it to Mass at Irish Fest.   The 2nd largest annual mass in North America.  It is always a wonderfully done Mass.  And afterward Irish Fest started up again!   Chris and I were going to get an early start back to Oshkosh, we went to get some lunch before leaving and as we got to order our food the skies let loose.   There is only a couple of feet overhang on the festival buildings and luckily Chris and I were under one.   And the open ground cleared quickly so no one else was heading our way!  So we ordered our food and ate with the other people huddled under the overhang.  It probably rained for an hour!   After which we headed for our car and the ride home!  A memorable end to the weekend.    My work is very busy, so I have no problem finding enough to do and putting some extra hours in,so that is taking most of my days.   We are still cleaning up from the picnic and have projects to catch up on, so little by little we chip away at them.

I do have some more pictures posted on the Album page.  Second week in Switzerland with the Cousins.  The pictures are great, so it must have been awe inspiring in person.  And obviously  they had fun!   Charles, Walter and family thanks again for taking such good care of the girls.  Remember On the Album page you will see this latest album at the top.   It shows you the thumbnails for the page. PicLens doesn’t work for me for some reason, but you can give it a try.   If  it does not work  you click on the first picture it will open up,  then you can use the arrows at the bottom of the picture to go through the pictures.   When done click on the picture.   Then remember to click on page 2,  or 3 4 or 5 below the pictures to see the next 20 pictures.

And sad news to end on.  We went to New Glarus a couple of weeks ago to see and old friend of Marie and spend a couple of days there.  We had a great time with Karl and Kay Gmur.  They gave up a lot of their time to spend with us and it was wonderful.   Karl passed away this last weekend.  Our sympathies to Kay and family,  he was a great guy.

Hiking the mountain!

A quick note!  Cloudy and comfortable here today.   Supposed to be rain tonight and tomorrow,  but this weather worked out OK.  A good day to be working outside.  My homebrew club picnic is at our house on Wednesday night,   so it has been a weekend of cleaning and organizing.  So we made lot’s of progress.  Now just hoping that Wednesday night is a nice night, without rain!   But the garage will have to do if rain happens,  it would not be the first time!   Our weeks go by quickly and this week was no different.   It was Marie’s last week here.   So we went out to eat for her last visits around Oshkosh!   Thursday Chris drove her to the airport in Milwaukee.   Her flight was a little delayed but she made it home to Albuquerque OK.    Chris stopped to see my Mom, then spent the night at the Enders.  Early Friday morning she went to her work office, and they had a bus go to the home office in Illinois for their Horton Olympics.   Sounds like it was a fun day.

So the real reason for a note,  with Craig’s help I have posted some pictures.   If you click on the Album header and go to the Album page you can see some of Marie’s pictures from their first week in Switzerland.  The girls spent the first week with Marie’s friend Kathy.   And Kathy kept them busy!  So pictures from that week and some train trips, and a trip into Germany.  Everything looks beautiful and they were enjoying themselves!   On the Album page you will see this latest album at the top.   It shows you the thumbnails for the page.  If you click on the first picture it will open up,  then you can use the arrows at the bottom of the picture to go through the pictures.   When done click on the picture.   Then you can choose the page 2,  or 3, and do the same thing.

So  the days are getting shorter, we are half way through August already.   Next weekend Irish fest in Milwaukee.

I am way behind in updates,  if you care!   It has been a very busy summer.   Marie Chris and Mary Jane are home from Switzerland.   They had a wonderful time with wonderful friends and family.   I am working on getting pictures downloaded and will try and load them to an album.

My homebrew club had a successful outing at the Oshkosh Brews and Blues.   We have been eating and drinking way too much (is there such a thing?).   We prepared for Door County and July 14th to 28th we spent in Penninsula State Park.  Well except Marie who stayed at Julie’s Cafe and Motel at the edge of the park.  It was her first time ever to Door County,  and I think she had a very good time.   It was great to see old friends, and how the many families have grown.   We started going there 30+ years ago at the end of July and have every year since.  Funny we were youngster’s then, now our children are older than we were.  As usual our 2 weeks went by far too quickly.  I worked 4 hours most days, a benefit of my job that as long as I got an internet connection I was able to accomplish some work.   Although I will still be trying to catch up this week.  It has been a busy time at work.  And over the last few weeks my reporting structure has changed, I now report to Corporate.   So I need to work on this first impression!

And I started that by trying to catch up this last week and then taking off Friday!   Thursday we drove to New Glarus and spent Friday, coming home today.   We went to see New Glarus,  since the girls had seen Glarus in Switzerland.   We actually went to see old friends of Marie, Karl and Kay Gmur.   Karl played many years with the Roger Bright Band in New Glarus and around Wisconsin.   They treated us wonderfully, and spent a lot of their time with us.   And we thoroughly enjoyed it.  Oh, and we did get in a tour and tasting at the New Glarus Brewery and around town.   New Glarus has always been a special place for Chris and Marie because of their Swiss Grandmother.  The time went much too quickly there also!   And we had more than enough to eat and drink, as is our custom!  And this morning headed to Wautoma, so we could make it to the celebration of Andy and Ann Dekeyser’s marriage.   There were married in Oregon a couple of weeks ago and it was an honor to be invited to the celebration.  Andy is our god child and they are a wonderful couple.

The disturbing part of our drive this weekend was seeing so many dry corn fields.   Much of the state we drove through the corn is stunted and drying out.   Many many fields will not produce this year because of the dryness and the heat.   Lot’s of hours spent preparing and planting will be lost.

So as I said I will try to share pictures soon.  Switzerland looks beautiful.  We hope all of you are well and enjoying your summer.    And the Olympic’s.

Somewhere in Switzerland

Family hike

OK,  I will work on getting the day and date correct!   I survived the weekend.   Noel and JoAnn were here to watch over me!    Thank You Thoma’s for a great fireworks show.  It is not often Bartalotta comes to your backyard to put on a show,  it was great!   It was a warm weekend but we spent some time on the water catching some breezes.  Life is good.   Tom and Barbara thanks for the post.   Glad your trip was a great one.  I am sure you enjoyed the time traveling with the family.   And I can’t imagine Tom had lobster more than 3 days in a row…….

And the girls will be home tomorrow.  Their trip is coming to an end.   It sounds like every day has been a new adventure for them.  I can’t wait to see more pictures, everything looks beautiful.   Kathy and Charles thanks again for your hospitality  and I know the girls want to thank you again and thanks to your families.

My evening has not gone to plan tonight.   The warm weather kicked up some storms here in Oshkosh.   I have seen the lake very rough over the years,  but tonight may have been the worst.   They say over 60 mph winds.   A number of branches down, some damage to the wood pile, the aluminum roof on the pontoon started to buckle in the wind gusts,  but the boat kept bouncing and secure.   And lots of rain and hail.   But from what I can see other than branches down I don’t see damage at the neighbors,  hopefully that is true.

So have a great 4th of July.  I am sure my girls will be trying to catch up on sleep after flying back.   We will give them some time to relax!

And most importantly Happy Birthday Mary Jane.

the roof picks up a bit at the front now

Some cutting and rebuilding needed