Another nice day in South Florida.  Partly sunny, but in the 70’s already.   Very little humidity.   It has not been bright sun any day but has still been a nice break from Wisconsin.   I hate the thought of arriving home in below zero weather tomorrow night.  But it looks like there is some warmer weather there now that may settle down some of the snow piles.   We have had a chance to spend time with an old friend and just relax.  And I have had some walks on the beach.  Life is good.

We hope all are well and warm.

Chris and I traveled to Holland Michigan for Thanksgiving.  As is our ‘new’ tradition we met Mary Jane and John, Skip and Claire and Denise, and this year Craig flew in to spend some time with us.  We have been visitiing Southwest Michigan and enjoying it, and this year went back to the Holland Michigan area.  For a change of pace we found a house for rent online that we tried.  I was a little tentative (is the house really there?) but with some checking we booked it and it turned out great.   While other houses in the area that rent for vacationer’s are on the big Lake or in a small town, this was in a residential area a little out of Holland, but offered 5 bedrooms which fit us well.  And the house was beautifully decorated and worked out well..

So this Thanksgiving we did not have to find a restaurant that was open. Claire had made the turkey and we brought the rest of the meal to make, and had a full kitchen to work with.  Hotel rooms don’t offer a lot of cooking capabilities!  So well we spent a lot of time walking the town we also spent a lot of time at the house together and ate at the house as well as out on the town.  And it just so happens that one of the best regional breweries in the midwest, New Holland,  has a brew pub in town that we had a chance to visit!

So we hope you had a great Thanksgiving.   There are some pictures of us on the albums page.   Now back to work tomorrow, and possibly some shoveling in the morning for all of us.  But Chris and I look forward to our first trip of the season to Florida on the evening of the Dec. 10th.  Our good times and blessings are tempered tonight by our prayers for our old friends Phil and Judy Ortiz,  as Phil’s cancer has given them some significant challenges this weekend.  And we pray for Phil to pull through again.

We had a prowler in the back yard.   Earlier in the week this fellow showed up along the fence line between the trailers.   He was there the day the guys came to abandon our well, and they did not want to get out of their truck!   Our neighbor Judy could see them from her house and had a good laugh.   This was one of her prank on us!   This was Darrell’s rug from one of the bears he shot.  But there dog had taken a disliking to it.  It previously had pee’d on it.  and they cleaned it and put a spray on to keep the dog away, but it must have worn off.  Because the dog went after it again.  Darrell says it is ruined, so Judy decided to have some fun with it.

Snow covering when we woke up this morning.   It melted off early morning, and we had snow and rain all morning.  Cold and damp!!  It finally stopped in the afternoon and the sun came out for a few minutes.  But then more clouds and some more rain.  And very windy tonight.

I managed to get our trailer tucked beside for the garage for the winter.  And pulled out the hitch from the truck, so I have a spacious truck bed again.   And a few small projects.  So tonight we have a fire going and relaxing to end the evening.   Tomorrow I plan a ride to Fort McCoy to do some scouting.  I did not get a permit to hunt there last year, but this year we are all back in.  And Lou, retired Army,  got us rooms back on the fort again.  We have not been on the fort since 9/11, so it will be a short ride to hunting opening morning.   That is only 2 weeks away.

And as soon as hunting is done comes Thanksgiving, and we will be going to Southwest Michigan again.  Back near Holland, we have enjoyed that town in the past.  So we are looking forward to that.

Take care, stay warm.

Almost Halloween, which means almost November!   It has been pretty cool but at least here at the lake we have not had a hard frost yet.  But I did see snowflakes yesterday.  And I am sure more of that to come,  but let’s hope to get some mild days in betweeen.

It has been somewhat dreary so we could use more sunny days also.   Or maybe it’s just life once in awhile.   Chris is home, which I am happy for.   Her brother in law is doing better.   Marie has brought him home.  He is doing very well from the broken hip, but the fall and hospitalization seemed to speed up the dementia he has experienced.   So a very hard time for Marie, but she is hanging in there and John has improved since he is home.

And we had a friend from my stock club diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago, and he passed away Saturday at the age of 71.  And another friend from the club was diagnosed with bone cancer last week at 64, and the outlook is not good.  So don’t spend too much time worrying about the market and the 401K and take some time to live for today.

We will see good friends this Saturday at the ST Pius auction in Milwaukee.  That is always fun.   And last weekend I went out with an old friend in Milwaukee and went to DeMarrinis for pizza in my old Bay View neighborhood.  The place has not changed in 30 years except they have some new good beers on tap.  The pizza was still very good.   And we stopped at a new bar called the Sugar Maple on Lincoln ave.  that has 60 micro beers on tap.  No Miller or Bud here.  A great beer selection from around the country, a lot of the beers I have tried to taste in bottles – and on tap!   Not enough time and not enough capacity!

So November just around the corner.  The clocks change this coming weekend.  And starting to think about deer hunting and Thanksgiving travels.

So Enjoy!

The cooler weather has definitely settled into Wisconsin.  Although we had a great weekend last week.  Sunny and very warm.  Noel and Jo Ann came up and helped me pull out the pontoon boat and both docks.  And we winterized the trailers and did a few projects.  A productive beautiful weekend,  other than the asian beetles and box elder bugs.  But we worked through them!  But much cooler this week and in the 30’s the last few nights.   So tonight may be the last of the flowers and gardens.  Then still need to till up the gardens and work in some mulch.

Chris is in New Mexico.  Her brother in law John fell and broke his hip.  He is having a rough rehabilitation and Chris is spending some time with her sister and seeing John each day.  He is planned to come home next week.   It looks like their weather at least is better than ours!

So I hope everyone has had a chance to enjoy some fall color.  It looks like we are past the peak here.   We did get 9 face cords of Oak delivered so those are stacked and ready for use.  The fireplace is going tonight!

We are spending 12 days at High Cliff State Park south of Appleton.  On the ‘other’side of Lake Winnebago.   We have done this a few years with Noel and Jo Ann and enjoy it very much.   It is a short drive for me to come to work, so I am sleeping in these days.   And each night we have a campfire and relax.   It is just Chris who has to get up and get dressed and drive to work now!  She goes home most days to keep up with her workload and there is no Wi-fi at High Cliff yet!    And the weather is close to record setting for this time of September, so life is good.   After this weekend it will be time to winterize the trailers so we are making the most of it.   Last weekend we toured a winery and took some side trips.   And we try to spend some money at some of the small town eateries in the area.  We find the local supper clubs have good value and serve great food.  And other nights we put something on the grill and enjoy a few cocktails.

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. It sure was a beautiful summer weekend. Maybe Fall will hold off for awhile. I won’t put too much weight on to that thought! We had MJ and John join us for the weekend along with Noel and Jo Ann. Other good friends spent some time with us, Andy and Sandy McClaine on Saturday and John and Debbie Ebel on Sunday. We were very relaxed and it is always too bad the weekend is coming to the end.

We did get in a lot of boat riding, and some fishing. And of course good food and beers. And with the good weather the flower and vegetable gardens are doing well. A little dry but some lake water helps that out. The fresh tomato’s , peppers, zucchini and spices make it my favorite time to cook.  Some pictures added on the albums page.

Now unfortunately we do have to start thinking of fall and winter. We will be camping late in the month of September and October weekends can be busy, so we may need to put the boats away soon. We will see how the weather goes the next couple of weeks.

So keep enjoying the good life!

A pretty good week has gone by.  We are still here and still healthy so I guess that alone qualifies as a pretty good week!  It seems we manage to keep busy each day.   Of course work gets in the way of that also.  We had a picnic here Wednesday night for my homebrew club.  Good food, Noel gave pontoon rides, and of course lot’s of good beers and meads.  So that was successful night (no one got hurt) and it took some getting prepared and some clean up time to go with it.

Good news is the pontoon is running well.   I had it in the repair shop a couple of weeks ago, some intermitant problem.   He just found some water in the gas and drained out the carbs.  A new gas tank and all fresh gas and we seem to be OK.  And each time after use I disconnect the gas line from the engine.  There seemed to be oil in the gas tank also, and it should not be able to back feed from the oil injection back to the tank – but sitting in the hot sun for days stranger things have happened.

It has cooled down after a warm Saturday.  It is feeling like fall again.  And Chris and I were out for a cruise last night the sun was going down well before 8 pm.  It seems like just a few weeks ago it was light at 9 pm.

A lot of yardwork this weekend since we were gone at Irish fest last weekend.  Shoveling dirt, fixing small things that have been waiting, painting the laundry room floor, washing the cars.  So we both have kept busy.  Now time to relax and get ready for Monday.  (my favorite day of the week).   I have a number of projects at work, and a few problems, so even though work is slowing up I remain very busy. And Wednesday night we are going to the Neil Diamond concert in Green Bay, compliments of our daughter and son-in-law.  So the other nights try to clean up some projects and get ready for the long labor day weekend.   Looking forward to that.   We are planning to have MJ and John here and hopefully some good friends.

Speaking of good friends, we had our trailer in Door County early this year to let Al and Karen use it for their kids to come in for a family get together on July 4th week.    We would be taking it up in July anyway, and by having our trailer and Enders trailer there they were able to have all the kids and grandkids stay with them.  In appreciation Karen insisted we have one of her paintings.  She is a wonderful artist and it was a difficult choice.  I was captivated by a colorful water color of a Door County light house, and Chris was torn between that and striking painting of roses.  So we decided on the light house, which now reminds of Al and Karen everyday.  Thanks Karen!

OK, I am way behind in updates!   But I keep thinking about it.  I last updated before we made our annual trek to Door County.  It was a great time as always.   Chris only gets to stay 2 weeks now, as the state changed the rules about staying in the park from 21 days to 14 days last year.  I came back and worked some days each week, so I have some vacation time for Florida later in the year.

The two weeks go by so quickly.  We spent some time with old friends, and still did not get to spend much time with others.  I managed to get some golf in with friends, made it to a couple of favorite places to eat, and of course spent evenings around a campfire.  But then so quickly had to come home!

We are now connected to Town of Algoma water.  After lot’s of planning The town Sanitary Board had the main installed and we had the plumber hook up 7 of us.  So we had the various filters and the water softener taken out, so we could clean up that corner of the basement.  And are going to try without a water softener for awhile.  So far so good.  And lot’s of water pressure we never had!   Now we are all trying to sort out how to finish the road, but that’s another whole story.

Weather in August has felt cool and comfortable for August!  We have even seen the geese starting to form their flocks.  But now we have some warmer August weather for a few days.   Chris and I spent this weekend at Irishfest in Milwaukee.  An annual event for us and we had our usual great time.  So much fine music and we always get to spend some fun time with friends.  And we started this morning with the Irish fest mass which is just a wonderful way to start the day.  The Marcus Amphitheater filled with people, the huge Irishfest choir, just and inspiring start to the day.

So a couple of weeks left to August.  I am sure they will go by too quickly.  And summer coming to an end.  I am not ready for that!

The weather co operated and we had another beautiful weekend. It started off rough on Thursday with a rough storm that came through, we had powerful winds, 2 inches of rain, and had a tree blow down. Friday night we received rain overnight but people I work with in Appleton got hit with very heavy rain that night.

Saturday started off cloudy but nice. We accomplished a few things around the yard, then I went downtown to the Leach Amphitheater for this years Blues and Brews. A fundraiser run by the JayCee’s, my homebrew club has played a part each of the 13 years of the festival. We had a very good showing by our club again, with 12 beers and a selection of wines and meads to boot. And one of my freinds could not man a booth because he was playing in one of the bands. The music is very good and just makes it a wonderful afternoon, besides the great beers. Starting out cloudy the sun broke through later, but we still had a nice breeze coming through. It was a great day, but I had to leave midway.

Chris and I then traveled to Wauwatosa for Father Bob’s Bar B Que. In what is becoming a tradition for us, we go in with good freinds at the St Pius auction in the fall and bid up the price for Father Bob’s Western Bar B Que! Father Bob is just a great guy, and learned to cook a tri tip roast in the wine country near Sacramento. He gives it the spice and marinade for the week before, puts it on a red hot grill to burn the fat off the outside, then it’s ready to cut open. So very good. And he also makes some great ribs that were falling off the bone. And then the parish council kicks in with the side dishes and we have a meal to die for! Oh, and Father Bob has an open invitation to move back to California and live on the winery property of some freinds. And they keep him well stocked in Zinfindel’s and other great wines, and he shares those with us. Along with what ever else you want and brandy alexanders after dinner. Life is good.

Sunday was with Mom, we did some shopping for her and she treated us to brunch. Not that we should have eaten again, but Sunday brunch at her place is great. When we got home I did some changing of oil and truck packing to burn off some calories. And Chris is in her glory, the raspberries have come early again this year and she is getting her fill.

So this week is more packing and preparing for Door County this weekend, and the next 2 weeks. A homebrew meeting one night, and making chili for soup night another. It sounds like a warm summer week, enjoy and let’s hope for more.  More pictures in Albums.