My morning walks have been so beautiful lately. It is full on Spring and colorful and wonderful. Thanks to Pedro and Diego I have to get my butt out of bed every day and enjoy the outdoors. Kind of makes up for the howling and accidents and all the other inconveniences.
In case you didn't realize how hard core I am, here's proof: derby has become my favorite sporting event. Friends and I went to the championship bout - the final bout of the season - Saturday night. After buying our tickets we took some pictures with ladies from the Maiden Milwaukee team, who came so close to pulling out a champtionship win! The lady on the left is Kimberr, one of my favorites (1, 2, 3 KIMBERRRR!).
Besides the overwhelming girl power of derby, I also love the randomness of the events. The National Anthem was played on an accordion thing - no words, just the strange accordion.
This father and son duo could not keep it together for the accordion song and had to sit down so no one could see them laughing.
Physical fitness at it's finest. The champtionship bout between the Crazy Eights and Maiden Milwaukee (not shown here) was probably the best I've seen - it was edge of your seat entertainment! Now I have to wait several long months until the start of the next season. Maybe I'll have to rent
Whip It to get my derby fix.
We have a tendancy to pick cold, windy, rainy days to work on our garden. Luckily we still had a great turn out for our kick off event this season, and there was a whole lot of weeding going on. We scraped off the top layer of protective mulch, pulled out a whole lot of grass that had found its way into our plots, and topped them all off with some fresh organic soil. Voila! Plots ready for planting!
A nice before and after shot.
Planting some pretty lettuce.
The finished product! Noticed how the sun came out after all the work was done. I put my seeds in the ground (plot number 1 is mine) and am excited to see what comes up. I noticed I've been a lot more sluggish this garden season, but getting my hands dirty helped me catch a little gardening spirit.
Check back in for more updates throughout our season and watch our landscape develop.
Our Europe countdown is at eleven days. I am getting super giddy and nervous and excited. I've been feeding my excitement by brushing up on my French skills and cultural knowledge. I took French for about seven years in high school and college, but of course my conversation skills are now minimal at best. I picked up Harry Potter from the library to get into the flow of the French language;familiar young adult books are the easiest to read in my opinion. I love the little differences between the American and French Harry Potter editions. The French title translates to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's School, Hogwarts is called Poudlard, and "muggles" are called "moldus". Fun huh? All this French immersion has this Francophile ready for une aventure française!
Happy mother's day to all the wonderful moms, grandmas, great-grandmas, aunts, and motherly ladies out there. Happy day especially to my mom who lets us call her granddogma and send her cards from our dogs. It takes a special lady to endure that kind of weirdness.
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the trees have baby leaves, and the flowers are in bloom! FINALLY! I feel like I finally woke up from a looooong winter hibernation, and I love that I can walk outside and feel the sun on my face without shivering from a brutal chill. My morning dog walks are actually pleasant again, and I'm driving with the windows down doing a little car dancing on the way to work. This is officially the best time of the year.
What's your favorite part of spring?
You may have noticed that I've been a little shotty on the posts the past few weeks. I am sorry for slacking, but I have a totally legitimate excuse for being MIA. We recently have had our biggest influx of visitors to date - and it was amazing! We started with a visit from my fantabulous sister-in-law Naomi who was in from Portland. We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Milwaukee Art Museum among other mini adventures.
Pedro loved having Naomi around. She practiced for having more neices and nephews by spoiling Pedro rotten. All the couch and kitchen roaming time he wanted!
Libby's visit overlapped with Naomi's, and I am proud to say that I stayed up past 10:00 every night Libby was in town! We made a stop to Libby's bar, an .... interesting establishment off Brady Street in Milwaukee. We also laughed and talked a lot - and that's a good as summary as any for time spent with my sister.
While they weren't technically visiting us, we got to see Sydney and Chris - Jesuit Volunteer friends - and their little bambino Ford outside of Chicago. We had our reunion at a Dunkin Donuts (apparently it's a Hartford volunteer thing) on our way to pick up Diego. Yay for JVC reunions!! It feels so special how quickly we can reconnect with people we rarely see; it's a magical JVC thing. The trade off for being "ruined for life" is that you meet some amazing people who are just as runined as you! (Little bit of trivia: Chris and Sydney met in Jesuit Volunteer Corps at a party Paul and his roommates hosted!)
We met up with some more Jesuit Volunteer friends in Chicago at one of our old semi-haunts, the Heartland Cafe. The weather was beautiful, we had a great time laughing and catching up, and we were even inspired to make plans to see each other again! We just can't get enough of each other.
And finishing off our round of visitors was our great friend Rachel - who has the distinguished honor of having lived with both Paul and me (Hartford and Chicago respectively). Rachel has a love for great music, bright colored scarves and ice cream. So of course we had to take her on a custard tour of Milwuakee. Every stop was delicious, but none of them quite compared to the amazingness that is Ted Drewes frozen custard.
And that was our whirlwind of visitors. The best part of having family and friends all over the country is the excitement that comes from reunions and visits. I always feel so lucky and blessed thinking about all the wonderful people we love and who love us!
Things are pretty quiet now, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long for our next visitor to come along. (Hint, hint...)
In 18 days, Paul and I will be leaving on a jetplane for London and Paris. I can't stop smiling talking about our plans and reading about the places we'll be visiting. Feel so lucky and so excited!
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