Jail Break at Carthage

As we were leaving Salt Lake City to move to Milwaukee Sara pulled out a wallet-sized picture of Annie and taped it to the gear shift. This was back when Annie was a wee lass of only one month. We were pretty sad to be leaving home, and were very worried that we would never get to know our new little niece. Over the last year and a half though, we've found a lot of reasons to visit Annie and her parents, and we were very grateful that they came out to see us. Zoe and Annie were certainly not in the mood to sit through a tour, and we'd been through Carthage Jail before, so we took Annie and Zoe outside to run around and eat rocks. Hopefully Nathen and Jennifer enjoyed their brief jail break. While we were out there Sara took some of the best pictures of Zoe and Annie ever. I particularly like the one on the top up there where the little sun beams are coming in. But I don't want to go on and on about the kids all day, just let it be known that regardless of our living 1440 miles from Nathen and Jennifer, Zoe and Annie have turned out to be best friends forever.

Carthage Jail was as good as an experience as ever. From there we were off on our way, along the river road from Keokuk to Nauvoo. That's right, I said Keokuk. Only two weeks before our trip there was some very severe flooding in the area and I was amazed how high the water level was. We made it through without getting our feet wet, got settled into our hotel and went out on the town.

Carthage Jail in the Rain

My favorite part of the entire Nauvoo experience is the tour of Carthage Jail. When Sara and I went in April we were relatively by ourselves during the tour of the jail where Joseph Smith was martyred. We were able to sit together in the upper bedroom for nearly twenty minutes just listening to the room. There is an icredible spirit there. It was amazing. This time around I had a different sort of experience at Carthage, but it was great none the less. Right when we got into the visitors center it began to rain; a real Midwest down pour. Zoe was not interested in doing anything but playing in the rain. I had a blast watching Zoe walk out into the rain, trying to figure out where it was coming from. This proved to be very therapeutic to me after a few weeks of being super busy at work and not able to play with my Zoe as much as I want to. While Sara, Nathen, Jennifer and Annie were in the building, Zoe and I stayed outside playing in the rain and chatting with the missionary people. Have you ever noticed that missionaries like to talk about their families back home a lot? Anyhow, the rain stopped and in a matter of a few minutes the sun came out and it became a beautiful afternoon. This was fortunate since Annie and Zoe were far more interested in touching the dirt outside than going on the tour inside. I guess a one and an almost two-year-old just aren't fit to be tied.

Albanian-American Islamic Farmers of Illinois

After recovering from our baseball game we woke up bright and early, packed up the cars and made our way west to the Midwest's Mormon Mecca. Sara and I visited Nauvoo last April and had a great time, regardless of Sara being very great with child. We figured we'd show Nathen and Jennifer what a cool place it is, besides, how often do you find yourself five hours away from the place that most Utahns only get to see in the pictures in the back of their Book of Mormons during very boring Sunday School lessons. As anticipated, Zoe required a few stops along the way, one of them being at the building pictured somewhere in the middle of Illinois. We found it strange that the only non-farm building for miles and miles happened to be the Albanian-American Islamic Center. There was no time to waste though, we had to get back on the road so we could pick up our Godfathers pizza in Moline and make it to Carthage before it got too late in the afternoon.

What's for eating at Miller Park

Here's a picture of Nathen goin' to town on a defenseless bratwurst. The only reason you don't see me in more of these pictures is that I spent at least 3 of 9 innings squirting far too much secret stadium sauce on my various sausages. They sell Hot Dogs, Bratwursts, Chorizos (my favorites) Polish and Italian. I capitalize the titles of these delicacies so they can receive the respect they deserve. Yes, I will write al about the world-famous Miller Park Sausage Races in a future blog (including some edge-of-your-seat footage), so don't worry!

Miller Park is a super cool place. Since it is very likely that it snows during the baseball season, the place was built with a retractable roof. No kidding! Here's a picture of Zoe laughing it up while the roof was opening (the rain had stopped). In order to allow more sunlight to get in, the construction plans included as many windows as possible. I love that you can actually see into the park as you drive by on the freeway. And they have a really cool slide that the mascot goes down, and fireworks go off with each homerun and tailgaiting...the list goes on. Man, I love the summer time!

Our local sports team is superior to yours!

Go Brewers! Here in Wisconsin we are very much surrounded by sports fans. I've decided that the reason there are so many professional sports teams in Wisconsin is that there are so many professional breweries in Wisconsin. Its great that the state's 3 professional sports teams are named after uniquely indiginous people and animals: The brave men that brew our beer, the hard-working packers that grind our sausage, and the majestic bucks that get blown away by bearded men from Up North with high powered rifles. In order for you to prioritize your cheering, the following is an official state-recognized ranking in the importance of sporting teams and events:

#10 The Bucks
#9 Competitive Eating
#8 Ice Fishing
#7 State Fair Pig Races
#6 International Lumberjacking
#5 The Admirals
#4 The Badgers
#3 The Brewers
#2 The Packers
#1 Brett Favre

You aren't allowed a Wisconsin ID card until you've pledged allegience to at least one local team, and have taken an oath to never support any out-of-state team (especially one preceded by the word "Chicago"). As you can tell in the picture atop this post, Zoe not only goes to the games, she also gets very involved. Nathen is sporting the hat that they handed out for free as you entered the stadium. Sara and I were very impressed to see that Nathen had walked off the airplane a few hours earlier wearing his Brewers shirt.

Nathen, Jennifer and Annie come to Milwaukee!!

The world is full of tropical destinations, and pleasure-filled resorts, but Sara's sister Jennifer, her husband Nathen, and their daughter Annie, decided to leave those places be, and come to Wisconsin, in search of a truly Mid-western experience. Much fun, food and festivities were had in the week they were out here, and we are still trying to fill the void they left when they left.
The first major event in Wisconsin Week was a Brewers game. Here they are in front of the legendary Miller Park. At first we were hesitant to buy the tickets to see the Brew Crew since we were sure that Annie and Zoe would single-handedly knock the stadium over. You'll notice in the picture below that they were constantly vigilized by their watchful parents. This was an incredible feat given Zoe's unbridled addiction to stairs (of which there is no short supply at Miller Park). They look pretty darn cute in their pink Brewers outfits, which came home a variety of colors, including Pepsi black, ketcup red, nacho yellow and milky white. Since our seats were in the highest row of the park we didn't have to worry too much about bothering the people around us, and we got a lot more leg room, or wiggle room, as the parents of one and two-year-olds call it. The game was a ton of fun, and lent itself to many picturesque moments, so stay tuned.

Donny, Trevor, Dale, Linda, and the Ferret

Wow, so this is super out of order. I was parusing my list of recent posts and noticed that I had started this one a month ago, but never finished it. These pictures were taken cleeeeeaaaar back in January when we went to our friend Trevor's surprise birthday party at Wauwatosa's finest restraunt, Saz's. Trevor's the guy with the cool beard at the head of the table way back there. The man responsible for introducing us to this table-full of people is Donny (first on the left). He was a fellow actuary at Towers Perrin, and is currently working as a Math teacher for Milwuakee Public Schools. Of all the people I've met in Wisconsin, perhaps of all the people I've met ever, Donny is the best. I owe him tons for making the transition into a new community very easy for Sara and I. If everyone had Donny's charity and generosity, there'd be a lot more good in the world, and a lot more strange mystery cheese-egg bricks at Thanksgiving dinners.
The next picture down is of our good friends Dale and Linda at the same party. Linda is also an ex-Towers Perriner, and we've had many great parties and evenings out with them. Dale is waving a ferret at Zoe in an attempt to mezmerize her with its many endearing qualities. A few weeks prior to this we had introduced Donny, Trevor, Christy and Amanda to our favorite documentary, "The Pursuit of Excellence - Ferrets", wherein a bunch of looney ferret lovers parade their domesticated weasels about at an Ohio Ferretpalooza. Needless to say, its quite entertaining. Ferret fever quickly struck our click and this stuffed critter seemed an apt present for Trevor from Donny. I believe our fellow diners were very disturbed by the ferret we were passing around while awaiting dessert. If you haven't already seen it, next time we cross paths, be sure to ask me to lend you this life-altering film.

The Pursuit of Excellence

Now that I've brought up the topic of ferrets, I must point you to the following links, which you, as readers of my blog, are obligated to view. These are actual clips from the ferret documentary...mere tastes of what has become the leading expose on the true lives of ferrets and the people who love them.

Moving scene wherein the lady in pink discusses the sacred rituals associated with grieving the loss of fallen ferret friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pryEBiR35vc

Part of the Emmy award nominated ferret song (complete soundtrack available next summer):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRfwNjw82GY

Spend Your Summer Afloat

Since summer in Milwaukee only lasts about two months, we are taking full advantage of the year's best 60 days. Our favorite summer activity is lounging about in the pool. We're fortunate enough to live only 30 yards away from the apartment pool, and needless to say, our 10 beach towels are rarely dry. Zoe is the best floater this side of the Mississippi. She rides her sea horse from one side of the pool to the other, all the while tyring her best to sneak a few water licks while I'm not looking. I'm a bit worried that we will never be able to live far from a pool again. I better get a really nice Christmas bonus so I can pay a down payment for the pool we'll have to buy for our house. And if that bonus never comes, there's always the jelly of the month club.

South Dakota Gone Wild, or at least Walled (Ha!)

This giant apatosaurus is a friendly reminder of how rural South Dakota actually is. He or she (you'd think with an animal that big you could tell) also stands as the marker for one of our nation's best tourist traps: Wall Drug. You see road signs for this place for miles and miles. I'm glad to see that they've fenced Pat in there, I'd hate to have havoc wroght upon the good people/person of Wall, South Dakota.

South Wyomakota

We waited here for the aliens to arrive for days! No, we haven't made a recent trip to Wyoming, these are actually pictures that I've been wanting to post on the blog for a long time but haven't gotten around to doing it. This was taken back in October of 2006 as we made our trek across the country to our new Milwaukee home. From mountains to mid-west we made a few interesting stops along the way. Devil's Tower was super cool, and definitely worth the significant detour we had to take to get there. It was during this trip that we came to realize that Wyoming is our nation's sidewalk - a handy route to get from one side of the yard to the other, but mostly just a bunch of flat, grey, square-shaped, nothing.

I'd always wanted to see Mt. Rushmore, but had never had much of a reason to visit South Dakota...until this trip! Once again, its a great stop along the way, but certainly not a final destination. We didn't have any cash in the car, so we weren’t able to park and take a long look at Mt. Rushmore, but we did get some pretty good pictures from the road. I particularly like this one, which I think gives a good idea of where the mountain is and just how big those presidential noggins really are. There's a bunch of pretty cool tunnels and bridges en route, and lets not forget the huge bear watchin' place, which is a great place to go should you like watchin' bears, be they huge or not. Oh, and then there's Wall Drug, which merits a blog of its own. This was our I-90 trip, last March we did the I-80 route. Someday we'll get all crazy and go the I-70 route, but not until we're in the mood for some serious arch kicking.

Star Sighting!

Okay so today on our way home from Dale and Linda's barbecue we were headed toward the highway, trying to avoid the crowds at Milwaukee's annual music and food festival, Summerfest, when we had a major star sighting! Okay, so we sighted the limousine that was transporting a major star. This has got to be the longest limousine I ever saw, and it had a security SUV escort, and judging by the low par of bands on other stages at the Summerfest, we are absolutely certain that we were but one car length away from Tom Petty and some of the Heartbreakers. Tom Petty!! Sara says that when she looked through the limousine window just right she could see the outline of someone's head...we both like to think that it was Tom. I'll never wash my eyes again. My he's looking well these days, isn't he?

Land that I Love

Happy Fourth of July!! Celebrate the independance of your country by blowing up a small potion of it! We were invited to the Holmes' house tonight to enjoy the best drive way fireworks show I've ever seen. Back home in Utah there are specific fireworks you can and can not shoot off legally, out here the rules are a lot more vague. Every city and county have their own fireworks law, Brookfield Police maintain sort of a "don't ask don't tell" policy. This lead to quite an amazing fireworks show, including many high flying and loud screaming mortars, most of which Zoe slept through. She had a great time with the sparklers though, what a cute little girl.

The Brookfield parade this morning was pretty cool too, there were bag pipe bands, vintage cars and roller blading dogs. We all loved the go-karts driven by members of the local Masonic Lodge (I'm thinking about joining just so I can get one of those hats). The best part though was the guy riding the long-horned bull. What a fun time we had. I think I've decided that the Forth of July is my second favorite holiday, with Thanksgiving being a very close third. Sometimes I feel bad calling it the Forth of July, I should be referring to it as Independance Day. The reason I don't is that I'm not totally sure if its spelt "Independance" or "Independence". I love our country. At the parade I looked around and saw such a wide variety of people, from long-haired, nasty-bearded guys to 90-year-old, wheel-chair-bound ladies. All of them got up early to watch strangers walk down the road in celebration of our nation. Doesn't something amazing happen inside when they play "She's a Grand Ol' Flag" or "The William Tell Overture", or my personal favorite, "They're Comin' to America"? No matter what part of it you're in, the USofA is amazing, from sea to shining sea. God Bless America!