The Wall of Water

Now that I can post pictures, here is the proof that we made it to Houston. This is the "Wall of Water" in downtown Houston. It stands 64 feet high and pours 11,000 gallons a water per minute over the wall. Pretty cold when you get near it since it is in the shade and the spray goes pretty far from the fountain.

As you can see, not a snowflake in sight and plenty of sunshine. Forecast is for more today. I hear it is snowing, again, in Wisconsin. Somehow, I don't care. I will when I get back but for now...

Here is the gang of "kids" we had with us for our trip to downtown Houston. Notice mine in shorts; they could not wait to get in those.

Today is Jeff's 18th birthday. I now officially only have 1 child and 2 adults. Here is the birthday boy having breakfast; his favorite pancakes.

More tomorrow....

Finally in Houston!!

As of 4:30 yesterday afternoon, we have made it to Houston. Short story this time but here it goes:

1) While waiting in St. Louis with the weather cool but sunny, they announced that our flight was once again delayed. This was the ONLY flight leaving that was delayed. We tried not to panic since we had a 3 1/2 hour layover in OKC. They later announced that the plane was having issues at Midway and that was causing the delay. Once again, Midway was getting in our way. After a 2 hour delay, we finally got on our plane.

2) With optimism at it's very highest, we reached OKC with time to spare for the connection. After eating lunch at Sonic (my very first time) we finally got on a plane to Houston. Sorry, so excitement here, we actually made it; we even landed early.

3) As we waited for our luggage, Phil arrived to take us the last leg of our journey. As the bags rolled by, we pulled two of our three off quickly and waited for the third. It never came. The Southwest staff at Hobby were very nice and took all my information and told us the bag would be delivered sometime today; as soon as they found it. Phil took us to his house for a wonderful reception with family and a cold glass of Door County wine.

4) I received a call at 8:45 that they found the bag and would deliver it by 12:15. We started a bet on what time the bag would actually get here. Congrats to Shelley who correctly guessed 12:20 on the dot. Pretty much what we expected from Southwest at this point.

5) So, since we missed two days here, we have rescheduled our flight to Friday from Wednesday. Hopefully the weather will be good and we can fly that day; though getting stuck here would not be that bad.

I'll let you know.....

Vacation?? - Part 2

Well, we are still not in Houston. Here is the story:

1) As the afternoon progressed at Midway, our flight to St. Louis got delayed to the point that we would miss our connection to Houston. After talking to a Southwest 1-800 agent, we discovered the next available flight would be on Monday. She suggested we try to get on stand-by for another flight. She did not realize the thousands of people in Midway trying to do the same thing. After waiting in long lines to talk to gate agents, they told us that since there were numerous travelers trying to make that connection, the plane would be held for us. We decided to go ahead and take that flight. While waiting in the boarding line, they informed us the flight would be further delayed since they were short a crew member and had to wait for her arrival. This delayed us an additional 30 minutes.

2) Upon our arrival in St. Louis, we noticed a plane at the gate where our connection was to be but of course, that was not our plane. That flight had already departed. Needless to say, we have 40 very angry travelers who had all received assurances that the connection would be held for us. There claim was that the flight was too delayed and they could not wait. Our argument was that the flight attendant delayed us so they should have waited. Anyway, after a supervisor spent a long time on the phone, they finally got us hotel vouchers and flights for the next day.

3) So, here we sit in St. Louis airport again waiting for our flight to Oklahoma City where we will finally connect to Houston later this afternoon. With clears skies and a good weather forecast, we are fairly optimistic about making it to Houston today.

I'll let you know...

Vacation??

Supposedly we are on vacation but I am pretty sure this was not the way we planned it to happen. Here is the sequence of events:

1) We left Wisconsin in a snowstorm (pretty stupid in itself) to travel to Chicago. After 7 hours of travel we arrived at my mother-in-laws to an unplowed driveway and only me in boots. We shoveled our way in and crashed. With not much food in the house, we had to go back out for dinner. A long day in itself.

2) After an enjoyable couple of days with Chicago family, we headed to Midway Airport for our trip to Houston. As we were checking in our bags and the sun was setting that day, dense fog was dropping throughout Chicagoland. After a couple of delays, they finally cancelled ours and about 100 more flights going out that night. I was able to secure another flight for us but not till the next afternoon. We had trouble contacting our relatives to come and get us so we called a local hotel and spent the night there.

3) So, here we sit now, again at Midway. We had to leave the hotel at noon and our flight is not until close to 5PM. Not my idea of a place to spend time this holiday.

Hopefully my next post will be about our time in Houston. Hopefully.....

Snow in Wisconsin

I got a request from a non-snowbound relative for pictures of the snow we have and boy, do we have it. We cannot remember a December in the 20 years that we have lived here with so much snow. Actually, for most of the last 10, we were lucky to have snow at Christmas. This top one is the backyard, after our most recent 4 inch or more snowfall. Hard to tell how much we really got that day since the 20 MPH winds were blowing it around so much. The predicition is for more again tomorrow and Wednesday. UGH!! Enough already!

This is the driveway prior to snowblowing. You can see Ben's car in the distance buried also.

Hope this brings the winter spirit to all reading this. We wish you all happy holidays as we head to warmer pastures. Talk to you next year!

State Bowling Video

Here is a video of our triumphant trip to Milwaukee for Jeff's Special Olympics State Bowling Tournament. We had a great time despite the travel through the snow both down and back home. Enjoy!

The beginning of the landscaping

As you know, I have been complaining about our landscaping not getting done. We finally got tired of waiting for the company to call us back so we contacted a different company. They were abot the come that week and at least start the job. It was too late for any new plantings so they will come back in the spring to put those in. Here are some before and after pictures for you:

Hopefully you can get an idea of the changes. The trees up front will be much easier to get around with the mower than they have been in the last 20 years that we have lived here. Not that we are mowing any more this year but looking towards the future. A funny postscript to this whole story: About 2 weeks after we had this done, there was a knock on the back door one evening (yes, it was already dark). Here is the guy from the first company we contacted back in May with his landscape plan. Unbelievable, only took him 5 months to get back to us! He seemed a bit surprised that we has already gotten it done. I informed him that they never returned my calls concerning this so we had to go with another company. Not sure what he expected after waiting so long to get back to us. He gave us the plan anyway in case we were interested in any of the plantings he had. It was interesting but we will stick with the company that actually came and did the work. I will make sure to post pictures when all the plants are in next spring. Hopefully, that will not be the next time I have to blog! :-)

Saying goodbye to Belle

As the title states, we had to say goodbye to our loyal dog, Belle, on Monday afternoon. She has suffered with heart issues for the past year and had gotten to the point over the weekend that she was expending all her energy just to continue breathing. We do and will continue to miss her greatly. Some of the things we will always remember about her:

- every evening after dinner her staring at us knowing that it was "walk time"

- having ice cream for dessert and her waiting for her chance to lick the bowls when we were done

- making waffles and her salivating knowing that she got the leftovers

- the inevitable asking to go out as soon as we sat down for dinner (expect of course when we were having waffles!)

- greeting us at the door with the "you're finally home" look (and I think smile also)

- having to hunt her down in the house around the 4th of July because the firecrackers scared her so

- not having a clue what to do with a ball except watch it roll past her

- playing with her in the living room as she barks and growls at us, trying to look tough

Thanks for listening to me blog about her. She was my puppy ever since the first day I saw her at the kennel. I know I will see her again some day because as we know, all dogs who give such unconditional love as she did, go to heaven.

Our Packer events

Not much going on with the house so I thought I would entertain you with our Packer stories.


Part 1


For the August 3rd Family Night at Lambeau Field, we were given tickets by the Wisconsin Lions Foundation. As we entered the stadium, the rain started to come down. By the time we got to the ramp leading to our seats, the lightning had started and they were not letting anyone into the seating area. Lambeau Field has all metal bench seating so probably not a great idea to be sitting on wet metal seats in a thunderstorm. This is the view we had of the stadium:

This is the view into the lower area of the stadium, a sea of people:

All the people in blue shirts are part of our group with the Lions. The Packers gave out 1500 tickets to the campers who attend Wisconsin Lions Camp and their families. So, a good portion of the people here are kids and adults with some kind of special need. We actually had a good place to wait, with something to lean against and a view to the seats but it still got tiring:

After waiting 1 1/2 hours, we decided to leave and beat the crowd out when they cancelled the scrimmage. So, we walked back to our car, about 3 blocks, in the rain and went home. We found out later that they did play the scrimmage but it was cut short. We decided that evening to make sure we got tickets for the Family Night next year since Jeff was disappointed about not seeing "his Packers".

Part 2

On Thursday the 7th, Tom emailed me from work that Krause was selling their seats to the first preseason game. He had to put our name in and they would draw for the right to buy the tickets. He put our name in for two tickets and was able to get them. Not sure how it was really drawn but we were happy to get them. So, Jeff and I packed up our dinner and off we went to Lambeau, for the second time in a week. We packed sandwiches and tailgated when we got there:

Okay, so it was only PBJ's and chips but we did eat it sitting on the tailgate of my car. After eating, we walked to the stadium and right to our seats (no forecast for rain that night):

Jeff enjoying the pre-game:

Oh and did you hear that the Packers have a new quarterback? Here is a shot of him taking one of his first snaps (in the middle in #12):

Overall, we had a great time watching them, even if it was just an exhibition game. I could not count the times Jeff yelled "GO PACKERS" to his team. It was definitely a wonderful experience for him.

Spring Flowers

The flowering bushes in our yard are in bloom finally. The top one is a bush we have behind our garage. You can't see it from the house but as you round the backside of the garage is this beautiful bush with dark red leaves and white flowers. Could not resist taking a picture while it looked so beautiful!

This picture is the lilac bushes lining the north side of our driveway. Our original plan for planting them there was to block the side entrance of our neighbors house. The house is very close to our driveway (you can see the gray siding) and used to be a duplex with renters going in and out the side door. That was about 20 years ago. They now make a nice border though the house is no longer used as a duplex and that door is rarely used. They do make a beautiful statement, both visually and by scent, when they are in bloom.

Spring us sprung!

Spring has finally sprung in my small town. I will post some pictures this weekend of the flowering trees and shrubs. It's been a long time coming!

Enough already!!

Okay, so I haven't posted for a while. Last time I was saying how pretty the snow was but that was early December. Now it is mid-February and we just got another foot of the fluffy stuff. We now have about 3 feet of snow on the ground, and that includes the snow we lost when we had a January thaw. The first picture was taken last Saturday prior to the 10 inches we received on Sunday and the 3 more today.

This second one is tonight. Not as good a picture as I was not here in the daylight (as I has a long commute since we got 3 MORE INCHES OF SNOW!!) If anyone has an "in"with Mother Nature, please let her know that pretty much everyone here in North Central Wisconsin has had enough of her white stuff. We are very much longing for the look and feel of green grass right now.