Who'd win in a fight? California cows or Wisconsin cows?

I need to update more! Too much happens in between my posts I start loosing track! Eeeek!

1) August 14 and15 Adam came to visit me all the way from our favorite place in the world - Fresno, CA! To get the true Wisconsin feel, we decided to hit up the Wisconsin State Fair. To summarize this experience I would say "Deep fried ________ on a stick" Anything and everything you would want you can find. Spaghetti and meatballs, butter, Oreos, cheesecake, pie etc etc etc. The grossest thing was the Krispie Kreme chocolate covered bacon cheeseburger (donut-meat-cheese-chocolate covered bacon-donut). And I wonder why the MidWest boasts such large waistlines (which reminds me, I should go for a run....) Also, we met some fabulous goats and cows and watched the AMAZING pig races! To boot, there was a dino exhibit (why not!) And if that isn't enough to entice you, the people watching alone was golden. Mullets and overalls =sexy sexy sexy. I also took Adam downtown also so he could see how cool my new city is compared to Fresno :)

Yum Yum!

My new friend - the earless goat! For some reason, Adam wasn't nearly as excited to pet the farm animals...his loss.

Run piggies, run!

The animatronic dinos that you had to pay an extra dollar to see. Best dollar I've ever spent!

2) I went mini golfing with the ladies which was great but the humidity was so bad the mosquitoes were out on an all you can eat buffet. My arms and legs are so bitten up (speaking of sexy sexy sexy)! We also went out at a later date to see Eat Pray Love which was mildy disappointing in my book...but after the movie I ran into my old Build A Bear manager from Grand Rapids back when I was 16! We reminisced about my opening pitch with the Chicago Cubs memory in which her husband had given me extensive baseball pitching lessons! What a truly small world!

It was country-western themed!

3)Speaking of people I've met and baseball - I met Prince Fielder. Aparrently some big shot for the Milwaukee Brewers he came into my room at work on some tour. I had no idea who he was so generally I made an ass out of myself making ridiculous faces at his children.. But I probably wouldn't know Brad Pitt if he bit me in the ass...which I think would be a whole other kind of media frenzy if Brad Pitt starts publicly biting people's bums....

4)This past weekend (if you didn't get to see me) I went back to Grand Rapids for the 5k Mud Run! More like a 3 mile obstacle course than a 5k, it was money well spent. Knee deep in thick gross mud? Army crawling through dirty water? Climbing over walls in the woods? Hell yea! Although the official times have not yet been posted, I think it took me around an hour to complete (yikes!) but it was SOOO much fun and now my bug bites are accompanied by scrapes and bruises. Being this beat up is like the good old Elgin, TX days! I'll keep looking to see if the organization posts times and photos from the run and if they ever crop up, I will share them diligently.

In addition to the run, Meg and I chose to attempt to make jello shots at 1am. They were quite potent. The second night we stuck with cookie bars (again at 1am though)

Squeaky clean prior to the race

Surprisingly, my shoes got fairly clean! But I think they might need to be officially retired to the great track in the sky.

Milwaukee...so far

Hello again! I survived my first week at work, so I thought it would be a great time for an update!

First of all - work is going really well! I'm adjusting quick to how this hospital is run and I like it leaps and bounds more than the Fresno job. It is a much larger program, a newer building, and better organization of how the studies are done. They seemed so impressed by how quick I was catching on that they put me out on my own already! I can tell I've grown a lot since when I first started the last job as I feel more confident in my echo abilities and my (it sounds so dorky) interpersonal skills! I'm hoping that the job doesn't just seem rose-colored since I was so thrilled to the hell out of Fresno! We'll see what happens. One thing I'm not happy with is how many people say, "OMG! Why would you leave California!? I wouldn't!" Let me make this clear - yes, yes you would have. It's hard to explain that not every property in California is coastal property. My saving grace has been 2 employees in my department who also once lived in Cali, but still moved to the dairy heartland (and they HAD lived on the coast!) When I tell them where I lived, they don't even question my reasoning.

As far as my free time has been spent...I've been reading up on what to do in Milwaukee and there seems like a lot that I'm looking forward to visiting. Hopefully they'll make for some good entries. I discovered that I chose a good safe town to live in (PHEW!) and they have a small farmer's market every Saturday morning. It's smaller than the one in Clovis, and it specializes more in veggies than fruits, but it'll suit my needs just fine! I scored a huge squash for on.y $.50.

Yea...I might have been the youngest person there...

Giant squash!!!

I found a free Zumba class on July 31 (which was National Dance Day - who knew!) and decided to check it out. I had so much fun, I signed up for the actual class! If I find a belly dancing class out here, I might try that again (or strip-aerobics ;P haha!) Here's where I go! I think the name is cute. I'd post a pic of me in action, but we all know that wouldn't be cute.


August 3 was my dream concert! A big reason I chose to come out to WI by the beginning of Aug instead of mid month was because my FAVORITE band of all time was playing in Milwaukee after being on hiatus for about 5 years - Something Corporate! They pretty much rocked! I was so thrilled to go as I've been listening to them for about 10 years now! It was, to date, my favorite concert yet. Sweaty, but good! Photos compliments of the venue (because no one's personal shots ever look good from a concert!) It was a small concert, so we were pretty close though (there was no opening bands it was that small!)

Scroll down to the post right after this one to see a video from the night - They played one of the best songs (in my opinion, and the opinion of the chanting crowd!) that they don't do at every show!

I'm one of those dark shadowed blobs on the right side of the photo! See me?!

This last weekend, Aug 7, I met a group of girls all in their 20's and 30's who get together a few times every month just to hang. We all went out to dinner downtown followed by bar hopping. We only managed to hop to one bar because we started having way too much fun. We turned the place into a dance party in no time. I feel very fortunate to have met them and am definitely looking forward to going out again!

Dinner at Louise's

I think we intimidated every guy in the place!

Video from the SoCo concert