Is it just me, or did June FLY by?!

June went by soo quickly, I'm not even sure where it actually went! I meant to update my blog sooner that this, but I've apparently been having so much fun that I haven't been able to get to it! So if you'd please take a seat in my DeLorean as we go back about one month...and please don't touch the flux capacitor, thank you.

The first weekend in June was the much anticipated rock climbing for the first time outdoors adventure! I'd love to brag and say I totally kicked ass, but I won't, cause I didn't. I was thinking climbing outdoors would be easier than in a gym since you can choose whichever route up you want, but I was sorely mistaken. Just ask my arm and leg muscles and they will verify this soreness! I didn't make it to the top of any routes, but I did alright and I wasn't disappointed in myself one bit. Plus it was hot as Hades which didn't help. I think the biggest challenge of the day was not climbing itself, but rather trusting complete strangers who just learned how to belay with your life as you slowly start shimmying up a vertical rock face. But no big deal. I mean, c'mon, as if plummeting to the ground from a few stories up would be the worst thing to ever happen to me! But all went well and look ma! I still have all my appendages!

Jim got significantly higher than I did - can you see him up there?

Here I am! Going up up up!

So fashion saavy

The next day was spent at the Milwaukee Zoo as it was a free 'Children's Hospital Employee Appreciation Day!' You don't have to ask me twice to go to the zoo! Free snacks, drinks, and dinner were provided as well as an EPIC trip on the zoo train and a cow milking demonstration (oooooh ahhhh! Wisconsin is too damn cool for the rest of you! Who needs California anyways?)

My favorite Mold-A-Rama Machines! This one as a blue moose!

How cute is this guy!? He has a cleft palate so his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth.

The imitation is so close to reality, it's hard to tell the difference

It's only .25 to feed the goats! Who wouldn't want to?

Some girlfriends from work and I decided we needed to go out and that the best way to do this was to take a late night party cruise down the river and into Lake Michigan on the oh-so-fabulous Edelweiss boat (Note: at the time it was awesome. Upon passing the boat dock in the daylight a few weeks later, the Edelweiss looks like a special piece of work). For one small fee, we got an hour and a half boat trip with endless beer and nachos! What else could a girl ask for?! We met what had to be the largest group of short men congregated into one area ever, but thanks to the beer, had a fun time talking with them anyways. There was even a group sing-a-long of the Reading Rainbow theme song led by yours truly. Post boat cruis, I felt it necessary to ride the mechanical bull at the nearby bar. In a dress. Because I am One.Classy.Broad. It was a blast.

Who's the tallest person in this photo? ME!

This is the only nice picture of Sara and I

It's the Texan in me coming out!

The aftermath....

There was a baby shower thrown in there somewhere for one Miss Chelsie Vanden Heuvel who has to be one of the cutest pregnant ladies around. And I even won a game! That was a small small small victory and a short lived one as afterwards one of the other guests told us how she recently spent 7 months in Australia and prior to that spent 6 months running across the USA to raise money for MS! Talk about feeling lazy! (But really, what an accomplishment! I am fortunate to have the opportunity to meet such interesting and great people while living here!)

GreekFest was attended. Like other fests before it, it is just a tacky carnival with a specific food theme, but it was free and that gyro sure was tasty! Nothing like hanging around some carnies to feel real good about yourself and counting the number of mullets you see is always a tried and true American pastime.


Speaking of 'fests' though... The very end of June SummerFest started! It's actually still going on now ( I think it ends the 9th or 10th...) To those unaware, it is touted at the "World's Largest Music Festival" and they are not short of amazing acts to see! I could easily have sound someone worth seeing everyday of the festival, but I settled for just going on the first day and seeing my all time favorite "Jack's Mannequin" (same singer/songwriter as Something Corporate which, as you may recall, I purposefully moved to Milwaukee 2 weeks early about a year ago to see in concert). It was glorious (and I'm not just referring to the cheese sticks I ate!) I had a blast and the lack of sleep that night was definitely worth it. I would have liked to have been closer, but (contrary to popular belief) I'm not so much of a nut that I'll skip out of work and wait 10+ hours out in the hot sun for the show to start. I'd say on the nut scale, I'm more pistachio and a little less walnut.

SummerFest was so crowded - it was terrifying just walking around!

Waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting for the concert to begin.

Yea!

While we waited for the show to start, there was some EXCELLENT people watching (an insane # of girls in club wear - odd for outdoor concerts). The biggest faux pas was no shoes! EEEEW!

Since I've been here about a year - that means my lease it up! I opted not to renew (which inevitably is causing some issues with the apartment complex as they now begin their ritual of nickle and dime-ing me to kingdom come despite a great tenant track record) and instead signed a new lease on a charming little lower half of a duplex only 3 miles from work. Hopefully NOW I'll be able to cycle my little hiney on into work (unless it starts snowing in August!) Expect pictures sometime in August once I do the ever stressful move. By the way, I am now taking applications for moving help. Be advised that pizza and beer will be provided for your hard work.

We'll end this blog on my 4th of July weekend. This is the 1st 4th in a very long time that I didn't spend in Grandville! It was a little sad, but I made the best of it. It was a gorgeous weekend (I hadn't mentioned before that June's weather was a wee bit iffy - rather chilly and raining for the most par). It took long enough to get here, but it finally feels like summer ( I feel the sneers from California already, I know I know, it's felt like summer there for months and months and months) Sunday was a great day spent at the beach where I remarkably got some color other than white or red! It was followed up by a BBQ, fireworks and a bonfire. The actual 4th was fairly lazy as well with the majority of the day spent stretched out on a blanket in the park. Coveted 'Buffalo wieners' were grilled and beers were consumed (and from what we figure, both of these activities were slightly illegal in the area they were being done...) I missed a parade and any fireworks that day, but oh well. I have a feeling that this holiday is kind of an annual thing, so many next year.

Ahh - Sandy toes!

Look for me - I'm the white one in the picture!

Beautiful park day!

We forgot utensils for the brats (and buns) so I ate mine with tongs!

Upcoming shortly in July is a trip back to the mitten to visit friends and then out to Colorado!!!
Keep in touch!

I've been doing some crazy random shit.

There's been a lot happening lately on my weekends! Follow me on my journey to even before my last post (Jim's graduation)- the weekend of the 14th!

I had absolutely NOTHING to do and absolutely NO ONE to do it with...That's a recipe for boredom disaster right there. But a little but of thrifty web-surfing later, I discovered that May 14 was National World Fair Trade Day (Fair Trade = Trade in which fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries). Given this well-known and highly celebrated holiday, Milwaukee was holding a scavenger hunt with a possibility of prizes upon completing. Now I love a good free scavenger hunt so you didn't have to ask me twice. Despite the rain off I went. My goal was to go to 6 different fair trade stores in the city and figure out their featured product and the country it is from. Not only was it something to do, it was a way to help me get familiarized the city! Here are some pictures!

It rained....a lot....

This place was a wee bit in the ghheeeeetttoooo.

This is a charming little cafe that I'd LOVE to go back too!

Keeping with the theme of free stuff (who doesn't love it!?) I wound up at the Outdoor Adventure Expo after my scavenger hunt where I proceeded to get MORE free stuff! Look at my final haul. I tallied it to over $40 in stuff! Yea!!!

Check out my haul! (yes undies included! Haha)

Sunday I went to an all girls BBQ hosted by the lovely and soon-to-be mom Chelsie! No pictures from that event though - we were all too busy chatting, laughing, and eating! I'm lucky to have met such a fun group of girls here in the city!

Monday was finally a nice day and I got out my bicycle to ride to work! Good news is I made it! Bad news is - it was terrifying! The sheer amount of traffic was soooo not safe. No way I'll be making that ride at 530 am. I almost turned around about 2 miles from the hospital because it was so scary, but a quick trip into Starbucks and I decided I wasn't going to go that far to quit! Coming back home was a different story though.. 7 miles from home my legs cramped up and I crapped out! I had to call to get picked up and to be taken home :( Shameful fail...For what it's worth, it was sooooo freakishly windy that I'm going to go ahead and pretend that makes my 20 miles more like 40. I can feel you judging me through the screen as you read this..

My cycling motivation.

Victory!!!

My point of failure...20 miles from the start and my poor poor legs were screaming.

I wore longs sleeves, but my wrists got burned a bit. I look like I have Wonder Woman bracelets on!

As you already know, my next weekend was Jim's graduation ceremony. See the last posts photos if you missed it! Pretending I'm more fashion saavy than I am, I chose to wear these shoes..... Bad idea. I'm constantly in denial, but I think I'm just a flats kind of gal... Congrats again to Jim for his accomplishment (I'm referring to sitting through that LONG ceremony..but congrats for graduating too). His family took everyone out to a nice brunch at the botanical gardens afterwards to finish celebrating! We went to a Brewers game that weekend too because they were playing the Colorado Rockies and I love me anything associated with CO :) That includes you mama!

Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. :( Is there a secret to heels I'm missing? They hurt like %*@%&%$

It was supposed to rain, but we couldn't have asked for a nicer morning!

We didn't have time to tailgate this time :( Maybe one day!

The Rockies got SLAUGHTERED :( There were a lot of balls flying in the stands by us too. Made me nervous! If anyone was going to get hit in the face, it'd probably be me.

Monday, with nothing to do, I went to the rock climbing gym and conquered the stupid wall I've been struggling with so long!!! Yea accomplishment. Though I seem to be a wee bit bruised...

If you look right below me where it dips in...that's where I struggled! It took a bit more upper body strength than I seem to possess. But I did it!

Leg bruises for the win!

Tuesday I went to play the supportive friend roll and saw Adam play in the local Wauwatosa Community Band. They played music from Fantasia. I was practically the only audience member without blue hair. Want to talk about a confidence booster?It's not often that I feel like the hottest girl in the room! Maybe I have a career in modeling after all...

Yea Adam!

In other random news: Echo turned 4 years old! Happy Birthday Echo! Also Sylvia the Silver Sable surpassed the 100,000 mile marker! Congratulations Sylvia - lets make it 100,000 more! (Please, Sylvia, I'm begging you!)

I'm glad I only spent $2 on this toy as Echo couldn't give a shit less. Maybe it's not a 4-year old appropriate item?

I meant to take a pic at 100,000 even, but I forgot. so 100,015 will have to do

Now we're up to speed. Phew. This memorial day weekend shaped up to be an odd one too. Saturday, Masuo invited me to a BoulderCross competition. I had never heard of this, but agreed to it anyways! Turns out it was a biking and urban climbing event. You cycle and race to a certain location and then you climb something (be it a side of a building, a bridge, a wall etc etc etc, which BTW the police frown upon) In one word, it was WILD. Nothing like I have ever done before. I have no delusions of my physical fitness level so I routinely brought up the rear, but I still participated! Unfortunately, on one leg of the race, I got very very lost and very very removed from my fellow competitors. Only having been downtown a handful of times, I was a little overwhelmed. By the time I decided I lost hope in finding the group and to turn around, it took me about an hour to find my car again! I was tired and sad :( Turns out though, only 2 people were competing in my level I signed up for, so I still won second place by default! I won a chalk bag, a camping cook kit, and a punch card to a climbing gym! Oh.. and on one of the climbs, I fell off the wall. I thought my leg bruises before were bad...

This was a little harder than my level! Still fun to watch!

This guy was nuts!

Me having a go at it! My determination faces are SEXY

This is Kevin, he helped by bring up the rear mostly because he had to carry this huge mat on his back - otherwise I'm sure he'd have ridden circles around me (he actually was still biking faster than I can with this thing!)

I passed the kite festival downtown on my bike which was cool

I have an identical bruise on the back of my other arm too! Plus some bloody scrapes! I'm afraid someone is going to think I'm abused at home!

On Memorial day (today if you're reading this the same day as I'm posting this) I rode my bike to downtown Waukesha to watch the parade. Online it said the parade was 10:15-10:45. Turns out the parade was more like 10-15 minutes in length. I bought a smoothie to enjoy during the event and I hardly finished it before the parade was over. SHORTEST PARADE EVER...and no free candy was thrown. Disappointment.

Overpriced strawberry orange grapefruit smoothie. Yum!

I would say 75% of the parade was high school bands.

Later on in the day I invited Adam to join me for CholocateFest! Sounds promising, yes? No! There was hardly ANY chocolate! Mostly unsafe looking rides (Adam mentioned he needed a tetanus shot just looking at some of the rides!) and fried food stands. It cost $8 to get in and then they wanted another $6 to get a "sample stamp card" Rip-off! We just walked around, got sunburned (Between looking like a lobster and my bruises, they're going to wonder what happened to me at work next week!), and tried some chocolate dipped bacon. It wasn't what I hoped it would be, but at least it was something to do (and now I know not to go again!)

Excited for the chocolate we didn't get.

Chocolate Bacon! It was...salty.

Phew. Well that's my update y'all! Stay tuned next weekend for free work sponsored zoo day and (finally) my rock climbing trip to Devil's lake!

Happy Graduation to Jim!

Awesome....Just plain awesome. Congratulations to Jim for graduating!

Momma always told me I was a winner!

I was all prepared to write an entry about how nothing has been happening, but that I remembered it's been about a month...something must have happened!

I went to another Admirals hockey game in April (cause I enjoy them so!) and this time I got picked to go out on the ice and play a cheesy game in between periods! I was competing in a frisbee toss against another gentleman. We each had 10 frisbees and we had to try to throw them through a door! Of course I won :) (shame on you for those reading who might have thought I wouldn't!) My prize was 4 tickets to a future game next season! It was awfully fun! And I think the guy I beat was pretty devastated that he lost to a girl... sucker!

Wow - look at that form! Pro athlete!

The wide shot of my 10 seconds of fame

Winning! And I got to keep the XL promo shirt they made me wear too! As if I wasn't fashion forward enough already!

Here's a video of my triumphant victory too! Please note my amazing victory dance at the end - it's like I was professionally trained by Usher or something.

Also - in spirit of the holiday season, Easter eggs were dyed! They were dino-licious. I am so bad-ass it almost hurts.



I finally checked out the Milwaukee Art Museum too. No pictures from there though as I wasn't sure museum etiquette on photographing art. That, and I'm not much of an art connoisseur so I wouldn't know what to photograph anyways!

That was all in April...sorry to report: a whole lot of nothing of consequence has been happening since...

I purchased a Groupon to the indoor rock climbing gym per harassment from my friend I met hiking, Masuo. I figured it'll help me prepare for my outdoor soiree that had been canceled from the last blog and rescheduled to June. I went once - I'm not that good, but I have a good teacher as Masuo appears to climb anything and everything.



I took my new bike out for it's maiden voyage - my ass is ridiculously sore which is prompting me to purchase extra padded cycling shorts. I'll let you know if I ever achieve riding to work (we'll see if it ever stops raining!)

I'm trying to branch out and try to cook new things. This is mainly because I shop without a grocery list and end up picking up some obscure items... maybe I should stop that.

I'm just recovering from a nice spring cold. Maybe now that it's gone, I'll have something more exciting to tell you all for May. Hmmm.....