Still enjoying summer!!!

Since my epic adventure with the mama, I've still been keeping busy busy!  Let me give you a quick update!

Mid July, the New Belgium Tour de Fat came to Milwaukee.  For those of you unfamiliar, Tour de Fat is a bicycle and beer festival encouraging, go figure, cycling and drinking :P (responsibly of course).  Living in Fort Collins, the home of New Belgium, my mom has experienced the original Tour de Fat in all its glory. It's quite the event out there, too! Dare I say thousands show up?! It was so popular it started touring 'round the good 'ole USA and found itself in Milwaukee - where maybe a hundred or so showed...  So not quite the blazing Colorado event, but still fun.  I got to ride sill bikes!

Preluding the slow bike ride with the Rhyme-ese twins. I sadly did not bike in the extremely slow ride :( 

I did end up hopping on this sucker. It was very hard to pedal in the grass and very unsatisfying, too. All you did was spin in circles. Maybe I didn't drink enough beer....

Best bike of the day since it was so hot!

It's not a bike, but spinning is so much fun!

Not sure if you're supposed to climb the city sculptures, but no one stopped me.

Also in July - I went to Chicago to visit the aquarium!!!!!!! Woot woot.  It's been years since I've seen it, so it was nice to go. Made me crave Red Lobster though.... is that wrong?  I also saw the famous shiny Millenium Park bean for the first time ever!  I've been in the MidWest on and off for over a decade now and this is my first time!? What the hell have I been doing?

                       

Can you tell their special exhibit was jellies?

                   

Kissing my fish prince... that's how the story goes, right?

                   

JELLIES!!!

                                           

                           

In the ice cave

                 

I thought these little eels were HILARIOUS. 

                 

Da bean.

                 

Obligatory "Hey mom, look! I'm in the bean!" photo.

                         

I'm in this one, too. But it's more of a 'Where's Waldo' theme

                           

My new Chicago bar

No pictures, but I also hit up Six Flags with my friend Michelle (same Michelle from skydiving!) It was blistering HOT HOT HOT out (over 104!) so we opted to not take any photos since we were feeling quite moist from sweat and agreed that we had looked better...

Oh- and in case you haven't noticed on Facebook: I BOUGHT A NEW CAR!!!!!!!!!!! My first brand new car ever! I'm quite excited (though not about the car payment and the higher insurance) but I feel like it was much needed. Poor Sylvia the Silver Sable was struggling and who knows how long she was going to hold out.  Now I am the proud owner of a light green Fiat 500.  It's a tiny little peanut car, so I guess I get out of lugging people around town and always being the DD :P  I even got the full "pain in the ass, we're going to give you a total run around" experience from the car dealership.  Yea me!  Although there has been no official name chosen, I'm leaning towards Kermit.

Beep beep! It's a manual, too :P

I can officially parallel park anywhere

In the front

It does have a back seat, but only for your friends who have no legs.

Well, I think that's about it for now.  Things to look forward to for the rest of summer include a wedding (tomorrow actually!), Dad coming for a visit, and (hopefully) a hang-gliding trip (assuming the stupid company ever calls back to confirm my appointment.  Oh - and I went rock climbing outdoors again, but I don't have those pictures up yet: so I'll try to include that next time, too!  Catch ya on the flip side!

Mamas are falling from the sky!

Heeeeeelllllllloooooooo again!  Welcome back to another oh-so-thrilling and exciting update from yours truly! I must say, things have quieted down a lot for me, but I guess not traveling through Europe anymore will do that to a girl.  But it hasn't been all boring! Here we go!

Once I got back to the good 'ole USofA, I had a skydiving date with Jim and Michelle. They were both newbies to throwing themselves out of planes and they didn't need to twist my arm to get me to go again! It was, of course, a fantastic time!  We had to wait a bit before we actually got to jump which killed the adrenaline a bit, but no bother.  We all made it up and down safely.  I especially had the most touchy feely tandem instructor imaginable to thank for that!  While Jim and Michelle were harnessed up and abandoned by their respective instructors, mine had me kneeling awkwardly on the ground while he mimed our proximity to one another during the jump.  And by mimed, I mean pushed his crotch into my back.  Quite odd, but I'm not about to piss off a guy who has my life in his hands for the next hour :P And I even got a hug once we landed!  Everybody loves a ginger... 

 

I have awesomely brave friends!!! Way to go Michelle! 

 

Jim and I (sweating and) holding up our triumphant certificates

I got yet another nasty bruise from the skydiving harness.  I don't think I'll ever not be black and blue.

Continuing on with the creepy men theme: I went dancing with the girls in a prominently Hispanic part of town! We went out for margaritas and rode the chili pepper (think vegetable version of a mechanical bull)and then got our salsa on!  It was like I was surrounded by hundreds of latin Tom Cruise's - all the guys were so tiny! But they sure do love to dance with the white ladies! So silly.  I was even told that I look like a hot Taylor Swift.....definitely one of the more creative pick up lines I suppose.

It was pouring rain that day so we ended up looking like hot messes (emphasis on the hot part)

 

Holding on to the vicious pepper!

I went to Michigan for a weekend cause Miss Brenna became a Mrs.!  Congrats to the beautiful bride and groom!!!  The wedding was quite lovely (and so were the drinks :P)

 

Pretty pretty! 

 

A wonderful high school friend turned bridesmaid, Liz and I!

 

And another gorgeous attendant, Caitlin! It was wonderful to see my old friends! 

Meg's papa made me drinks :P 2 screaming orgasms to be exact!

THEN MY MAMA CAME TO VISIT ME!!!
We did the following:

1) The Lakefront Brewery tour where we got drunk before noon!

 

Me happy with my full beer

 

Mama sad with her empty beer

  

2) Ate at Barnacle Buds (once we found it! Stupid hidden restaurants)

3) We saw Darius Rucker (COUNTRY HOOTIE) and Lady Antebellum at SummerFest 

 

Mom cracking up at a not-quite-petite man took the tiny bench seat right next to her. This picture doesn't do him justice.

 

"I ONLY WANNA BE WITH YOOOHOOOO!"

  

Lady A - Let's be honest. Their songs are good, but we only went cause the guys are good looking

4) Went to a Brewers game (and roasted in the 100 degree heat! Ouch Ouch Ouch) We also got drinks to cool us down and we all know how alcohol works in heat :P

 

Racing meat! God Bless Milwaukee

 

Our seats were awesome, except they were 100% free of shade in the 95 degree day.  We were dogging it (and the frozen alcoholic drink probably didn't help :P)

5) We got mama/daughter tattoos (We are such a terrible influence on eachother! But it's ok. It just means we're more fun that way!)  I'd say we thought about it in depth before we decided to put something permanent on our bodies, but that would ruin how spontaneous we are.

The stencil before! Last chance to change my mind!

 

Turns out wrists are kinda sensitive...

 

Mom's turn

 Looking awfully relaxed

 

The finished product!  Mom's represented by the red balloon while mine is the purple one!

6)Mama was envious that I got to go skydiving, so she went too!!!!!!!!!!!!  Don't you wish your mother was as kick-ass as mine? (Well, I guess Erich doesn't, since we have the same mama, but the rest of you, the rest of you should be TOTALLY jealous!)

 

Signing the death waivers

 

 

Getting saddled up! While this is happening- mom turns to me and whispers"Yes!  I got the cute one!" refering to her tandem partner! :D Oh mama!!!

 

Nerves? Excitement? She's ready to go!

Success!  She rocked it out! So proud of you, mom!

6) We generally laughed so hard, at any given time one of us could have peed our pants :D  Who else goes to see Magic Mike with their moms?!


Unfortunately Mama had to go back home to Colorado and now I'm all alone again :(   But that leaves me a bit more time for car shopping!  Silvia the Silver Sable has been having some issues (she recently had to get towed) so I think it may be time to upgrade and buy my first ever new car!  I have no idea what I want - so suggest away, friends!!!

 

My tow truck driver was so....sexy?

 

This is how I feel about poor poor Silvia.

And, on that note, I shall bid you adieu.  But not before leaving you with some more awesome photos (cause I know you crave them)

 

Boxed Moscato? Lizard mask?  Yes, please

HOLY SHIT! PIZZA!