Well into Summer

I hang my head in shame as I realize how badly my blogs have been neglected through Spring and, now, into Summer.

It is really summer in Wisconsin -- and a beautiful summer it is.  The season began extremely early with lovely temperatures in March and April, so everything began blooming a bit sooner than it probably should have.  After heavy rains early on, we've had very dry weather coupled with extremely hot and humid one week, then cool (almost cold) the next week.  Now, finally, it seems to have leveled off with lovely days (high 70s/low 80s) with low humidity, light breezes, and cold nights for sleeping.  I love this kind of summer!

Also neglected these past months have been friends and former colleagues.  In an effort to remedy that situation, 3 of my former office mates and friends (Dennis, Sherry, and Char) and I got together for lunch the Tuesday after Memorial Day and had a lovely time catching up.  Unfortunately, 2 of our regulars (Chuck and Harvey) couldn't join us so I still needed to catch up with them.  Today, I was able to have lunch with Chuck at one of our favorite places (Atlas Coffee Mill) at a table on the terrace overlooking the Fox River and the dam.  With today's lovely weather, it was a really fun time.

Mike Schilleman has been in Canada all week fishing and returned to Peg's yesterday so the guys all went golfing today before he heads home tomorrow.  Peg had us all to dinner this evening and we had a really good time catching up with what's going on in Utah, as well as planning our Badger/Utah State outing coming up in September.  We managed to solve all of the problems in America (if someone would just ask our opinion), and congratulated Mike on having not only the new baby grandson, but also the three new ones due right after the first of the year (Brooke and Ashley (twins for Matt and Ash)).  We all agreed that we're glad it's not us getting all of the new babies.

Other updates:

The week of June 11, Jack and Anna came to stay before their summer school programs kicked in.  We had a really busy week!  On Monday, I took the kids swimming at Plamann Beach and out for ice cream afterward.  Upon trying to pay for the ice cream, I realized that my wallet was missing and searched everywhere for it without success.  Tuesday morning was spent making phone calls to cancel credit cards, library card, etc. and, when we piled into the car to go to the DMV to get a new driver's license, my brain started working again and I distinctly remembered tucking my wallet down into the little waste bin in my car -- where it still sat!  Sigh!  What a pain!  Then I had to wait for all of those credit cards to come in again, and I had to go online (or make phone calls) to change the card numbers for all of the bills that are handled automatically by credit card each month.

Tuesday night, we went to see Alex play t-ball and Wednesday morning we went to the park where the Park & Rec people were organizing games for the kids.  We managed to squeeze in about an hour of swimming on Wednesday before all piling into the car and heading to Milwaukee for Jack's baseball game.  Played a ton of music in the car and we all sang along as I introduced the kids to Queen and 'We Will Rock You'/'We Are the Champions'. 

Thursday was a quiet morning (I think everyone was pretty exhausted), but we decided to go to the movie theatre to see 'The Avengers' (second time for Alex and I).

Friday morning, Ian and Alex came over again to get in as much playing as possible before Jack and Anna had to head home.  We ended up at McDonald's for lunch where, after eating and spending about an hour in the play area, I realized that I was missing my keys.  Turned out they were in the car still in the ignition and the car was unlocked!  I think I was so worried about the kids jumping out of the car and maybe into the path of cars coming out of the drive-thru that I wasn't paying a lot of attention!  My brain needs an overhaul!

So that was a fun week.

Last week, I went to see 'Billy Elliot' at the PAC (by myself) and I'm really glad Jeff didn't go along.  It was seriously bloated and came in at 3 hours long.  Dancing was good, but the movie was actually a lot better.  This was a disappointing season at the PAC.  'Million Dollar Quartet' was awesome, but we walked out of 'West Side Story' and the long-awaited 'Billy Elliot' was really a disappointment.  I had seen 'Mary Poppins' in NY and enjoyed it again.  The reworked 'Les Miz' was as disappointing this time as it was when I saw it in Milwaukee last year.  Not sure why they keep messing with shows that work great.  The heavy Spanish accents in this version of 'West Side Story' and when I last saw 'Evita' make it impossible to understand the actors and really detract from enjoying the music and dancing -- which is what a musical is, after all.  The sets on 'Les Miz' were redesigned and I think the show is less powerful as a result.  And 'Billy Elliot' suffers from the same problem as 'Wicked' -- way too long.  Can't believe I'm saying this but I'm actually considering relinquishing my Season Tickets.  We'll see.  Next year's lineup really doesn't give me much hope either:  Elf, The Addams Family, Catch Me if You Can, War Horse, and Blue Man Group.