Well hello again everyone!!! So as you've all probably noticed I've taken a bit of a hiatus from writing in the blog, but I am super excited to start doing so again today!! We have been incredibly blessed to be able to spend the last 6ish weeks in Wisconsin, hanging out with family and friends.
We also were lucky enough to be able to work at a good friends golf course for most of that time too. It was fun to learn the ins and outs of a golf course, not that I have ever been much of a golfer, nor will I ever be, I'm pretty terrible at golf. Regardless learning how to maintain the grass at the course was interesting, there is a lot more that goes into maintaining the course than meets the eye. I was also lucky enough to be able to bartend at the clubhouse as well as driving the beverage cart around. Bartending again was so much fun for me, I hadn't done it in over 10 years, and had forgotten how much I love it. I thoroughly enjoy bantering with customers seeing new faces everyday. Being a bartender/beverage cart driver is a hoot, you get paid to charm people with your whit, you really can’t have a bad day unless you're a dick! Anyone who knows me, knows that I have hardly ever met a stranger, and it was very entertaining to get to chat with all the regular golfers at the course. Most of them were quite entertained by what Kyle and I are up to, and most really questioned how in the world we ended up working at a golf course in Hortonville, WI. Once the connection was explained people understood, but then made sure to tell us to get out before winter, because it sucks here :)
kyle out mowing the rough
A goose got hit by a golf ball and provided an excellent meal for this eagle
The worst part of working at the course was the 4:30am wake up call, that was a little rough, considering for the last five months I really didn’t even remember what an alarm clock was, but being up that early definitely has its advantages. The sun rising over a golf course is actually a spectacular site. It was so peaceful sitting there and taking in the beauty as you watch a new day begin, makes you realize just how much beauty there is all around you if you're just willing to see it.
One of the best parts of working at a golf course you ask? Every day is “take your dog to work” day. Something that I took full advantage of. They got so spoiled riding around on the carts with us, that when we tried to run them with the carts on night they pretty much just looked at us and said “Ummm… NO. We ride in carts.. We don’t run.”
One of the best parts of working at a golf course you ask? Every day is “take your dog to work” day. Something that I took full advantage of. They got so spoiled riding around on the carts with us, that when we tried to run them with the carts on night they pretty much just looked at us and said “Ummm… NO. We ride in carts.. We don’t run.”
While we did spend the majority of our time in Wisconsin working, we also made sure to have equal amounts of play mixed in there too. We started out our WI adventure with a trip to Door County with some dear friends of ours. I have always heard that Door County is absolutely gorgeous and you almost forget that you are in WI while you're there. I have to say that everything I had heard was absolutely true. There are amazing restaurants, cute little towns, and fun shopping opportunities if you're into that kind of thing. You are still in the rolling farm country (one of my favorite things in WI) and the trees, but then you also have the dramatically beautiful coastline of Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is so cool, its very similar to being at the ocean. You have the sandy beaches, water as far as the eye can see, and the soothing crash of the waves against the rocks.. All the things I love about the sea, minus the salt and the fear of what could potentially eat you. There are also plenty of hiking trails to adventure out on too. Over all Door County is glorious.
Frank got to come to Door County solo, I think he enjoyed it
Our friends Randy and Amanda have a boat that we all went out to the lake on. Kyle and I typically are not stellar at water sports, of any kind really. I grew up attempting to water ski and wake board, it just never really worked out that great for me. So when Randy and Amanda started talking to us about surfing behind the boat, I thought that they were crazy. I told them I’d give it a shot but I honestly wasn't looking forward to being pulled through the water on my face, which is what normally happens to me. Oddly enough though, surfing was not that complicated for either one of us to catch on to. Their beautiful boat has the elevated ski rack which is huge! It literally pops you right out of the water on the board. Then you just have to figure out how to steer the surf board and adjust to being ok with only being 10 feet away from the boat while you are surfing, which is the hardest adjustment for me to make. I was impressed with both Kyle and I, he got up on his third attempt and it only took me two. By the end of the day I was able to surf for about a minute without holding on to the rope, which is what you are supposed to do..
the crew on the Moomba
Kyle surfing
Randy and Kinley driving the boat
I'm surfing!!!
Randy showing us how its really done
a little wake skating action
We spent a week with Kyle’s parents, which was awesome. It was a week filled with laughter, card games and hanging out on the pontoon. Kyle’s mom, Bert, is such a gracious host and is always great about making our favorite dishes to eat. So we spent the week incredibly well fed. Theres just something about a mom’s cooking.
Friday night fish fry at PJ's with Bert and Aunt Barb
evening pontoon ride
the pups like the pontoon too
Buddy getting in some grandpa snuggles
We spent an evening at the Marathon County Fair with some great friends and their kiddos. I love being able to spend time with our friends and their kids. The kids just grow so fast, its not fair! Love any amount of time with get to spend with them, no matter how short that time may be.
Our next adventure was an evening in Milwaukee, riding around on a Pedal Tavern for our friend Jenny’s birthday. We had a really fun time catching up with old friends and meeting new friends. If you've never done a pedal tavern, I highly recommend going on one. They’re are hoot, the only down side is you really do need to pedal your little behind off to be able to get anywhere in a hurry. At one point some of the guys just got off and started pushing, it was much faster that way.
Wisconsin is a land of many lakes and pretty much everyone there has a boat, so we spent a lot of time on the water. We spent my birthday on the Pontoon with Kyle’s parents and brother and family. It was a riot. I am not really much of a swimmer, but I had such a fun time watching them all jump off the boat and taking pictures of their goofy diving skills. Being able to spend this time with our family was awesome and we are very grateful for the time that we had with them.
One adventure that Kyle and I embarked on by ourselves was renting paddle boards.. Ive always wanted to paddle board, and there is a bar just down the street from my in-laws house that rents them. So we decided that we would take the pups out paddle boarding. In all honesty it went better than we thought it would go. Paddle boarding itself is super fun, and an excellent workout really. Putting a big dog on there does give add a whole new interesting element. For the most part they did great, especially Trigger, she just sat there like a rock star, plus she's small so she doesn't sink the board too much. The boys are a whole different story. Each boy weighs about 85 pounds so positioning on the board is key for going with them. Then trying to get them to move to exact spot you need them is almost impossible, they're not known to do anything subtly, so you'd better have your balance when trying to get them to move, otherwise you were swimming and starting all over agin. We actually bought Frank a life jacket before we went because we didn’t figure he would want to ride the board much at all. He did great swimming next to us for about the first 3 minutes and then realized that he was getting the short stick and decided he wanted on the boards with the rest of us. We discovered that the two boys on one board was WAY TOO much weight to have on the board and still be able to move, so we split them up. Which is an excellent idea, except for the fact that Buddy wants nothing more than to be with Kyle. So if he had Frank, Buddy either kept jumping off my board or just cried the whole time, it was ridiculous. We finally got it to where everyone was happy, Buddy was back with Kyle, and I had Frank and Trigger situated perfectly that we were actually able to move about quite smoothly, until Frank spotted some kids on a beach playing with a giant beach ball. Game over. We rented the boards for two hours, but really never got that far away from the Tiki Bar with all the falling off we did.
Getting ready to go... Not so sure about this silly life jacket tho....
Tired pups after paddle boarding
We were lucky to find tickets to a preseason game between the Packers and the Raiders at Lambeau. It was a very surreal experience. The energy in that stadium is unreal, plus Packer fans are some of the greatest fans I’ve ever met. I had an amazing time at the pre-game party and during the game.
We were walking the mall one day and saw that there was going to be a dock jumping competition at the mall while were were there. We always jump the pups off the dock by Dale and Berts house, and they do great, so we figured that they would be awesome at this. Well….They were not awesome, quite frankly they were pretty terrible at it. Neither one of them wanted to jump into the water, but to their credit they’ve never done anything like this. The water is not brown like the lake, its clear blue and a pool. Frank gets yelled at when he tries to get into the pool, so I don't blame them for the hesitation. I do have to say that once they actually did it they did ok, and if we ever had the opportunity to keep doing it with them they could be great. This time though we just got a good laugh out of it.
Frank in the Speed Retrieve
Trigger's worst dock jump ever
We got to go out on the boat with the Reeds again and try to surf again. This time we were joined by our friends Bill and Brittany and their three boys. It was so fun watching the kids ski and tube. Plus, Lucas was able to surf with Randy which was so cool to be able to watch. Bill and Brittany both learned how to surf too, its fun to see people who have spent most of their life on the water, they make it look so much easier that Kyle and I did.
I did it with out the rope for quite a while
Kyle rocked the surfing today
Gotta get in my baby snuggles when ever I can
Mom and Dad were happy to be on the boat... Wee one looks a little sleepy
Randy and Lukas surfing
The kids were skiing machines!
Kyle was able to spend some time up North helping his family build the new Tesky Family Cabin. We were all impressed with the work that they all got done in the two weekends that they were up there. It was fun for him to get some time with the guys in his family, something that he hasn't had for the last couple of years since he hasn’t been home for deer hunting.
First weekends accomplishment
Second weekends accomplishments
While the boys were up building, I was able to spend some time with my sister-in-law Amanda. We went to an 80’s tribute band, called Hairball, one weekend and it was a blast. The band was amazing. They have two lead singers so they were able to do multiple wardrobe changes, and honestly looked a lot like the original artists up on stage. Their Freddy Mercury impression was spot on. I almost lost my voice as I was belting out and singing along with the band.
Amanda also opened up her kitchen to me, so of course I took full advantage of the opportunity. One Sunday while she was at work I made peach pie, banana bread, jalapeño cornbread muffins, burritos and chicken chili for us for dinner. Apparently I have missed having a full kitchen ;)
We got to help Kyle’s brother, Joel, celebrate his 40th birthday and then spent a day pheasant hunting with Joel and Amanda our last day in WI. The hunting was really hard, but the pups did great and I think that they had a great time. We didn’t get all of our birds that we wanted to, but we did figure out that the 4 of us are great at flushing deer. We flushed up a nice little 8 pointer that ran so close to Amanda that she could have counted his nose hairs if she wanted to.
We felt very blessed for our time in Wisconsin, we know that we didn’t get to spend nearly as much time with everyone as we wanted to, but are so incredibly grateful that we got the little bit that we did. We will definitely be back soon and do it all over again!!
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