Hitting the Road

As it's been a while since we've visited Roch - and since the cottage did not have power at the time - we hit the road to MN for Memorial Day. Matt was traveling for work that week and was scheduled to fly back home Thursday night. Ha. Ha. For about the fifteenth consecutive time his return flights were cancelled due to weather. His first option back to MKE was a Saturday morning red-eye. Add that to a 5 hour car trip? I think not. Fortunately he was able to get a flight into Minneapolis Friday morning (another red-eye) and just caught the shuttle to Rochester where my dad picked him up. Ta da. The down-side to this master plan was that it left me alone on the haul to Roch. The last time I did that was last June when Matt was refinishing the hardwood floors in our old house, and it was a night.mare. Karma was on my side though and GG and Ralphie were great little travelers (although I definitely let out a huge sigh of relief once we actually pulled into the driveway and I knew reinforcements were on hand). We had a super fun weekend and enjoyed the near perfect summer weather with a few trips to the park, a little shopping, and a visit with the cutie patootie Kroening boys. Naturally I left my camera in MKE so there is no documentation of the cuteness and fun, but it was a good time. On Sunday GG got to take in her first marathon as my dad ran the Med City. She loved it and got really into cheering for everyone. The weather was runner-perfection and Pete was en fuego. Way to go, Pop Pop!

The drive home took almost six hours (traffic, pee stop, traffic, pee stop, traffic, McFlurry stop for mama. Don't judge me.) but went smoothly and it was nice to have everyone home again.

Last Thursday was Matt's birthday - 29, take 3. K&K came over to watch the wee one so we could go out to the Melting Pot with Shawn & Melissa, and Steve & Erin. Steve was the only one who hadn't been there before and it was fun to have a first-timer at the table. First off, for someone who claims to hate cheese he definitely seemed to enjoy the cheesy spinach & artichoke fondue (although he was hesitant to try the WI Cheddar, declaring it 'too orange'.). He also claims to hate mushrooms so imagine everyone's surprise when he said the mushrooms in his salad were 'cooked perfectly!'. Except they were raw. So...yeah. I truly thought Melissa was going to choke on her beer. A good time was had by all! We all went back to the house after to eat the lime meringue tart that Matt had requested and I had worked on for about 2 days. The recipe said specifically to let it sit out but I should have used my melon and realized that there was an unwritten addendum to that which said, "unless of course it's 85 degrees with 97% humidity, at which point put it in the fridge you idiot". Mmmhmmm, missed that part. It was the best tasting lime slop I've ever had (as an aside, at least I had all the ingredients right. When I was prego with GG I made Karl a Pear Cake Tatin for his birthday. As I slid it in the oven I wondered why it looked so watery. Hmmm. Only after 15 minutes of baking did I realize that I hadn't added A SINGLE DRY INGREDIENT. Hi, genius).

Pre-slopification

The rest of the weekend was hot, hot, hot. Jungle hot, if you will. Matt worked his tail off on the yard all weekend and on Saturday afternoon I took GG to the park, hoping to seek out a little shade. But once we were there I discovered that it was opening day of the EG pool, and because it was opening day it was open late AND free. Holla! That is my kind of deal. So after dinner we all went to cool off in the evening sun. GG chose her swimsuit (don't we all have a pile to choose from?) and was ready to rock. I was really interested to see if she would be as hesitant this year as she was last year to get wet. Um, not so much. She took one look at the kiddie pool and was gone. Truly laughing and squealing as she ran in and out. Too cute. This time I actually remembered the camera. We also got her in the big pool too and had a great time. She's basically demanded to go back every day since, which is super fun to talk her out of.

Declaring "I look like a ballerina!". And hello, look at that turn out!!


Peace out, pops


One happy kiddo


Daddies are so good at playing in the pool

Otherwise things are plugging along here at the casa. We've seen a few deer on our nightly walks and drove up to find a woodchuck in our garden the other day (who will soon be relocated. I do not need a poodle v. woodchuck throw-down in my yard), plus the skillions of birds who enjoy waking us up at 3:30 every morning, so it's a regular wild kingdom around here. Maio 2.0 is just over 18 weeks cooked and we'll have our big ultrasound on the 27th. I finally told my colleagues that I was prego which was pretty funny because truly no one suspected a thing. I was even told to "shut the fu*k up" when I told them I was 18 weeks along. If there's one thing I love about my job, it's that there's no beating around the bush. This weekend is a husband's playdate and then maybe one day we'll be able to get to the cottage and check out all the cool work that's being done. Onward!