Holidays & Birthdays

We made the inaugural cottage trip Memorial Day weekend.  We went up on Saturday night after a looooooooong day at work for yours truly, and arrived in time for a little dessert and bed time.  The cottage has been in a state of transformation for about a year, with the addition of a huge new master bedroom, second bathroom, and lots of new storage space.  Having two full bathrooms with kids running around?  Priceless.

The weekend weather was terrific.  The water was still way too cold for any sane adult, but for the under-12 set who lack internal body temp regulation it was swim ready!

sea worthy

boo boo's first trip to the cottage and first time on the boat

he'll be cruising these bench seats by later this summer, just like sis did

sib chat

hi mummy!

the boys

daddy, i get you.  (ps - notice steve in the background filming the same lake he's filmed every weekend for the last two years)

aye aye cap'n!

1....2.....

3!

first dock leap of 2012

The next weekend we celebrated Matt's 32nd birthday.  Friday we went out to dinner with Shawn & Mel at one of Milwaukee's most famous restaurants, Karl Ratzsch's.  I had never been there but it was a German meat extravaganza, which I think is exactly what my hubs wanted for his birthday.  Less desirable was the waitress, Didi, who continued to serve us over our shoulders from behind our round booth.  She was like some kind of waitress ninja who we never saw coming.  A giant platter of over the shoulder sauerbraten can catch a gal off guard.  We brought the average age of the patrons down by about 40 years but it was a great meal and a classic MKE experience.

The next morning my pastry chef and I got busy baking up some birthday treats.

mom, i want to mix it myself

visions of a batter bomb going off in the kitchen

two hands makes mama feel better

the fine science of sprinkle placement

voila!

happy birthday!

let's chow!

baby's first frosting injury