Up North With the Gabrielses!

Last weekend, we took our yearly trip up to Lakewood, WI with Brad's family.  His parents and younger brother Nate stay for the week, and Brad, Robert, and I stay up for as long as the boys can take off work (which was through Tuesday night this year).  It's about a three hour drive from Brookfield, so it was a long ride, but we really enjoyed the week of games, fishing, swimming, and water sports!  I even got up on the wakeboard on the first try!

Robert & Cooper...BFFs for the weekend!

Fishing!

On the boat.

Barb & Randy (The In-laws!)

Knee-boarding puppy!

Brad's wakeboarding skills.

My wakeboarding skills :)

Lounging!

Tubing Wars (Brad won)

Freedom!

Summer school is over, so now I have a few weeks of FREEDOM!!!  I will be using them to do lots of this: (Yay :) )

The Flies of Summer...

Well summer has just been FLYING by!  The weeks are going fast because I’m teaching summer school, and the weekends are going even faster because we’ve been constantly out of town.  Mostly we’re doing all fun things, but even still, it’s going too fast. 

Our garden has been a success this summer.  We have rabbits EVERYWHERE in our yard, even eating our new perennials, but thanks to a great chicken wire fence, they have not yet gotten to the veggies.  So far we’ve gotten some jalapeno and banana peppers, lots of beans, and some peas.  I’m dying for our tomatoes to turn red –we’ve got two types.  We also have two varieties of onion, but they’ll be a while yet.  Our basil is ready to go, but we haven’t picked it yet because we need some good basil recipes… we’ve got a TON!  We also have cucumbers taking over the garden (I may not plant those again – they really spread out), and corn stalks growing really well (but no corn yet of course).  It’s been fun.  The worst part is weeding the garden, but it’s worth it.  We recently picked peppers and made pico de gallo (similar to salsa).  The tomatoes and cilantro were store-bought because ours isn’t ready yet!

We finally broke out the top tier of our wedding cake in celebration of our one-year anniversary.  Thanks to Randy’s great vacuum sealing techniques, the cake was still pretty good!  I’ve had worse fresh cake…and this was one year old!

We were also lucky enough to spend time with Leah and Ben again!!!  They were in Green Bay for her 10 year high school reunion and flew out of/in to Milwaukee.  They spent the night with us before heading back to Colorado.  We had a delicious dinner at The Wicked Hop downtown and breakfast at Trocadero.  Two GREAT restaurants in downtown Milwaukee that I’d HIGHLY recommend.

We also did some more landscaping, including putting in a firepit!  Then we had our first “fire” with some friends.  It was a fun time and we’re hoping to have more this summer.

In other news, Brad and I saw “Wicked” downtown.   It was FABULOUS!!!  I would highly recommend seeing the show, although I think it’s sold out in Milwaukee right now.  So good!  Brad also admitted to liking it.

Monday night I went with the girls from my Bible study to The Melting Pot.  They have “Ladies Night” on Mondays and for $15 you get a salad, cheese fondue, and chocolate fondue.  It was yummy and fun!  Nice to catch up with everyone.

Sorry about the million updates…it’s been awhile!  This weekend we’re going up north with Brad’s family to Lakewood, so check back soon.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday!

Working hard???  Or hardly working..... ;-)

Camping!

This weekend we went camping AGAIN!  I know, we were just camping last weekend.  But this time we went with a few friends.  Well actually, more than a few.  We went with four other couples that we're friends with from our church: Shane & Jody, Alec & Laurel, Leah & Ben, and Jennifer & Preston.  We went to Governor Dodge State Park.  I was very worried about the trip because last weekend I was miserable camping (bad weather, major humidity, very buggy....).  But this turned out great!  We had perfect weather (no rain, sunny but not too hot) and minimal bugs.

We got there Friday night and the other couples were already there.  We set up our tent and grilled burgers and brats.  We basically just hung out around the fire that night.  Since it was a very clear night, we didn't put the rain fly on our tent, which meant we could see the stars all night- beautiful!

Saturday after breakfast we went on a 3 mile hike.  Since this area of WI was not flattened by glaciers like most of the state, we saw a few cool rock formations and a small waterfall.  Cooper loved hiking and mostly tried to run the whole way.  He ran up to be in the front any time he got behind.  I carried him once or twice when I thought he looked tired, but Brad didn't think it was necessary. :)  I was just worried since he'd never hiked that far before and it was kind of hot.

Setting off on our hike....

The five girls!  (Leah, Jody, Laurel, me, Jennifer)

The whole group (minus Josie :))!

After the hike we had lunch at the campsite, then went to the beach.  There's a really nice man-made lake and sandy beach at the state park.  We played bags, swam, played a little volleyball and hung out.  Unfortunately when the boys were throwing a ball around, Preston noticed he was missing his wedding band!!!  We tried to all look around in the water, but the water was murky from the sand being kicked up by so many people swimming.... :(

After the beach, we made pudgy pies for dinner.  YUM!  If you don't know, pudgy pies are when you put two slices of bread in this grill tool, then fill it with whatever you want (we made dinner ones with pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, and breakfast ones with scrambled eggs and cheese).  They are delicious!  While eating dinner, a few of the boys decided they didn't want to give up on Preston's ring just yet, so....

Making pudgy pies! Yum!

we headed back to the beach when we thought it would be less crowded and hopefully clearer water.  It was much better, even though there were still a few people there.  They even helped us look for it!  Just when everyone had pretty much given up except Alec (and Laurel was yelling at him to "come on!" from the shore)............

Starting round 2 of looking for the ring...

Everyone joined in!

Victory!  Alec took one last swipe of sand and randomly pulled up the ring!  Can you believe it?!?!  Jennifer and Preston were SO HAPPY it was found!

Alec giving the ring back to Preston!

Back where it belongs.

Jennifer and Preston were REALLY happy to not have to buy a new ring!

That night we played games around the fire, including this fun "Bag game" (Does it have a real name?  I'm not sure).  You had to pick up a paper bag with your teeth/mouth having only your feet touching the ground.  After each round, the bag was cut to be a little big shorter, until it was just the flat bottom of the bag on the ground.  It required flexibility and balance.  The winners????  Me & Jody!!!  We both got the flat bottom of the bag and then a tiny square from the middle of the bottom of the bag.  The boys wanted to continue the match (Ideas were doing it on one leg, arm wrestling, burying the bag in the dirt....).  Jody and I decided to call it a tie.

Although Shane had a great strategy, he was out early.

Brad's strategy took him to the semi-final round, where he lost his balance.

Laurel, the human pretzel, lost surprisingly early due to slipping.

Winners!  Yes, we got that piece of cardboard off the ground with our mouths!  

(I think we both also ate some dirt). :)

Cooper also had a great time.  Besides loving hiking, he got his first experience swimming!  There was a dog beach there.  Let's just say he didn't quite run in, like a lab might have, but he didn't hate it.  Brad took him in and helped him get the hang of it, but he was pretty much a natural!

Brad had to coax him in...

Natural swimmer!

Cooper also got to hang out a lot with Josie, Laurel & Alec's puppy.  They LOVED "fighting."  I always felt bad because Cooper's a lot bigger and he kind of mauls her over, but she kept running back for more. :)

It was a really fun weekend!  Can't wait for next year!

Landscaping & Other Random Things...

Yikes!  I feel like I am a bit behind in the blog world.  We've had a LOT going on around here, though.  Last weekend we went to Green Bay for my cousin Emily's wedding.  It was beautiful and FUN!  They had dilly bars for dessert instead of cake! Cool, huh?

Then Sunday night, for the 4th, Brad and I took Cooper camping at Pike Lake State Park.  We're going with some friends this weekend and really wanted to bring him but we wanted to see how he'd do first.  Turns out, he pretty much loved it!  He basically layed (read: ROLLED) in the dirt and chewed on sticks the whole time and was perfectly content.  We heard lots of fireworks and Cooper didn't even acknowledge hearing them, which was great.  Based on this and the fact that he NEVER comes when we call him, I'd say he was deaf, but you just whisper "treat" and he comes running, so I think he's just sassy. :)  We went on a short but inclined hike and he tried to run the whole way - loved it!  He also slept fine through the night, no problems.  He did bark once at every new thing which got a little old, but he's a puppy and still learning about things, so I can't blame him.  We've got a squirt bottle ready if the barking gets out of hand, though.

Tuesday Brad's family and Missy came over to help us with some yard work.  We cut down a tree in front of our house that was half-dead, grew berries (most likely poisonous) and had horrible thorns.  What a terrible tree!  Who would ever want that?!?!  Eventually we're going to replace it with a nice Japanese maple.  But right now we kind of only had the budget to landscape the backyard.  :)  After we got rid of the tree, we (read: Randy, Brad, & Robert) dug out a fire pit in the backyard.  It's great because we have lots of wood from cutting down the tree - perfect!  Lastly, we got some free mulch from the recycling center and mulched around the landscaping in the backyard.  Brad's mom spread the mulch and she did a fabulous job!  It really makes the tiny plants we got look great!

Our garden...it's growing great!!! :)

We'll have more pictures to post after this weekend, I'm sure.  We're going camping with a few of our couple-friends from church.  One of the couples has a two-month old cockapoo from the same breeder we got Cooper from.  The two LOVE to play, so I think it'll be fun and entertaining to see them together all weekend.