Lawn Bowling

our view at the park... not to shabby

Last week on our date night, we were watching lawn bowling and got invited for a lesson this week. This was on Adam's bucket list, so of course we were game to do it. Wednesdays are open bowl so they have a quick lesson and then a pick up game. There ended up only being 2 people that stayed past the lesson and they were just practicing so we just played a game ourselves. It was really fun.

The bowls are not perfectly round. They are biased or lopsided which causes them to curl around. This game is very similar to curling, even the terminology is the same. It's crazy. So each bowl has a unique symbol on each side, one side has a small symbol and the other side has a larger version of  the same symbol. You bowl with the smaller symbol on the inside or as our teacher, Steve, said, "You bowl towards the smaller symbol." Each set of bowls have a different symbol so you can tell them apart.

 You can see the two other people that were in our lesson. There are up to 4 bowls per person depending on if you are in a singles, doubles, triples, or quad game.

 To start off the game, the lead (first person bowling) rolls the jack (the small white ball, think bocce ball on this one). You have to get the jack past a certain line (hogline) but still within bounds. The skip (basically team captain- they call the shots and are the last to bowl) then maintains the distance of the jack but centers it within the rink. Then the idea is similar to curling; you are trying to get it closest to the jack and whichever team is closest scores and they score as many bowls as they have before the opposing teams bowls.

You have to keep at least one foot on that beige mat when you bowl (not throw) the bowl. The rest is up to you/skip. There is strategy just like in curling to block other people and to hit each others bowls out of the way. It seems like a really fun game. I'm not quite sure of all the rules because it depends on how many players are in the game but it seems really fun ;) We were really glad we tried it.

We have friends coming in for the weekend so I'm really excited. Hope y'all have a great holiday weekend!

Date Night

Last week, we decided to go on an impromptu date night... We have done plenty together this summer but have not been intentional on going on dates or doing stuff together vs doing things with groups of people. So we headed to the lake to enjoy the weather and take some pictures. I am really trying to get back into photography. I used to really love to take pictures and I just really haven't touched my camera much since I went to college... So we were experimenting with my camera and just goofed off. It was really fun. 

Look at his cute outfit! I have been trying to get him to wear stuff like this since we started dating. He looks so good ;)

We found this bench that is similar to a xylophone. It was fun ;) 

Then we got dessert at this fancy place in Milwaukee. We are not fancy people. If you were at our wedding, you ate our soups and sandwiches and hopefully enjoyed our casual wedding. But that's us. We love food but we like it simple. All that to say, we went to a fun, fancy restaurant and we were in and out in 25 minutes... oops. The dessert came out fast and we (me really) chowed down on it... We didn't really linger and it was kind of cold inside and oh so nice outside hence why we had the eat and run experience. It was fun and different than what we usually do so that was nice at least. 

Then we watch some lawn bowling and got invited for lessons last night (more on that later). It's actually more like curling or bocce ball than bowling. You roll a little white ball and then try to get your teams balls closest to it. Scoring is the same as curling and the balls you roll are lopsided so they curl ;) So many similarities. It was really fun to play last night. It's been on our bucket list of things to try in Milwaukee since we moved here so we were excited to cross it off .

We're still here

Sorry the last few days have been quiet but we've been taking advantage of Adam's only week and half off grad school. No homework or freelance work this week. We've been out of our apartment and away from our computers at a brewers game, a date night, a fantasy football draft, and a weekend with family. Adam's sister, Sarah, is off to Asbury Seminary. She'll be right across the street from our old stomping grounds (Asbury University) and I'm really excited for her ;)

I'll post later on these fun things when we're back to the grind.

Splash Studio

Since moving, Adam and I have been trying to explore Milwaukee as much as we can. So on Friday for a triple birthday celebration, we decided to try Splash Studio, a painting bar. (I like their logo because it's clever)

My birthday is August 1st, Adam's August 10th, and Alli the 8th.

The group: me, Adam, Erika, Alli, Joe

 My little painter

I actually told Adam about this place back when we were dating but we never made it. We did however, tell Joe about it. So him and Alli have now been 3 times since I told them about it.

 Erika and Alli

 This is when my painting stopped looking good. I had so much fun but my painting was pretty awful.

You start off with a white canvas and there is an artist who takes you step by step to repaint a painting they have already done. (You look ahead at the calendar to see what painting is on the docket so you know when you want to go).  We used acrylic paint so that it dried fast so we could finish our painting in the three hour time limit. The theory is that when your painting is drying you can get a drink... we were kind of slow painters so we just got our cokes at the beginning.

 Adam's painting was pretty good.

 You can add whatever you want to your painting. (I mean theoretically you don't even have to repaint the artist's painting but I don't think many people do that.) I added a moon, Alli an arch since she's from St. Louis, and Adam mimicked the Chicago skyline.

 Everyone's painting

My painting was so bad, I tried to get the artist to switch me for his painting. He didn't go for it haha

All in all, this was a really fun outing and it was something different to try. We are hoping to go back sometime.

The State Fair

We had a very busy, fun weekend but more on that later this week.

The state fair came to town a couple weeks ago and happens to be less than a mile from our apartment. I've actually never been to a state fair because I've never lived close to the state fair. I've been to a couple county fairs but I was excited to see what all the fuss was about.

This was a day of eating. There were a lot of crazy things to try like rootbeer milk and deep fried anything you want. I unfortunately couldn't eat any of it because I am on a gluten free diet for the time being and am semi-lactose intolerant. Nonetheless, everyone had fun and shared everything so they didn't feel gross at the end of the day.

First up, a deep fried milky way. They said this was good because the candy bar just melted in your mouth.

Joe

We had fun at the different booths.

Joe & Alli

We got there early in the day and there were a lot of people but it got more packed later in the day 

We saw duck races and pig races and they were really entertaining. I wanted to pet one of the baby pigs  but didn't get a chance. There were 2 heats with the baby pigs and then they brought out the monstrous adult pigs who could hardly move. I didn't get a picture of these because lets be honest, they weren't that cute.

They tried Pizza in a cone (the crust was rolled up as a cone) and said it was really good.

All the food pictures make is seem like Adam ate all this food by himself but everyone bought one thing and shared with everyone else. I just happened to be photographing my favorite person.

We got Deep Fried Mac & Cheese but I wanted to represent Home with the pic of the option of having a deep fried crab cake.

Deep Fried Oreo

My favorite part (especially since I couldn't really eat much) was when we went and saw all the prize animals in their barns. We saw cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, bunnies, ducks, and chickens. In the small animal barn, we saw some crazy variations of animals I have never seen before. Like this huge bunny that you couldn't even see where it's face is.

This cute bunny who was the size of a small dog.

This crazy chicken and lot more crazy looking chickens

The state fair is famous for their creme puffs so we waited in line to get one to share. Waiting in line wasn't that bad because you got to see the process the workers go through to make them as you waited. It felt a little like a human zoo because they were behind the glass and would do funny things to make us laugh. It was a little weird in that sense.

The last thing we saw were the tigers. The babies were so cute. The adults made me a little nervous because those are huge cats that would gladly eat you alive. I kind of felt bad for them being in their tiny cage but I think this type of tiger is almost extinct in the wild so I guess that's how I justified it. 

Our friend really wanted to feed the tiger so we split the cost and fed her through the cage. I'd say it wasn't worth it but our friend was happy so that's good ;) All and all it was a really fun day and we didn't even see half of the fair. The whole other half had rides and more vendors.

My Brother

his high school graduation in 2009

My wedding this past December (photo by Christy Tyler)

My sweet brother turns double deuce today. I can't believe it. As the babies of the family, we've been close all our lives. I mean close might be a stretch when we were young but we were at least close in proximity. My dad tells me I used to climb into his crib in the morning and help him get out when I thought it was time for him to get up. And there are home videos of us singing and playing together that are oh so cute and show our personalities even then. Him, the life of the party and the teaser, and me the sweet one who doesn't always take jokes well. We inevitably went through the fighting stage as we got into elementary and middle school. No one wanted to be around us. I had this plastic tweety bird watch and one time I broke it on his head when I was mad. We fought so hard another time in high school that we began to wrestle and the couch ended up falling on my toenail. My toenail got bruised and eventually fell off. I was so mad.



But then I went away to college and a magical thing happen. My brother began to miss me and I began to miss him. We both started to grow up and change. We became friends. We actually wanted to hang out. We would laugh about stupid things we did when we were young and talk about our future goals.

John, I'm so proud of you. You are a hard working husband for your beautiful, loving wife and a great father to your adorable son. I wish you the best. I also wish that I could see you for your birthday but we live so far away. Boo!  Anyways, I love and miss you. Happy Birthday!!!

photo by Genesis 27 Photography

Blogging

i had very good intentions on blogging but then I got dragged into this site about 2 designer friends who find themselves single at the same time and decide to date and work on their bad dating habits. She tends to jump right into relationships and fall hard, fast. He is afraid of commitment so he casual dates multiple girls at one time. It is stereotype after stereotype but it so interesting to read about their perspectives on the same experience. They call it their 40 days of dating experiment.  

I am a sucker for design (they have illustrations for every day done by themselves or their designer friends), relationships, and well blogs. i read it for at least 2 hours to catch up on all the drama... geez oh petes. I will blog tomorrow. This girl has to go to work!

The Dells

So much catching up to do!

It has been a couple weeks (maybe even a month) since we went to the Dells and I didn't even mention it. The Dells is a tourist trap in Wisconsin full of water parks, mini golf, touristy shops, etc but we decided to go.  It's only an hour and half away and on the way there, we even considered going the extra few hours to be really spontaneous and end up in Minneapolis but decided that will have to be our next weekend trip. Anyways back to the Dells, we had never been and wanted to have our fill of mini golf. We had two different options of courses, each having 4-5 different 18 hole courses. So much mini golf!

 There has been a long standing agreement between Adam and I that if I ever win, he'll buy me a puppy. I've come close but have been yet to win ;(  I was winning on the first course but then we told people what they were doing so they were cheering and I got nervous and that seemed to egg Adam on. So he decidingly won.

 We played 50ish holes because we didn't quite finish the last course. There were too many groups of 7 that were holding everyone up. We literally were the fourth group of people waiting for each hole.

 Each course had fun facts about pirates since the whole mini golf place was pirate themed, so we had some fun.

 Adam doing some warm up shots.

After some golf and a little bit of a sunburn, we were in need of some nourishment. We stopped at this restaurant that is based off the same brewery in Milwaukee. They had a whole separate menu for us gluten free ones and it was awesome. Pages of stuff vs a few items. I'm so excited they will be opening up a location in Milwaukee in the fall. (Katie, we can go together when you come!)

Then we headed to a state park where Devil's Lake is. Right before we got in to the park, we saw an abandoned mini golf course... so we might have played a few holes there before seeing the beautiful lake!

 We took a quick hike up the hillside (it was a steep incline, my legs were killing me for days) but it was so beautiful!

On the way home, we took a car ferry. It was so cool. It lasted for only a couple minutes but it was fun. I had never done something like that.

We were tired but it was a really fun day trip.