Happy Anniversary!

In New York this weekend, 

 we celebrated Mimi and Poppy's 65th wedding anniversary...

and Evelyn's 39th birthday.

Both parties were fun and delicious.

33 in 13

Moon over Lake Michigan

We celebrated our wedding anniversary with a roadtrip east.  Wandering through Wisconsin's small towns, we just missed the deadline to play in West Bend's Germanfest Sheepshead tournament but danced some polkas as consolation instead and enjoyed our first visit to the Museum of Wisconsin Art. 

Then, further east to the big lake for Port Washington's Maritime Festival. 

South to Glenview to finally try Kopp's frozen custard (it lives up to its reputation) and eye their cow installation.

Further south to Milwaukee for Mexican Fiesta, 



and a really nice stay at the Residence Inn on the Riverwalk. On Saturday, we viewed excellent exhibits at the Milwaukee Museum of Art, 

had a first visit to buddy Jose Chavez's newly opened (and delicious and beautiful) Cafe La Paloma in Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood, 


went further south to Humboldt Park for Indiafest and a fabulous nap under a shady tree, then headed home sweet home.  

Fun little celebration.

Fireworks over Milwaukee

Farewell, Bloomington

Over the weekend, Ack and Anne visited Erin in Bloomington, we expect for the last time before she moves to SLC at the end of the month.  Did fun one-more-time kinds of things like visit their wonderful Saturday morning Farmers Market; ate at a few new-to-us restaurants including the surprisingly excellent vegan Owlery; and did a few sprucing up projects on the For Sale house and yard, such as painting the back entry door frame blue with an accent line.   Absolute best new site we visited: the Bryan Park Pool.  A glorious way to cool off!

A giant globe in Erin's building

Erin teaching Ack about backgammon - Ack won!

The blue door stripes

Dancers Galore

Ack and I spent Sunday in Milwaukee watching ethnic dancers perform and eating lots of great food at the annual Holiday Folk Fair. I was there for work and he was there for company. We topped off the day with a curling match back in Madison, which we lost but wow, was it a good close game which made it a lot of fun.

Spring is here...

Flowers are blooming, Ack caught a couple of fish from our shoreline and Anne is out on the water - in this case rowing. If you look closely you'll find one of Ack's Christmas gift...

No pictures, just an update...

Anne is in New Orleans visiting Alana - she may post a photo or two if she can get on line. They are enjoying the 'flip-flop' weather, while Ack remains in Madison with boots on his feet. Cross-country skiing on the lake over the weekend was nice, the weather a bit warm so the ski was a good workout. Ack finished the CIMSS recompete proposal to keep the institute going for another 5 or 10 years - a document that has been consuming some free time recently. We've been busy, so while our bedroom is freshly painted, we haven't fully moved back into the room because we haven't had time to move all the funiture back in.

Winter Festival...

Ack and Anne went up to St. Paul, MN to the Winter Carnival. On the way we stopped to see some art work from a residency at Augusta High School (the beaver is the mascot). Then we went to visit Dennis (the residency artist) and Linda O'Donnell who took us on a beautiful & cold horse sled ride through their woodlot. By 8, we got to the hotel in St. Paul where we got to meet the Vulcans. We couldn't decide the best photo, so here are three - choose the best!

Skiing....

Its been good weather for skiing. Anne went on a ski weekend with a group of friends. Weather is warming up this weekend, making it a gray day. -Ack

We skied various places including the Raven Trail in the Northern Highland American Legion State Forest. This shelter is "Turtle," one piece of art left over from a 2007 installation of about 20 pieces by local and international artists.  It was a beautiful trail. -Anne

Sailing the Chesapeake

After getting back from England, Ack and Anne went sailing on the Chesapeake with some of her folklorist friends: Amy, Guha and Lisa. This photo is Anne sailing wing-on-wing. We sailed the upper Chesapeake for 2 1/2 days in a 33 foot sail boat. We experienced strong winds, calm winds and a bit of rain at night. More photos are at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pryor.anne/OnTheUpperChesapeake?feat=content_notification#

Coffee and Horses

Anne and Ack were to go horseback riding today, but the person who was going to give us the lesson forgot. So instead, we ended up at the town of Stoughton's Coffee Break Festival. They claim that the 'coffee break' originated in Stoughton, Wisconsin. Meanwhile Alana is stuck in an airport trying to get to New Orleans while Erin and Al are cleaning house in preparation for going to Maine.

Art and Dancing

Anne and Ack went to a fantastic sculpture garden, run by a visionary artist, Tom Every, also known as Dr. Evermore. He uses scrap materials to build huge and small sculptures. His most famous and largest piece is the Forevertron, a fantastical type of space ship. The creation shown here is of a giant insect; the eyes are made of geolocation markers and the body is part of the lunar module. Not sure why NASA ever got rid of that, but it is here for all to see.

After visiting Dr. Evermore, we went dancing at the Chateau in beautiful Devil's Lake State Park. The Hal Edwards Orchestra was playing some great big band numbers but the pace was too slow too often. The night was hot so Anne went swimming in the lake after the dance.

Fire Works

Ack and Anne biked down to Warner Park to see Rhythm and Booms, the biggest fireworks display of the Midwest, the weekend before the real celebration.

Tour de Cure...

Erin and Anne went on the Tour de Cure today - 25 km. They joined Team Diabetes Derailleurs, along with Melissa from Folklore Village. Ack rode along with them but never registered. It was a nice ride as the morning was cool and a bit cloudy, though the ride back to the starting line did get a bit windy. Next we are off to the Burgers and Beer fund raiser at the Capitol Brewery.

The weather warms...

Well, our weather is finally warming up. We had a couple of days in the mid 30s, warm enough for melt ponds to form on the lake. You can see the water on the river in the dock photograph below. The ice is still thick enough to walk on, as Ack did as he straightened the dock on Saturday after the floods last June had warped it into a roller coaster. Saturday night we spent at the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department's Solstice party, a party now held around Ground Hog's Day. On Sunday we enjoyed the warm weather by going to the Olbrich botanical gardens and walking around (the photo is Anne walking on one of the paths at the garden). We had lunch at Tex Tubb's Tacos. They have good chips but need to hotten up their sauce. Fish tacos are not so great but the grilled chicken quesadia is not so bad. Anne then went to a movie with Bionca - "Mall Cop," much better attended than Anne expected. Ack stayed home and napped, did a little cleaning (very little) and worked on a colored pencil drawing.

The Woody League

Ack and I started in a new curling league last night, the Woody. It's open, meaning there can be any mix of women and men on the team. Our skip has 17 points, and the rest of us have only 1 or 2 - a very unusual mix. That meant I got to play vice (third), my favorite position but one I've played only once before. You get to do everything when you play vice: sweeping, shooting a variety of shots, plus strategy in the last end when the skip is shooting. It was a fun night.

November...

Well we are into a new month and it has started to be an unusual one. Warm weather this weekend got us both out on the lake in tee-shirts. We have started to curl again - which is a lot of fun. Dinner leagues this year for us, though we are not on the same team. And of course the wonderful election results!

Weekend

A fun weekend. We went for a few hikes on Saturday. Short hikes at a few different places, including along this farmland border. We saw a few creatures this weekend, as the earlier post notes.

I also started to catch fish again - a large mouth bass off the shoreline (picture), a yellow bass from the row boat, and my first pike off the dock. All on the same lure that I got with Andy up around Lake Superior. The only bad news is that I seem to be losing to Mike in Fantasy Football!