Kristin & Martin's wedding

Last weekend, Kristin came back to Milwaukee to get married! It was an awesome weekend filled with lots of dancing and fun parties with my favorite friends from high school.

The festivities started Friday night with Kristin's bachelorette party. We met for dinner at The Water Buffalo in the Third Ward. Following dinner, we headed down the street to Centanni Piano Bar where we danced the night away.

On Saturday afternoon, I attended the wedding rehearsal at the War Memorial. I was a personal attendant, so I had to pay attention to all of the finer points of the ceremony. It was a gorgeous day to be outside next to Lake Michigan.

On Saturday night, we headed back to the Third Ward to the Palms Bistro for dinner. There must have been 75-100 people there to celebrate! After dinner, other out-of-town guests arrived for drinks, dessert, and dancing. It was like a wedding reception in itself!

Sunday started at Spa Roma in Milwaukee, where us girls got our hair done. Then we headed over to the War Memorial to get ready for the wedding which was at 4pm. The ceremony was very personal. The officiants were Kristin's aunt Peggy and her yoga friend from North Carolina. One of the many highlights was Kristin's brother, Charlie, and Martin's brother played a saxophone and guitar duet.

After the cermony, we enjoyed the beautiful weather out on the patio with cocktails and appetizers. Just as the sun set behind the building, we headed inside for dinner. The tango band that had played during the wedding ceremony moved inside to play during dinner and to start the dancing. After the band finished, the dancing continued. Too bad we had to work on Monday or we would have danced all night! Congratulations, Kristin and Martin! What a great couple!

Brewfest

This weekend, we attended our first Brewfest at Festival Park in Racine. Brewfest featured over 250 craft beers from nearly 100 brewers. We didn't try all of them. The weather was great and most of the beers were too. Click on the picture to the right to see the full photo album. We each paid $35 for admission and a glass. The proceeds go to support the Kilties Bugle and Drum Corps. The event was very well attended and we found out that all the beer is donated. So it begs the question, how much do kilts cost anyway?

BWCA 2007

This fall, we managed to make our way back to Minnesota for one of our favorite vacations, the annual Boundary Waters Canoe Area expedition. We missed it the last few years, but Jeff, Andi, Scott, and Nancy have kept up the tradition. The weather started out rainy, windy, and cold, but the weather improved for our last day and a half.
The adventure started sour when the curmudgeon that runs River Point Outfitters and Resort wouldn't give us a room for the night (long story) and all the hotels in town were booked for some festival. We can't say enough bad things about this guy's customer relations. His wife's overly chipper personality somehow didn't make up for his nasty attitude. We set up our tents in the rain and the dark and did alright considering.
This year's route started in Mudro, to Fourtown, to Horse where we spent the first 2 nights. The first night was especially cold since we were not aware that the fire ban had been lifted and we huddled around a latern for some percieved warmth. Day 2 we spent travelling up the Horse river and the rain stopped for the most part. We made it to Canada for lunch next to the Low Basswood Falls. Day 3 we made the short journey to Sandpit where we set up camp with beautiful weather and good fishing. I caught a big largemouth and a small mouth bass.
The food was excellent thanks to delicacies by Tweeter and Nancy such as curry chicken, Mesquite pork tenderloin, and unbelievably good fire roasted pizza. Mmmm. No bears, no bugs, and no trivial things to worry about. Another great trip. I could have stayed for a month longer. Click on the picture to link to our other pictures.

Random Events

So what have we been up to since the trip? Besides recovering from jet lag and blogging (obviously our new favorite hobby), we hosted an impromptu game night at our house (which I don't have any pictures of), had a BBQ with a bunch of friends from work for Jay's birthday on August 30th, and got together with various friends on Labor Day weekend. On Sunday, we went to Ottawa Lake with Becky & Kevin to go canoeing - Jay's choice because he read that the fishing was good. We did have a good time canoeing (once we paddled through the sea of dogs), playing bocce ball and dumping our canoes (on purpose) so we could try to right them again. Just one crazy adventure after another...

Blogging

Welcome to our blog! We felt it was a good time to try it out to show the details of our recent trip to Germany and Ireland. It is kind of fun. Maybe we will do it more often and not only for major trips abroad. Notice that you can click on any of the pictures and it will link to our online albums of related pictures from the trip. We hope you enjoy this. Let us know what you think...
Jay and Laura

Alina & Steve's wedding

This is a little out of order, but we're new at this blogging thing.

On August 3rd, we were in Alina & Steve's wedding at the Redfield Estate in Glenview, IL. See Alina's wedding website for more details.

We had a wonderful time! Click on the picture of me & Jay to see more wedding photos.