Presenting Bryan and Carol Volstorf

We attended the small and intimate wedding of Bryan Volstorf and Carol Kelly on Saturday, November 1, 2008. Hosted at Carol's daughter's house, it was simple, elegant and attended by family and close friends of the bride and groom.

This was the first time we had met some of Carol's family. They were all so friendly and welcoming to us, it was easy to feel comfortable. I can understand why Dad has spoke so highly of them. We haven't had the opportunity to spend much time with Carol, but I hope that will change in the years to come.

We want to welcome Carol and her family to ours and wish the newlyweds much happiness for years and years.

New Paint, No Paint

Ahhh... finally, a picture of our latest house improvements. We hired a company to paint the trim at the very top of the house and remove the paint on the lower brick of the house. The painting of the peaks was done on all sides. We only removed the paint from the front. I like it so much I might have to save our pennies to have the rest of the brick done. The brick is a yellowish color, it's specifically from the Milwaukee area, called Cream City Brick.

Once the paint started peeling off the wall from watering the front garden area, I knew for sure it was the Cream City, and I kept watering. :-) The painting and paint removal was fine, but the clean up – lack thereof from the company hired – and the repairs that had to made to our hard-wired landscaping lights has been a nightmare. The painting started on Sept. 3, we just got the lights working last week Friday.

I'm very pleased with how the outside improvements are moving along. Our last step, for a while, is to get some new windows for the front. As you can see in the picture, the top attic window is a nice tan while the 4 bottom windows are chipping-off-gray. And since our gas bill has been increased on our budget planning, we'd better do something to help that. We'll get the other 4 windows replaced sometime next year hopefully.

Next year, we'll look into doing more landscaping to the front yard that refuses to grow any grass in the summer. Bill would like to put a small retaining wall across the front yard to the steps. I don't want people sitting there waiting for the bus, so we need to be careful how we design this. Anyone who is free next year to help build a brick wall, let me know the days you'll be visiting!

The small tree in the front is a white Lilac I received from my good friend. It wasn't doing well in her yard so we dug it up and planted in my yard. It started growing days after we planted it. I've always wanted a Lilac, so I'm so excited it likes it's new home. I'd like to have one in the back yard... but we'll see about that later. I can't wait for spring to smell it's blossoms!

Comet's Secret Supper Club #4

Here's our menu from the Comet's Secret Supper Club on October 28th. I think I liked the first two dinners better, but this was still very good. Death's Door Distillery was there for special pre-dinner drinks, which were pretty good. Bill and I both think Adam's soups are terrific every time. This soup, we wanted to bottle up the scent and put it in a candle! How weird is that? It was soooooooo awesome smelling. 

I was full by the time the main course came, but I still ate it and our two desserts. There was a miscue between Adam and the sous chef, we didn't get any baked apples, but we ate it, figured they couldn't get what they wanted. But Val came around and asked us if we got apples, and that we'd get some in a minute. We each got another full dessert. Oh, yeah, we finished it all... Bill then went home and fell asleep on the couch until I woke him to get up to go to bed. Lazy butt. :-)

We haven't forgotten Europe

We haven't forgotten about sharing our Europe trip with everyone, we are still sorting through photos... But in the meantime, here's an email video from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The museum was very informative and learned a lot about the man I had previously not known. The annex was closed when we were there so there were no additional exhibits being displayed. Highly recommend when visiting Amsterdam.

A work of art!

Along with maneuvering around the Harley's all weekend, Bill worked on his pint glass shelves for the computer room. The finished product is shown. He used his router and did a fine job, I think! Now, I can have some of my built-in back for other stuff. (posted by Marcia)

105th Harley Fest Milwaukee

Well, we made it through another Harley Fest. The bikes were here, roaring around for 3 days. It was pretty tricky driving a car around, so I decided not to drive after running errands on Friday. At home, it really wasn't any louder than it normally is. The morning of the parade, I heard bikes at 6am, but otherwise it was quiet. We went up to the North Avenue street party and the Brady Street party, the better of the two, everyone was nice and under control. We saw some cool bikes, and would have taken more pics during the day, but we were busy around the house! (posted by Marcia)