Winter Surprise in Chicago

Surprise!!!!  We surprised Lindsay who was in town visiting Patti.  Best Christmas present ever!  Lindsay came to Chicago to do tea and the Nutcracker with Patti and we just happen to be in the area, so we stopped by to spend some time with them.  While they had tea at the Drake in the afternoon, we spent the morning visiting with Grandma who has just had knee surgery.  She was also glad to see us.

We drove to the city, parked the car, had some Starbucks and went up to Patti and Lindsay's room to deliver some wine and cheese.  Linds has no idea we were coming and was super surprised.  After some snacks and Proseco in the room, we had a lovely steak dinner.  It was a great night.  

The next morning we had brunch with Andrew's Conant boys who were all in town too.  It was a great weekend, but I remember why we moved away from Chicago.  Being in the city for the whole weekend, made me so anxious.  The busy streets and crowded sidewalks were just too much for me.  But I must say, Chicago is very pretty in the winter, especially with the snow.  

Staying warm with matching hats.

Beautiful Christmas Tree

Ange and I at dinner

 

Patti and Linds at dinner

Bringing Back the 80's

Andrew's school party this year was 80's themed.  They like to have a good time and they love the themed parties.  I can't complain, they are super fun.  We searched high and low for a rad outfit for Andrew.  I had my sweet 80's prom dress from the Mejestic's 80's prom a couple of years ago.  I added some sweet white pumps, gloves and jewelry.  Andrew on the other hand, just couldn't figure out what he wanted to wear.  After searching several Goodwills, Savors and Thrift Stores, Andrew settled on the Flock of Seatgulls/Chandler's 80's look from Friends.

It was a great party.  Here are some pictures for you all to laugh at.  Don't tell Andrew I posted these though, I'm sure he wouldn't want you all seeing his awesome get-up. :o)

 Check out that sweet hair.

Probably dancing to some sweet 80's tunes.

Winter in Madison

17 inches of snow, one snow day, 0 snow plows and a commute of an hour and 40 minutes to get home the next day, what did we get ourselves into?  Our first winter in Madison.  When they started talking about this winter storm coming through the plains, we really didn't know what to expect.  All we knew, was that the meteorologists, teachers and kids started talking about a snow day on Wednesday on Monday.  We could only hope it was going to be as bad as they planned.  Well on Tuesday night, Andrew and I got the call from our districts saying we had a snow day.  Let me tell you.....Best. Feeling. Ever!  Knowing you don't have to get up and go to work the next day, is just awesome!

So we bundled up, turned up the heat, and settled in for what we were told would be the storm of the decade.  It started Tuesday afternoon on the drive home, and continued into the next day.  Tuesday night, we watched as the snow came down, and the wind picked up.  We weren't sure how much we would get, but we knew it would be bad.  Wednesday morning we woke up to whiteout conditions.  15 inches of snow, heavy winds and blowing snow.  It was CRAZY!!

We had the greatest snow day ever.  We slept in, spent several hours outside, took a nap, shoveled some more and enjoyed being snowed in.  While it had been windy, it ended up being about 30 degrees and a perfect winter day.  For lunch we even had grilled cheese and tomato soup, absolutely perfect.  I have to say though, we procrastinated in buying a snow blower and we sure did pay the price.  Andrew used his muscles and shoveled most of the drive way, but our neighbors did help with their snow blowers after the snow plows came by and plowed our drive way in.  It was a great day, and a perfect little break between Thanksgiving and Christmas break.  Here are some pictures from the day.  

 

The house covered with snow.

My car with some of the snow blown off.

 

Andrew shoveling.....you can see how deep it is.

Midnight snuggled up, keeping warm.

Catching up.....

We have had a lot going on the past couple of weeks.  Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

 Autumnal Gathering at Scott and Krizia's

Ange and Scott reminiscing about their days in LA

 The girls enjoying a nice glass of wine 

 Watching some Hawkeye Football with Baby Hayden

 

Bryan and Hayden on a big Hawkeye Play
 

Thanksgiving Weekend at the Lake House

Oh yeah, we also put up Christmas lights on the house....

Pokies All Around

We can never have enough visitors.  For Halloween weekend, some of Andrew's closest friends came to visit us.  His fellow Conant Cougars joined us in the crazy town on Halloween.  We spent another Saturday at Brother's watching football.  We had a delicious dinner at Bucky's, and then headed downtown to watch all the crazies out for Halloween.  While we didn't dress up, we sure saw our fair share of costumes, good and bad.  My favorite was a 14 year old (drinking beer) and his dad in matching pink and purple sequin mini-skirts and hats.  Only in WI will you see that.  

Here are a couple pictures from the weekend.  We HAD to document the pokey stix experience for both Ferdie and Katie.  Ferdie was upset we only ordered them once, while this was Katie's first pokey stix.  It was a great weekend and it was great to see some fabulous friends. 

The Group at Bucky's on Atwood

 

At Great Dane enjoying people watching.

Ferdie LOVES his pokies and Katie is enjoying them too!

Pumpking Carving and Hawkeye Football

Since we have owned a home, I LOVE to entertain.  I try to have people over whenever we can.  For the Halloween holiday (which is not one of my favorites) I thought we would have people over to carve pumpkins.  While we already have a great friend base here, we have started making friends at work and wanted to join the groups.  The night of the party, just happen to be a night football game, so it was a pumpkin carving/Hawkeye football watching party. 

While most people were into the game, Jeanette, Adam and I carved our pumpkins.  My other Sauk Trail friends enjoyed watching us watch the game, especially with the last second catch in the end zone for the win.  It got a little intense and with the win, I thought the house would fall down with all of us jumping.  I carved a Tiger Hawk into my pumpkin in honor of the win.  Here are some of the pictures.

The pumpkin carvers.

 

The Wiederhoefts--so cute!

  

Sauk Trail Friends

 

Our Tiger Hawk Pumpkin (yeah it was hand drawn--pretty awesome, I know).

Fall in Madison

Even though most of our fall has consisted of rainy, chilly days, we have had a couple beautiful days. They are far and few between, but we sure do take advantage of them when we can. One thing we have noticed about living here is the number of trees everywhere you go. So many streets are tree lined and during this fall, they have been absolutely gorgeous. As most of our leaves are in our yard, a chore we are not too excited about, we do have these photos to remember how beautiful it was for about a week.

Best. Game. Ever.

On October 17, 2009 the #11 University of Iowa Hawkeyes came to Madison to play the University of Wisconsin Badgers. Along with the football team, many of our favorite Iowa Friends also came to party. All of our guests came up Friday night and joined us at the Great Dane for a couple of drinks. While we were not in Iowa City for the game, we had to carry on the Iowa City tailgating tradition. Most of us called it an early night to prepare for the full day of partying like true Hawkeyes. The Bessick household awoke bright and early at 5:30am. Much to my surprise, my girls, were ready to go. We were parked and unpacked, ready to tailgate by 6:30AM. While we had drink in hand at 6:30, it took some of the other Hawkeyes awhile to join us. Once everyone was there, a great time was had by all. Andrew and a couple other of his friends went to the game, while the rest of us went to Lucky's to warm up and cheer on the Hawkeyes. Iowa was victorious 20-10!! And Andrew and I are really glad we didn't have to get crap from all of our Badger colleagues. The Hawkeyes are now ranked #6 and 7-0. We are excited to see what the rest of the season has in store. Until next time, here are some pictures to remind us of the fabulous day!

Some of my favorites came to visit! All bundled up and ready to party!

Some of the boys manning the grill and having fun. Hawkeyes in Madison

I LOVE these girls! Watching the game at the bar.

Our friends are fun, Badger games are lame

Some of our next visitors were more IKE friends. Kristin, Megan, Steve and Brian came up to party for a Badger game! We had a crazy weekend full of fun! It started at Lucky's bright and early. Not as early as a Hawkeye morning though. While Hawkeyes begin at 6AM, we got to Lucky's around 8:00 and it started picking up around 9:00. That's also when some of our Madison friends joined us too. We stayed there until game time, then went to the game. I have to say, I was quite disappointed.....the whole jump around thing is so lame. I was more impressed with the wave going around the whole stadium at different speeds than the student section jumping and swearing back and forth. While we did have a great time with our friends at the game, it just doesn't compare to an Iowa game. After the game, we had to watch the Hawkeyes so we went to Brother's, to watch it. Needless to say, the Hawks won, and most of us don't remember much except when Megan squirted Ketchup on Steve and when Andrew took a shot with a Badger wedding party. While we were planning on having some more friends over for a bon fire, I was the only one still awake to enjoy our new fire pit. It was a great weekend, and like everything else we do, this will be a yearly event! Oh yeah, and Brian just HAD to buy a Badger jersey and head band. But it was only $20.

The gang at Lucky's before the game sporting our sweet Miller Light Eye "Reds".

Our Madison friends joined us. We will forgive them for being Badger fans.

The girls at the game surrounded by red.

The boys at Jordan's after the game, before the Hawkeye game.

Our First Visitors

We have had many visitors since being here, and we absolutely LOVE it!!! We love entertaining in our new house and we love having visitors, especially our friends from back home. Our first visitors from home where my two friends from my old school, Tina and Hope. They came the last weekend in August and it just happened to be cloudy and chilly. The weather was not typical, but we still had a great time. We went down to the farmer's market, shopped on State St. and had lunch at Hawk's. That night we had dinner at a great Mexican place and enjoyed 80's vs. 90's Michael Jackson at the Majestic!

Enjoying some good Margaritas!

Singing and Dancing to some sweet MJ tunes

The Garden

If you didn't know, we inherited a beautiful garden in our backyard. While Andrew and I have no idea what we are doing, we did reap the benefits of a garden full of vegetables and fabulous flowers. Here are some pictures and please send along any gardening tips, we would appreciate any help we can get.

The back perennial garden with mini pond.

Zinnia's against the back of the house.

Are these black-eyed Susans?

The pond

Pretty flowers with many bees and bugs.

These remind me of puff balls.

Some of the many pepper plants.

A cabbage plant that we ended up not using. :o(

Peppers!!

Squash, that we got SO tired of eating. We gave a lot away.

Living the life....

We continued our fabulous summer with some wonderful friends in Green Lake, WI at the Grubnich lake house. The weekend before our move, we drove up north on Thursday and spent some quality time with Andrew's Iowa friends. There is never a dull moment with them. The Grubnich house is beautiful with plenty of room for all 18 of us. We enjoyed copious amounts of cased meats, alcohol and fun times. Although the weather wasn't as nice as we would have hoped, we still had fun and got to spend some time on the boat. Here are a couple of pictures from our weekend.

Sarah and I taking the wave runner out for a spin. I was holding on for dear life, but Sarah did a great job of driving safely.

The boys at the local tavern for the Friday Night Fish Fry. The soon-to-be Madison crew enjoying the sunset.

With our lovely hostess.

The whole crew.