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.

Road Trippin

After we spent the weekend in Indy for the Flores/Rosensteele wedding we decided to continue heading east and spend some quality time with Lindsay and friends in North Carolina. After 17 hours of driving, we finally got the the Fish House. Linds had rented a house in Carolina Beach, NC for the week, and it just happen to be called the Fish House. We spent the first couple of days with Linds and the hilarious Jenny , then Craigers and Reece joined us for the rest of our time. We had a blast as we spent quality time with loved ones. Andrew and Linds ate about an oceans worth of shell fish including clams and shrimp, while I stuck to land food. We spent almost 10 hours at the beach each day, soaking in the sun and waves and people watching. Let me tell you, North Carolina has some quality people watching. Lindsay invested in a much needed umbrella that helped us survive the sun and heat. When Craig and Reece joined us, the boys all got body boards to surf the waves. Reece absolutely loved being at the beach and it was so much fun watching him play in the waves. After a TON of eating, drinking, laughing and fun for the week, we had to head home and prepare for the move. We left early Saturday morning and drove straight through to make it home by 2:00am Sunday morning. It was a long drive with a lot of rain and some traffic, but it was good to be home after a fabulous vacation. Here are some pictures from the week. Thanks Linds for the glorious memories.

Life's a beach. This is the life.

Reece in the hole he dug. Definitely one of the sweetest 10 year olds you'll ever meet.

Andrew in his spot for the week. He stayed under the Carolina Blue umbrella all day after the first day he got a little crispy. It was definitely a life saver. Yeah, I got pooped on. Damn sea gulls. Look how cute our little family is. Love you guys. xoxo