1st Anniversary Getaway!

I was waiting for Lee to send me a couple pictures, but I haven't received them yet, so I decided to go ahead and post about our getaway anyway...

That's right! We took a little trip, following a wedding on July 12th, "up North" for our 1st anniversary. On Sunday we went back to Bayfield, where we took our honeymoon!

Here we are taking the Ferry over to Madeline Island.

Beautiful Bayfield from the Ferry.

We rented mopeds to cruise around the island! It was SO fun!

Ben always likes to take these contemplative pictures. :)

Ben records us - very dangerous!

Even though it was dangerous, I like that you can see some of the things were were looking at as we were cruising around. To the left is Lake Superior and off in the distance you can see Upper Michigan.

A picture I took on the ride.

We rode the town park where there was this beautiful lagoon! I don't know if the pictures do it justice because it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. We spent some time hiking around, cuddling at the beach and watching two dogs play. =)

After a long and breezy day, we took turns relaxing in the jacuzzi (while watching Sports Center :p)!

We were having a great time, but alas! we had to continue on...

... taking Hwy 2 down to "Grandma's" - Ben's grandma, really - in Eagle River! When we got there, we shared homemade pie and smoked fish we brought with us from Bayfield. :) We decided to stop there for a day so I could finally meet Ben's aunt, Mary, from Virginia.

Two fawns in "Grandma's" front yard. Mary and I had a good time quietly chasing them for these pics. I was a little concerned at how tame they were. I hope they get grown up and scared before November!

Lee and couple of his friends were there fishing for a couple days. We went out on Matt's boat water skiing and knee boarding on Tuesday! It was AWESOME! I had never water skied before, but I was proud of myself because I "got up" on the 3rd try! I had a hard time staying up, however. :p We didn't have a lot of time, so I didn't go a second time, but I'm confident I would have been skiing gracefully if I had. ;) Instead, I knee boarded for my last pass and had a good time flying off in an exhilarating water crash for my grand finish! I have yet to find a water activity I don't like. Ben has experience water skiing so he had not problem, of course. He did have one of those crashes where I wish I had it on video... my belly hurt with laughter! :) I have to say that being in Grandma's lake made me a little nervous, however, because it's known as a muskie lake... yikes!

In true Wood fashion, we forgot to take the camera on the boat, so hopefully Lee will send us the pictures soon!

When we got home at 10pm on Tuesday, the 15th, it was not too late (for me) to pick the first fruits of all my labor!! They were delicious and we keep getting more! =)

A lovely trip to celebrate our anniversary. Lovely. =)

Anniversary Date

On our anniversary, we got to spend the day together as Ben worked the 4th and took his holiday on Monday, the 7th. :) Since we had a wedding on Saturday the 5th, we weren't able to go away till the following weekend, but here are pictures of the "supa-fun" day we had on our anniversary!

Leaving the house for lunch.

Sad our favorite Thai place was closed, forcing us to eat at the crappy Chinese place next to it.

This was the BEST part of the day! After going to the museum and watching this really cool movie about the great lakes in the IMAX, we went to Grand Slam USA to hit some balls in the batting cages. After hitting for a while, we decided to play spaceball! The floor of the net cage was one big trampoline! The object was to throw the ball at each other through these 2 holes in the wall that separated us and try to get the other one to drop it. You switch servers each play, but you can only score a point if you serve. It was a great cardio workout, as you can see by all the sweat. I won 3 games to 2 in sudden death. =)

My husband makes me do the craziest things. Here we are holding Ben's sign on Wednesday, the 9th last week, trying to get it on FSN. We went to the game with Jason & Rachel, which was a real treat.

Speaking of a real treat. We came home and ate some of our anniversary cake after the game! Our cake shop provides a brand new anniversary cake for your 1st anniversary free. That enabled us to eat the first one on our honeymoon last year. ;)

We just returned home last night from our anniversary getaway. We spent four days "up North" and even got to spend one day back in Bayfield, WI where we took our honeymoon a year ago. A post to follow will include pics and more details. Happy anniversary to us!

One Year Ago Today!

Tear.

Most people have to wait 365 days for their first anniversary. We had to wait 366.

(It was a leap year this year, if you're still trying to figure that out. ;) )

The Garden Post, Inspired by Abby

Well, I've been wanting to post pictures and details about my garden, but I didn't quite get to it last week. Over the weekend we had 6.85" of rain in our neighborhood and my garden is very muddy. Many of my plants are pounded to the ground and a lot of my flowers lost all their pedals! They all look like they'll bounce back, but I'm not going to post pictures till they look a little better and the soil dries a bit.

I, like Abby, have planted my very first, very own vegetable garden! I am growing peas on the vine, red and white onions, carrots, salad greens, cucumbers, green bell peppers, red chili peppers, yellow bell peppers, 1 cherry tomato plant, 2 large tomato plants, 1 medium tomato plant, green beans, 1 butternut squash plant, and 3 zucchini plants! I planted everything closer together than recommended because we just didn't have the room. We'll see how that works out. :) I also planted chives, cilantro, basil, rosemary, and parsley? I think that's right... I planted all my herbs, including the chives, in little pots with the hope of bringing them in for the fall/winter and having fresh herbs all year. I planted about 3 or 4 weeks ago and everything is up and growing well!

I also planted a host of last week flowers and they're doing okay. If I could do it over again, I would have had a bit more variety and I would have grouped things together. They're all planted sporadically with other flowers and other colors. It doesn't really flow, but I guess the way to learn is by trial and error, right?

The best addition to my garden is my rain barrel!!! For my birthday, Ben built me a rain barrel! (One of the benefits of marrying a civil engineer who works with water supply and water distribution, I guess.) It catches rain water off the roof of the garage into a 60 gallon barrel. It only takes a half inch of rain to fill the barrel and in a dry week, I'm estimating I could water my whole garden, vegetables & flowers, at least twice. Rain water is best for my plants, plus we're being good stewards of our resources, while saving money at the same time. Although I was a little disappointed to open a box of PVC pipes on my birthday, I've grown to love my rain barrel so much that I'm having Ben build me a second one for the other side of the garage. Here's a picture of it, including the watering can he bought to go with it:

Oh, I guess you can see my tomatoes growing in the back. :) It's funny, I call it a rain barrel and Ben calls it a "rain water catchment tank."

Kelli's Big Adventure

Well, I started this post, then ran out of time to finish it, but I wanted to post the pics anyway to see where they would show up on the page. I got busy for a couple days, then our internet got disconnected, so here we are...

OOOOOkay, a couple of weeks ago Ben had to go to Chicago for a seminar for work. He wanted me to go with him, but I would need to find stuff to do during the day while he was gone. We took the Amtrak down there, which was awesome because it only took us 1.5 hrs (even during rush hour) and ended up being cheaper than taking the car, if you included the cost of parking. It was a nice way to travel - highly recommend it. :)

We got to the hotel around sunset and the picture below is looking Northeast out of our hotel room. You can see the John Hancock building. It was beautiful!

I forgot to include my knock-off picture of Missy's famous, yet kinda gross, picture of a a half-eaten piece of Chicago-style pizza, but we made sure to get that for dinner that night.

On Thursday, I decided to take the L up to Wrigley Field because I had never been there and hey, they were playing the Brewers! I was just going to get my ticket when I got there to avoid the fees, but some guy in front of me overheard me telling someone what I planned to do and he handed me a ticket - for FREE! That was VERY nice! It only cost me about $4.00 round trip to ride the L. NICE.

Well, when I got there, I started taking touristy pictures like the one below. (I got my finger in it -whoops! I don't know how to touch up photos, so it has to stay.)

While I was doing this, a guy with a Wisconsin ball cap on came and asked me first if I was a Brewers fan. When I replied that I was, he asked me if I wanted a ticket - for FREE! I showed him the one I already had so we could decide which one was better, and he assured me that his was better. I gave the first ticket to a scalper who looked like he could use the money.

Check out these seats! The guy was NOT kidding! I haven't had this sweet of seats at any game since my last game at County Stadium!

Turns out I sat with the guy who gave me the sweet ticket (the one in the middle below) and his two friends. I had the very BEST time!! They were so fun and very respectful. People keep asking me if they hit on me or anything like that and they didn't. They were very cool. We were just four baseball fans enjoying the game and a healthy rivalry (2 Cubs fans, 2 Brewers fans). I learned about their kids, where the live, how some friend of theirs couldn't make it, allowing for them to give me his ticket, etc. My cool new friends are from closest to farthest, Joe, Pat, and Dean. I sat next to Joe, who was really fun. He took my teasing him about being old and losing his hair very well. :) They bought me a coke and would have bought me anything I wanted. I really wish I had sat down before paying $7.25 for a dog and water! They were very sweet. My only regret is that I didn't get their email addresses so we could maybe catch another game together someday. =D Oh, and Joe used to play like a minor league professional baseball or something, and he was VERY impressed with how much I knew about baseball. I have to give credit to my dad <3 for that! :)

I wish I could say the rest of my stay was that exciting, but it wasn't. I didn't really know what else I could do for cheap. Looking back, I suppose I could have gone to the museums or something, but those are kind of expensive, too. All I did on Friday was work out in the fitness center, pack us up, and surfed the net till Ben was done at 3:00. My first trip to Wrigley was definitely worth the trip, though!

Ben's 25th Birthday

It was Ben's 25th birthday yesterday. (He's so young!) I started the day by getting up early and baking him cinnamon rolls to take to work. After dropping him off, I came home and took a nap.

Later we went out for lunch down at the Grand Avenue Mall and he got to pick out a new Brewer's hat. I bought him two because they had them buy one get them half off! We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch AND the extra time we got to spend together. I also got Ben a new basketball, which he wouldn't stop playing with the rest of the night, a pound of tasty coffee, and the collector's edition of his favorite movie, Braveheart.

Since the NCAA championship game was on his birthday, Ben requested buffalo wings and a beer for his birthday dinner. :)

They turned out really well and were just as good as any sports bar in town, I'm sure. He thought they were awesome!

(He had to wear the hot pads cause I had heated the pan to keep the wings warm. It's kinda funny because I think he looks like Mr. Mom with them on!)

For his cake, I made a snicker cake, which was also enjoyed by all. (All two of us.)

We were so glad that Ben was able to eat so much good food yesterday (good food is Ben's love language) since Friday and Saturday he was so sick he was puking, a disease he contracted from his wife who was sick and puking one week before.

Ben said it was the best birthday he's had since he was a little kid! I was excited because who has birthdays now that rival the ones of youth? I mean really. My favorite parts of the day were watching Ben enjoy all the good meals after being so sick, seeing his delight in his new basketball and all his presents, and the best of all: he cried when he read my card. What a good birthday!! I really love my husband. :)