Summer has finally arrived in Wisconsin. During the last month of Jason's internship he started to get weekend days off. Hence, we've been able to take advantage of many more things to do together here in the area.
Jason and I went to Polish festival on June 21st. During the summer time Milwaukee comes alive and there is a different festival every weekend at the festival grounds which are on Lake Michigan in the third ward district downtown These include major ethnic festivals like Summerfest, German, Irish and Polish festival among others. We went and watched some traditional polish dancing and of course ate pierogies, polish sausage and saurkraut. (Mmmm, I like saurkraut.) Here are pictures from the dancing, Jason couldn't get over how tall one of the dancers was. Later on in the show people from the audience got to dance a bit and I ended up dancing with the super tall guy - there must have been almost a two foot difference between us. The group was made of some pretty good and very nice dancers who came from Michigan to perform.
While Jason was at one of his last Saturday shifts Rachel and I hit the Strawberry festival in one of the local towns. There were surprisingly few strawberries at the festival. I saw an occasional booth for strawberry shortcake and I two that sold pints of strawberries for outrageous prices. Otherwise it has turned into a gigantic craft fair of sorts with music, fair food and entertainment. It was huge, there must have been well over a hundred tents with everything from homemade soap to handcrafted wood toys, purses, etc. We didn't buy much but we had fun looking at all of the artwork and just being outside.
July 4th I went out to be with my family while Jason saved lives at AEC. We went canoeing at a place a couple hours north of Madison. It's a popular spot where you start canoeing on a small river and get picked up by the dock a few miles down the river. All in all it's close to a "three hour tour" that actually only takes that long. Rachel was the skipper and through our fabulous team work we managed to avoid getting tipped out in the rapidly moving parts amongst large boulders and low overhanging branches. (Trust me, not very many people in the group could say that.) Following the trip we returned for a BBQ and fireworks that my brother Curtis made. (He also "modified" a few other fireworks.) That went pretty well, no one was harmed which was important, although we had to run and get out of the way of a few of the fireworks. Mostly it was fun to see Curtis light things and then scream like a little girl as he ran to cover.
The next day my family participated in the Sun Prairie Flags of Freedom parade. My Mom entered us for her studio and we had a fun little group going along. Rachel and I were pretending to sit for a portrait in the back of our "float" (a red pick up truck) One of the photographers had an antique camera he was using to pretend to take pictures. My sister Emily walked along as well with an empty framed around her face as a living portrait. My mom and another photographer took pictures of the crowd and later posted them on her studio website for people to come and check out. (My dad passed out flyers w/ promotionals and the website: www.suburbanstudio.com You can go under special events and type in the password "fun" to see photos. We did it to get some more exposure for the studio, and I think it was a big success. The site has gotten several hits since then and people have been calling the studio to ask about the pictures. It was also great to be out as a family supporting my mom in her new endeavors as a small business owner.
Immediately following the parade (which was at 2pm - who does that?) my parents, Emily and I drove to Milwaukee to catch the Brewers baseball game. Rachel went too but had seats with someone whe knew from the Navy. Jason was able to join us for that and we were able to watch the game from the nosebleed section. It was perfect, the length of the game was good, we got to see some good plays and we won in the bottom of the ninth against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Yesterday Jason and I went out for a fifteen mile bike ride which was quite pleasant. The weather was perfect and the trail we used is great. We had planned on going camping but with the thunderstorms lately we bailed at the last minute. So we have plans to get out before we move.
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