mke fireworks

Wednesday night, Jessica, Ben and I headed down to the lakefront to watch the USBank fireworks. We threaded our way through the wads of flag tank tops, fried cheese curds, and fat kids waving glow sticks until we reached the breakwater rocks near Discovery World. Once there, we laid stake to a couple flat rocks right at the water's edge. It was literally the perfect spot. You could not get any closer to the show. We cracked open a cold one, leaned back, and got ready for what has always been an awesome show.

And the first 4 minutes that we saw were great.

Then the foggy night and firework smoke mix started creeping in, and before you knew it there were only loud bangs and colorful clouds. It was so sad that it was hilarious.

Ben had brought along a few sparklers, and decided that this was as good as any time to light a couple off. The three little boys next to him got super excited, and asked if they could have a sparkler, too. Ben, being the nice boy that he is, gave them each a sparkler. The little boys lit them off and came back to ask for another. Ben handed them a package of six. The little boys lit them off.

Then one of those snotty nosed little brats walked over to Ben, snapped his fingers and whistled for more.

Jessica, who until now had been laughing hysterically at the firework show mishap, basically choked on her beer and yelled "are you serious?!! Where are your manners!?" At the same time this was happening, I was retrieving my jaw from the ground and exclaiming "ooh hell no!! Benjamin you will not give these boys any more if this is how they behave!!" That naughty little boy realized he had acted like a 10 year old jackass, gave Ben some puppy dog eyes and followed up with a "Excuse me mister, may we please have some more sparklers? We are really enjoying them."

Ben gave them more sparklers.

The moral of the story is, Ben is apparently the good cop and I swear at children.

xoxo, b

summerfest 2013

I happened upon Summerfest 2013 on Saturday, and a little country concert performed by Thomas Rhett, Jake Owen, and Jason Aldean.

And it was fantastic.

Once the concert was over, we left the Marcus amphitheater and headed towards the chaos that was an overcrowded Summerfest grounds. The original game plan was that Ben was going to pick us up or we would cab it back to my place. Well Ben was zonked out and there were no cabs since hello this is Milwaukee and all 27 cabs were occupied-o by the time everyone and their aunt were busy leaving. So we walked to my apartment. MapQuest tells me it is approximately 2.6 miles along the river walk. I believe it.

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 Fireworks tomorrow night in Milwaukee for the Fourth of July.


'Merica!

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Three years ago, on July 5th (because he was told holidays & birthdays were not allowed),
 Ben asked me to marry him. So sweet.


However, I just want to take the time to reiterate the fact that Jessica and I had spent the entirety of July 4th sitting on a front porch wearing flannel, sipping sweet tea and lemonade from mason jars, listening to country music, and trying to play a guitar that was missing a few strings. Ben witnessed all of the above, and still decided to see what I was doing for the remainder of my days.


Soo yeah.


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Paris ate an ibuprofen this weekend. I think she was trying to dull the pain from earlier when Nicole slammed her head against the wall. She must have been riffling through my purse looking for cash or something, because I know she has not mastered the kitty-proof top on the ibuprofen bottle, and there were a couple floating around at the bottom of my bag. Anyways, she threw it up and she's still alive.

Which makes it another successful day in the life of Paris and Nicole.


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xoxo, b

Bucket List-ing

Guess who booked a little skydiving trip?

This girl. 

Guess who is not too happy about it. 

Benjamin. 

xoxo, b

Ooh baby baby

I'm an aunt. Ben's an uncle. Levi is adorable. We drove up to Neenah, WI through some pretty nasty storms to meet the little dude. I think Levi gave Ben baby brain. I'm going to have to shut that down; it's not in the 5 year plan (that I just made up). 

But to clarify with an example: Paris partied too hard the other day and threw up. Ben kindly let me know that he would not be cleaning up the vomit, but would be going directly to the root of the problem and throwing both kitties in the river.** Yeeeaaahh.......noooo. 

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Speak of the devil, Ben got a job working in DOWNTOWN MILWAUKEE. He starts July 8th. Last night, we figured it would be awesome to see how long it would take him to sashay from our downtown Milwaukee apartment to his schmancy, new downtown Milwaukee workplace. Walk time = 20 minutes. His current drive time = 1+ hour, toll booths, and crossing the state line. 

After making it to his new workplace, we just kept walking like a couple of goonies for the next 2 hours. We hit Northwestern Mutual, headed to the lakefront and walked from the Art Museum all the way down to Bradford Beach, then down North Avenue where we stopped for pizza and finally back home near Lakefront Brewery. 

To my feet who endured this all in floppy flops-- I'm sorry. 

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xoxo, b

**For the record, Ben cleaned up Paris' party mess, and both cats still happily reside indoors.

Good morning

This morning, I gracefully awoke from my wonderful nest of multiple pillows and fluffy warm blankets, smiling sweetly as the last fleeting moments of subconscious dreamworld fluttered from me. With a quick kiss, I shrugged off the loving embrace of my darling husband, and sat up to stretch. With a grateful sigh, I spotted a furry little black kitty nestled up against my thigh. Smiling and shaking my head at just how amazing life can be, I extended my hand to feel the soft purr and warm body of the little runt of the litter, sweet Paris. Unable to restrain myself further, I scooped up the kitty and gave her a big squeeze. 

And she totally farted. 

Hello reality. 

xoxo, b