Turkey Day: A Day of....Running?

Happy post Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you were able to spend some quality time with friends and family and above all, enjoy some turkey with all the fixin's. Kirsten and I headed to Green Bay late Wednesday night to spend the weekend with my family. We'll be heading to Minnesota to spend Christmas with her family...one of the joys of married life, deciding who to snub each holiday. :)

We went up late Wednesday night for a reason. Thursday morning we took part in the "Turkey Day Run" which was a 5K run on Green Bay's west side. It's not how I would ideally begin the day of my favorite holiday of the year but that's what happens when you're married to someone who actually enjoys running, as crazy as that whole idea is. It went fairly well and I ran about 2.5 of the 3.1 miles the race covered. Pretty good for me as a beginner in the running field. The best part though was since I did that, it was agreed that I would escape any comments about how much I was going to eat and drink that day. So there's that.

And I did eat and drink a lot.

Friday night we went out to dinner with my sister Gina and her husband Chris which was really nice. We followed that up with some drinks and darts at a couple bars in Green Bay. My other sister Jessica and her significant other Ben also met us out later. Good family bonding time!

Saturday during the day, my Dad and I went to the new James Bond movie Casino Royale which was GREAT. It was far better than the past couple Bond movies and the "new" Bond, Daniel Craig, is fantastic. He took a lot of heat early on when the studios announced him as the successor to Pierce Brosnon but he sure fills the shoes. I highly recommend seeing it (make time though, it's 2.5 hours long!)

A Night In Cedarburg

Happy almost Thanksgiving everyone. I hope this post finds you well.

So this past Friday, Kirsten and I headed north back up to the town of Cedarburg, about 20 minutes north of Milwaukee, to spend the night at The Stagecoach Inn, a local Bed & Breakfast, as a belated anniversary night. We had a gift certificate to use that we received from our wedding last year from our good friends Emmett and Julie whose claim to fame is introducing Kirsten and I among other things.

The Stagecoah was amazing. Since we had a gift certificate that covered the majority of the room, we sprung for one of the whirlpool suites and paid for the difference. It was great. What was most amazing is that unlike a hotel, you feel at home almost immediately once you are shown to your room. It just feels like home. (Kind of tough to explain I guess but I'd highly recommend it to anyone.)

After getting settled in, we headed out to walk the main drag of Cedarburg. We had lunch at a nice little place called the Settler's Inn and I had way too much to eat for lunch, the perch & cod combo. It was very tasty, especially their homemade tarter sauce and slaw.

After that, on the way back to the Inn, we stopped to have some coffee at the Java House. I had heard about that place for YEARS since my good friend and recent travel companion Amy used to work there a while back. Kirsten and I really liked it. It was similar to the standard coffee houses but, like the Stagecoach, was very homey and just relaxed you instantly no matter how much coffee you drank.

Friday night was weekend #1 of what they call "Festive Friday Eve's" in Cedarburg at the Cedar Creek Winery & Settlement which was both good and bad. The good was that I thought the winery was really cool, being the big wine drinker that I am.

[I'm throwing down some delicious Syrah as I type this]

The winery had a really old, workman type feel to it which was really neat. We tasted a bunch of different wines and ended up purchasing a few a bottles that have already been "earmarked" as gifts for people. The bad part about the Festive Friday Eve's was the people. We both left the winery with a very sour taste in our mouth when it came to the people of Cedarburg that we were in contact with. I'm obviously not generalizing the whole town, but the people we interacted with, or in some cases didn't, were very snotty and just cold. Kind of disappointing.

Anyway, back at the Bed & Breakfast we went down to the main level and grabbed a movie to watch to close out the night. We watched "You've Got Mail" (on VHS!) which is one of our favs and will be the topic of an upcoming blog post so stay tuned for that!

All in all, a very nice, relaxing belated anniversary night away.

Bienvenido a Miami: Part 2

So being that I am a multi-tasker by trade, I can't just sit on my comfy oversized chair and watch the Pack play the Vikings (up 10-0 at the moment!) so I'll continue the blog post about our trip to Miami. Quick recap: Kirsten and I went down there to meet up with my good friend Amy, her sister Therese and one of her friends from Dallas, Ashli for a fun filled and yet relaxing weekend concluding with the main event, the Packers/Dolphins game.

(Damn Vikings just scored. 10-7 Pack)

So the 5 of us grab a cab from our hotels in South Beach at about 10:00 (1:00 kickoff) and off to Dolphins stadium we go. At every turn we had to explain why we were going to the game so ealry, to tailgate. Even after explaining this, people still gave us weird looks but whatever.

We made our way to our tailgate area to meet up with the rest of our clan and noticed that easily 50% of the people in the parking lots were Packers fans. Which is good and bad. Good because we had some backing for the team, Bad because it took a little bit away from being at a Road game. We made it to our group's setup and fired up the grill and started on the bloody marys.Note: the um, ladies, in the middle picture we NOT with our group but were too much to just let them walk by without a picture!

(Damn Vikings just scored AGAIN. 14-10 Vikings. Bastards)

So we headed into Dolphins stadium and walked ALLLL the way up the ramps to our level. As we made our way around, we rain into a familiar face. St. Vince was in the house! Pretty funny. I've seen him at games at Lambeau for many years but didn't know he made the road trips.The Packers of course won the game 34-24. They wouldn't dare ruin my first road game by losing. That wrapped our trip to Miami. Very early Monday morning we hopped on a plane headed for San Francisco...

Save Baby Gavin

I'm going to for go a blog entry about my unhappiness that Jim Doyle was re-elected as governor of this great state of ours to write about something much more important.

A friend of mine has a relative who, in February, had a beautiful baby boy named Gavin. As happy as this news was/is, there is a problem. Gavin was born with end-stage renal failure or kidney failure. He has no function in one of his kidneys, and only 10-15% in the other. The outlook does not look good and he will not survive without a transplant.

A website has been setup, SaveBabyGavin.com, where people can donate money that will go toward Gavin's medical bills. Please take minute to take a look at the website and, if you can, donate to help save baby Gavin. Thanks.

Bienvenido a Miami

Talk about multi-tasking. I'm sitting here in my most favorite oversized chair pouring through "Lost" Season 1 on DVD on TV while at the same time decrypting and downloading Season 2 of "The Office" to my iPod.

From what I've been told, "Lost" is a fantastic and addicting show. I think I'll have to second that motion since I watched the first four episodes last night and am #3 tonight and it's only 8:30. It's certainly an interesting and suspenseful show. I've found myself holding my breath a few times which tells me I'm enjoying it.

Now, on to the Miami trip...

Kirsten and I flew into Miami on Friday for a much needed vacation. We grabbed a cab for a ride to our hotel in South Beach. What's cool about their cab fare system is that they have pre-determined rates for rides to and from the airport. Since our hotel was in South Beach, the fare was $32. It's a pretty nice feeling knowing exactly how much is going to cost right when ou get in the car and at the same time know the driver isn't going to screw you over.

As I mentioned before, we stayed at the Hotel Chelsea which, like most hotels in South Beach, is a "boutique" hotel. Pretty small and certainly not a 5-star place but very cool and like everywhere else in the area, has some very nice people and great service. After the flight we were both pretty hungry so off to Ocean Drive we went.

As we walked past the endless row of hotels, restaurants and bars facing the ocean, I couldn't help but feel like I was back in Mexico. Just as the bodegas there, as you pass each place there are people trying to get you to come in to get your business. UNLIKE Mexico, however, these places are all great, quality places.We were "suckered" into going to the restaurant Rendezvous inside the Beacan Hotel by a fast talking cuban offering some free champagne. As we were led to the table on the patio that was reserved "just for us" I couldn't help but think that we just fell for some sort of trick but I was certainly mistaken. The restaurant was great (see delicious lobster tail above) and our server Luis made us feel like we were the only table in the place. As most places, it was fairly expensive but hey, we were on vacation right?

Saturday we slept in pretty late which was the first morning we could actually do that since we've had Olive, so that was really nice. We went back to Ocean Drive and had breakfast at a place called the News Cafe which was really cool. We ate out on the large patio (it was 80 degrees outside already) which was neat. There were a lot of little tables packed in there with a few trees growing up through holes cut in the patio. It was there that I noticed how we were some of the few that were actually speaking English. They say that Miami is a melting pot and it was proven then because most of the people were speaking European languages.

Coming up next, the Packers/Dolphins game on Sunday but for now, I need to get back to watching "Lost."