My Favorite Things of Summer

Well I guess I can say SUMMER IS OFFICIALLY OVER. Both girls are back at COLLEGE. We dropped Katie off this past Friday, delivered her to her new dorm and the college way of life in LaCrosse.  Instead of getting all sad and glumy, at summer's end, I thought I would recount my favorite things.

Here we go:

• The many, many trips to DEVIL'S LAKE for hiking, climbing the bluff stairs, picnicking, swimming and just sitting on camp chairs and enjoying the soft breeze that always wafts off the lake. Seriously, this is one of my favorite places in the world!

• Taking ZUMBA GOLD class at Harbor Athletic Club every Monday with Katie. I never told  her this , but that class was designed for senior citizens--haha! It's much slower and easier than the regular Zumba classes (I checked them out).  We loved the instructor of Zumba Gold. Katie and I always walked out of class invigorated and yet at peace--a very weird state of mind!
• The WALK TO A PUB with my neighbor friends. We walked to the downtown area, picked out one exotic cocktail, sipped it,  and then walked back to our homes in the early evening.
• Jim and my BAYFIELD TRIP. It was so good to get away and go some place we both had never been before. The restaurant with the flamingoes (there must have been 200!) was so yummy and fun. Loved our first experience at a B & B--thank you Pinehurst!

• WALKING ALMOST EVERY MORNING WITH MY NEIGHBOR FRIENDS. I always enjoy this summer ritual. We walk either around Pheasant Branch or we walk to Barriques for a cup of iced coffee than back home again. Come fall this ends, as we all go back to our school jobs. But maybe that's what makes it so special, it is just a summer thing!
• MALLARD'S GAME & ALMOST RYTHM AND BOOMS. We have been doing this for at least the past six years and it is a very special day/evening. During the fireworks I usually recount the year and think about the year to come. (Maybe it's a good thing we didn't go because Katie had heatstroke. It was a very trying year and it's best to let some things just simply...go.)
• VISITING BECKY IN CHICAGO. I can literally still taste those Bop Burgers!

• ART FAIR ON THE SQUARE.
• OPENING CEREMONY OF THE OLYMPICS. I loved this day. I ran down to Chicago and picked Becky up. Meanwhile Katie was busy at home making the fruit truffle dessert. Jim was making his creamed peas and the fish and chips were in the freezer ready to be baked. We had a fantastic night with our scrumptious English dinner fare.
• THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE. I can honestly say this was my favorite musical that Katie has performed in. I loved her character--Logainne, the lisp speaking, two dad girl of 12. SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! And that SMILE when Bruin took the pic of the three of them--simply one of my all time favorite Katie performance moments!

• APT. Really what is more fun than good food, surrounded by good friends and family, sipping a really good glass of chilled sweet wine?? Followed by THEATER???
• IRISH FEST. Okay and my favorite moment of that was DUM DUM MAN. I will always be able to conjure up the image of the middle aged man, bearded, dred locks, long grungy coat and the bouquet of Dum Dums that he said were laced with acid. I'm still going--what the????

DROPPING KATIE OFF AT COLLEGE. Okay, I almost put this in a category of "sad" all by it's lonesome self, but she's doing so well there! She's only been there since Friday--2 1/2 days--but she's made tons of friends, has adapted well to sharing a dorm room, and is HAPPY!

IT's been a delightful summer full of fun, relaxation and family and friends! What more could I want out of life?

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

I just had to do it--I had to post my first day of school photo. Yes, I'm a dork! Or maybe just sentimental. All those first day of school photos of my daughters, why can't I have one?? I do work at a school and IT IS the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

GREEN DAY a.k.a. IRISH FEST

Becky, Katie and I trekked down to Milwaukee this past weekend to go to one of their ethnic festivals--Irish Fest--and had so much fun! It took us two hours to get there, but it was SO WORTH THE DRIVE!! We found parking right off Interstate 794 for $5:00 (across the street they wanted $20.00!). Then we walked a couple of of blocks and were bombarded with the cool entrance:

Once we got through the gate we were greeted by these two lovely people:

What a cute couple, right?

Then, us Gehrmann Girls shot to the food booths (it was a long ride, remember?):

My food is in the foreground. I decided to go healthy so I could indulge later in the evening. I chose the grilled salmon, plain baked potato and steamed veggies (me good). Katie had the Sheppard's Pie and Becky had the Irish Stew over a baked potato. We had a chuckle over the featured "Irish Nachos" (don't worry, we weren't that gullible).

We wondered through the market, viewed a wonderful Titanic display, browsed the culture tent and of course had to do our share of:

Leprechaun searching! (Unfortunately we didn't find any.)

Of course we just had to, had to:

Stroll through the children's area. See how Katie was able to embrace her inner child whereby Becky opted for model pose?

And eat dessert:

HUGE carrot cupcakes and Irish Coffee (no Whiskey BUT Irish Cream flavoring) YUMMY!

Then it was off to see THE BANDS. Did you know that the Bluegrass genre of music came from IRELAND? Well we didn't know that. We saw the most incredible band:

They were called Punch Brothers. One of their songs was actually included on the soundtrack for The Hunger Games. The were really GOOD!

But the best part of the evening was the two weird guys who sat down next to us while we were watching Punch Brothers. Both men had dred locks, beards, long wool coats and looked downright sketchy. I told Katie to scootch down to to the right a bit (away from the weirdos). She picked up her purse and said "well, it's getting kinda late." I took her hint and said "we should probably get going." Then as Becky and Katie were walking past the weirdos one pulled out a bouquet of wrapped Dum Dums. He told them "want to dry a lollipop, they have LOTS of acid on them!" Well as you can probably figure, Mommy-Mode stepped into gear. I shouted "NO!" and pushed the girls forward and away from the two Druggies. Then we started laughing and wondering if the whole thing was a hoax, some Theater Majors dressed up and playing the part of quintessential Bob Marley Listening Hippies. Or were they FOR REAL? Scary, huh?

We did one final bathroom stop and then Becky insisted we buy Kettlecorn for the long way home (good job, Becky!

All and all it was an evening of laughs and good food and good company!

American Players Theater

Every year, usually at the end of March or beginning April, my good friend Nanci comes up with about three plays and three dates of play performances for our group of friends to see at the American Players Theater in Spring Green. It's rather nice. She takes the guess work out for us of "what do you wanna see, which days do you wanna go, who's going." Which could get rather messy, not to mention frustrating! We tell her the dates we want to go and how many tickets we need and then give her a check for $22.00 per ticket. She gets the teacher discount!! Jim, Becky, Katie and I decided to go to yesterday's performance of The Admiral Crichton.

American Players Theater is an outdoor theater. So we always pack a dinner picnic and eat at picnic tables provided on the grounds. This year we brought my infamous Thai Vegetable Spring Rolls, Thai Chicken Salad with miniature Ciabatta buns, a mix of Chinese Snacks (including those HOT "peas" and nasty shrimp thingees I hate) and two bottles of wine.

(Unfortunately, tho I brought my camera, I was having too much fun and sharing in MUCH GREAT LAUGHTER, that I forgot to take pictures and therefore have to resort to stock photographs).

The play was a funny twist of fate and social classes. It reminded us of the PBS show Downton Abbey because it included wealthy aristocrats and their servants and was set in the early 1900s.  Pictured above are the three wealthy daughters. The daughters, their father, and a butler get stranded on an isolated island. The butler becomes the person in charge and the daughters become his servant. But in the end they get rescued and all of them  go back to their respective lives. It was quite funny and purely entertaining.

The sets at APT are always delightful!

WHAT A GREAT EVENING!!!!

The 2012 London Olympics

Last night we all had to say good-by to the summer Olympics. So sad. I don't know where the last two weeks went, but I must admit I truly enjoyed watching the gifted athletes every night (well except for that evening we decided to take a break and watched the classic movie From Here To Eternity--bad mistake--we missed Misty May and Kerri Walsh score a US gold medal for Beach Volleyball in the finals).

So to celebrate the gold medals acquired by all the US athletes, Becky, Katie and I made our own edible gold medals (thanks to a post online).

We used Golden Oreos and Rope by The Foot gummy snacks.

I guess if we were to receive Gold Medals it would be for eating! We're THE BEST at that!! And we certainly gobbled up those cookies, dunked in milk, of course.

We will miss you INCREDIBLE swimmers--Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps (Katie and I are on Team Lochte, Becky is still sticking with Team Phelps--such a diehard, that Becky!) We fell head over heels in support of Gabby "The Flying Squirrel" Douglas. You're beautiful smile won us over from Day One! 

YAY USA

Maggie......

Our family had some sad news the past couple of days and I'm only now able to process it and write about it. You see, our dog, Maggie, has been diagnosed with Glaucoma. This disease is a build up of pressure on the optic nerve that leads to blindness.

We've been noticing that the last couple of months Maggie's eyes have been watering, but we just just assumed it was from allergies. Then at the beginning of this past week her left eye started looking horrible--red, swollen and Maggie was barely able to keep it open. So we made an appointment with her vet and believed it to be a normal eye infection. But the vet was unsure of what was wrong with Maggie's eye so she sent Maggie (and Jim) to a veterinarian eye specialist who diagnosed Glaucoma. The specialist said Maggie already has some vision loss in her left eye.
So...we have begun an aggressive treatment of four types of eyedrops to slow the blindness in the left eye and keep the right eye from losing any vision.

Jim has devised the perfect chart to keep track of these eyedrops that have to be given daily three/four times with five minutes between drops. He started giving the drops on Thursday but I gave them all day  yesterday because he went to Chicago to get Becky from summer school and bring her home. I had to pry her eye open (a difficult feat) and then give the drops. But after yesterday I feel better about the whole thing because the treatment seems to be working. She even walked ME around Pheasant Branch yesterday morning (5 miles!!).

But what's the prognosis????

Eventually she will lose all vision in her left eye and it will have to be removed. At that time the eye will be examined to see if it's primary or secondary Glaucoma. Primary means it was inherited and the second one will get it. But the GOOD news is an operation can be performed on the right eye, a shunt placed in the eye and the process of deterioration will vastly be slowed. But if it's secondary it means there is another cause for the left eye blindness--a tumor, another disease, etc. and the right eye will not be affected. We pray it's secondary....

Book Review of "The Dovekeepers"

Well I finally finished it--Alice Hoffman's amazing book The Dovekeepers. And I've probably accrued $10.00 in library fines in the process (it's been a busy summer!). In my defense the novel was a whopping 504 pages from cover to cover and not an easy read (not a horrible one either!).

The book takes place in ancient Israel, 70 C.E. It is broken up into sections by four women narrators who are the protagonists of the book. The novel is in first person narration according to the individual narrator. There's Yael, the assassin's daughter whose mother died in Yael's childbirth. Revka is the baker's wife and she witnessed the brutal death of her daughter at the hands of Roman soldiers. Azizza is a warrior's daughter who becomes a soldier in the novel. Last, but not least is Shirah, my favorite character of the book. She is the witch of Moab, a woman who uses ancient medicine and magic to heal people. She is a woman with much power and insight. All four women are dovekeepers and work at the dovecoat gathering eggs for human food and manure for plant nourishment. All four women harbor secrets: lovers, their backgrounds and their knowledge.

All four of these woman are fierce, loyal and independent. Their lives intersect when they all come together at Masada, a mountain village in the Judean desert. The conflict and climax of the story is their holdout against the armies of Roman soldiers who are trying to conquer the village.

I truly enjoyed the book. I feel I learned about the times of the brutal Romans, ancient herbs and medicines and also that there were fierce woman during this time frame who endured. Hoffman was able to clearly and beautifully establish place, time and feel of 70 C.E. As I read the novel I could easily SEE it. I loved all four women characters. Each one had her own voice and story, incredibly written so that I rooted for each one and each tale.

The Dovekeepers was not a fluffy, easy read. But this was okay. It was complex and intriguing and unique. Historical and relevant at the same time. The Hebrew names were different and sometimes difficult to keep straight but with a little work it all was manageable. I feel like I walked away from having read The Dovekeepers with a broad understanding of ancient Israel and for that I'm grateful and just a little smarter.

WONDERFUL WONDERFUL SHOW!

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee presented by The House Theater was a HUGE SUCCESS!!!!

Katie was absolutely perfect as Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre, the 12 year old kid with a lisp and two dads. She captured the essence of being young and radical-like, as well as tough and spunky. When describing one of the other spellers (Olive Ostrovsky, played by Jules) Logainne says "she's pro-choice AND still a virgin!" "Schwartzy" wants to bring the voting age down to TEN!

I do believe the whole audience liked the shows. For the final show the guest spellers consisted of ADULTS from the house. They acted their parts perfectly. Carly Densmore's mom started making out with Magic Foot William Barfee (Luke Landgraf). It threw a wrench into the performance but the kids went for it. When Barfee went up to give his spelling word Vice Principal Douglas Patch (Tim Gisi) said this about Magic Foot, "he likes to attract older women." I think the last performance was the best--it always is!

 Becky and Katie--such cute sistahs!

Such a FUN show to watch!

WHAT A GREAT TIME!

All dressed up and SOMEWHERE to go--the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee--and it was simply HILARIOUS!! Jim and I sat by two lovely older women--Margaret and Lois and they were so much fun to talk to. Margaret had SEVEN children and SEVENTEEN grandchildren and Lois had one daughter who was an architect in Chicago, was married and four years ago adopted a cute boy from the Phillipines. They were delightful table companions!

Of course Jules and Katie were divine!

The best thing is, I get to dress up and watch it all over TWO MORE TIMES!

25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

Well tonight is almost here: the opening night of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday I went in to Blessed Sacrament Church basement and helped set up the tables, put on the tabletop decorations and then videotaped the show. I also took a few photographs:

YAY Katie! 

The show is incredibly fun to watch. It's going to be even better with an audience tonight.Once again Katie is amazing!!