2018 in Review

2018 was another busy year. The adventures added up quickly. It just didn't seem as busy as last year.

Here's a quick look back on 2018 by the numbers

• 13 official bucket list adventures
• 30+ extended bucket list adventures
• 13 states (3 new ones)
• 4 State Capitols (3 new ones)
• 194 Counties (107 new ones)
• 8 states watching baseball(2 new states)
• 2 state we played mini golf in (2 new states)
• 4 Major League Stadiums visited (2 new ones) for a total 11 major league games
• 4 Minor League Parks visited (4 new ones) for a total of 7 minor league games
• 3 Spring Training Stadiums visited for a total of 4 Cactus League Games
• 3 Brewer Play off Games
• 1 State Park.. a lone trip or two to High Cliff
• 10 Museums 
• 1 World Heritage Site
• 7 National Parks
• 2 National Forests
• 3 Great Lakes

• 1 Big Ten Stadium (1 new)
• 6 wineries in 2 states (4 new ones, 2 of which are my new favorites)
• 1 Brewery
• 2 states that I had ice cream in (1 new)
• 1 movie in the theaters
• 110 Books Read (including 2 off the bucket list)
• 18 new movies watched
• 7 Visits with Sisters
• 5 Random Postcards to arrive (thanks Danielle and Alison)
• 2 5Ks

I can't wait to see what 2019 has in store for me.

Gridiron Glory at the Castle

The History at the Castle Museum was hosting the traveling Football Hall of Fame Exhibit Gridiron Glory. It was going to be there through the end of the year and I wanted to go. We could have gone in October but that's when I hurt my foot and thought more walking wasn't a good idea. With the hubby's limited availability during the holidays, I made sure to find a day that we could go. Although it was slightly pricing at $15/person, I knew it was going to be worth it.

The Gridiron Glory highlighted artifacts from the NFL. You came into the entry of the museum and you could try your hand at instant replay.. there was even an instant replay booth. The hubby tried his hand at instant reply as we left and of course he got it right.

Because of the layout of the museum, the exhibit was spread out on all three floors... pretty much where ever they had space to put it. There was artifacts from the early days of the NFL including the heating cables under Lambeau Field that Lombardi had installed.

There was also memorabilia from the modern era and the players that kids today recognize.

It is always amazing to see what players wore as protection back in the day or should I say lack of protection. Some of my bras probably have more padding than those shoulder pads did.

The Gridiron Glory did not take up the entire museum and there were a few other exhibits going on including the mainstay Houdini Exhibit. However, the one that the hubby was most impressed with was the model railroad exhibit of Appleton in the 1950's. It was an N-Scale model railroad of downtown Appleton which was pretty much spot on.. a few minor tweaks had to be made for space issues. The model railroader was there and explained the model railroad as well as answered any questions. The hubby was in his glory.

Of all it was a nice afternoon. If you haven't gotten to the History at the Castle to see the Gridiron Glory exhibit, I'd say hurry on over before January 6th. It definitely worth it especially for football fans. Hopefully the museum continues to get traveling exhibits... maybe one from Cooperstown??

Celebrating Festivus

I heard about Festivus, even though I'm not a Seinfeld fan but I never celebrated it before. The Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass was celebrating Festivus as part of their Art After Dark series. I told Danielle to mark it on her calendar, we were going. Between work and sickness, we almost didn't make it but the Festivus Gods were in our favor and we were able to celebrate Festivus.

What is Festivus? Well as I like to say "Airing your grievances so you can be joyful and thankful at Christmas". Festivus is more than that. According to Wikipedia "Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 as an alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season." Apparently it's been around since the 60s but really has gotten popular since Seinfeld in the 90s.

There are many aspects to Festivus:

There is the Festivus Pole which is just an aluminum pole in the middle of the room. It's actually kind of boring. I guess it's supposed to represent the lack of commercialism in your life. There were songs you could sing around the Festivus pole such as "It's a Pole", "The Festivus Song", and "O Festivus".

Then you have the traditional Festivus dinner which is meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We had meatballs and M&Ms. Close enough. It was still tasty. It is difficult to put mashed potatoes on a stick.. maybe next year they will do potato puffs.

One of the parts of Festivus I was looking forward to was the airing of grievances. After my bad day at work, I really needed to air some grievances. I probably was a little too specific but I really liked some of the grievances people aired. Next year I'll have to be more creative.

The last part of Festivus was Feats of Strength. There were several feats of strength that the entire family could partake in -- staring contest, thumb wrestling, and arm strength. Gavin totally beat me at the staring contest. However after a slows start, I managed to take two out of three in the thumb wrestling competition. To find out who won the feats of strength, we held out paper weights in each hand. The goal was to see who could keep them outstretched the longest. Even with Danielle cheering Gavin, he tired out quickly and I was named the Feats of Strength Champion. Not quite sure how fair it was since there is a 30+ year age difference.

The Festivus celebration was a lot of fun. Besides the Festivus Celebration, we got to check out some really cool new glass creations in the museum.

I hope to be back next year for another Festivus celebration. Who knows maybe I will inherit an aluminum pole myself and I can host my own Festivus celebration.

6411. Make homemade hot chocolate

I love hot chocolate and will drink it all year long. However, I am not a big fan of hot chocolate packets. I'd rather go to Starbucks and get a handcrafted one. I decided maybe I should make hot chocolate after I made my swizzle sticks since they were perfect to stir the hot chocolate with.

A Pinterest search later, I found the perfect hot chocolate recipe and it seemed simple enough. Since I was hosting a cookie exchange, I figured hot chocolate would be pair perfect with the cookies.

As soon as everyone arrived, I whipped up a batch of hot chocolate. I didn't want to make a whole pot of hot chocolate and no one wanted any. It probably took me maybe ten or fifteen minutes.

First I mixed the dry ingredients together and added water.

I heated that until it started to boil.

Then I add four cups of milk and heated it until it was warm. I actually used my 4 cup measuring cup probably for the first time ever..

To serve, I ladled into mugs and let everyone add their own toppings. I had whipped cream, mini marshmallows, and crushed candy canes (well.. more like crushed candy cane globs).

The hot chocolate was quite delicious. However, in the future I would definitely use the whole milk (or at least 2% milk) like the recipe called for. 1% milk did not make the hot chocolate very thick. I also used dark cocoa which I would use again.

It said it made 5 cups and well I got 3.5 mugfuls. I'm sure I could cut the recipe in half so I could make a single serving. Definitely worth the math.

4931. Go to the Christkindlmarket in Milwaukee

Christmas baking was down in Milwaukee this year. I was especially happy about this because this was the first year of the Christkindlmarket in Milwaukee. Years ago Stacy and I went to the one in Chicago and we were very excited to see that Milwaukee was having one too.

We decided to spend the afternoon downtown Milwaukee knocking a few things off my bucket list. Our first stop was the Christkindlmarket. It was CRAZY!!!! I checked to see if the Bucks were going to be home but I didn't think of Marquette being home. Of course the Badger/Marquette game at the Fiserv Forum which is where the Christkindlmarket is held.

The Christkindlmarket is in the public area outside of the Fiserv Forum. It is probably about the size of a city block. It was not very big. There were maybe 10 or so booths selling gifts or snacks. Then there were several small beer tents. All the good shopping was in one large tent that had a long line that we decided with two kids in tow was probably not a good idea. The prices for food was quite expensive. A cup of hot chocolate set you back $7.. $11 if you wanted the souvenir mug. Stacy got a bucket of donuts, while delicious, there were $13. Besides the time we spent in line, we spent maybe 10 minutes at the market. Outdoor heaters would be a great improvement for next year.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad during the week but on the weekend it's just not worth the hassle. I'm glad people are actually visiting it and hopefully it sticks around awhile. I would go back.. just with more money in pocket.

Making Swizzle Stix

I saw that the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass was having an Art Activity Day where you could make your own stir sticks. I made sure I was at the library on the first to try to snag a FAN pass so I could make them for free. I did get my FAN Pass and Heather was going to make them with me.

The museum must have figured out a way to do these Art Activity Days without having too many people in the room at a time to keep it manageable. They give you a ticket with a time slot on it and that's when you show up and make your craft. Because we go there at 10, we got the 10 AM time slot and headed downstairs to make our swizzle sticks.

Basically we decorated clear sticks of glass with glass rods, beads, and glitter. W. e were to leave the middle open to give the sticks a more rounded stir stick look. This is AFTER I already made my candy cane looking one. So I followed directions on the other 3... I made a Wisconsin one, a Mickey Mouse looking one, and one that was supposed to be Christmasy and ended up looking like the Food Dude's Logo. Heather also filled her middles in to give it more color.

We left our unfired projects at the museum and let the experts do their job (aka fire our creations to fuse the glass into one). Two weeks later, I picked up our swizzle stix and am very happy with the results... even my candy cane one looks awesome. I just wish I filled in the middle more.

I can't wait to use my new swizzle sticks. I might have to throw a hot chocolate party or serve hot chocolate for the cookie exchange. I didn't think ever needed swizzle stix because we don't make mixed drinks ever but they are very pretty to look at and might just come in handy one day.

I love that the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum has these Art Activity Days and that the Appleton Library has FAN Passes allowing me to create cool glass creations for free. I can't wait to find another project that I want to make and hopefully I will get a chance to make one. Don't worry, I try to not to get a FAN Pass every month so others can have the chance to make to participate in the Art Activity Days or other fun Art Events in the area.

A Little Wine Tasting for My Birthday

The hubby and I spent my Black Friday which happened to be my birthday with my parents and cousins. After some shopping in the morning, we headed back to my parents house to relax. Since it was early in the afternoon, I figured we had time to hit a winery in Port since my cousins love their wine.

Now I knew there was a winery in Port Washington, Vines to Cellar, but I did not realize it has been there for 10 years. It is a small winery in downtown Port. Since it was like 10 minutes from my parents, I figured we'd check it out.

O.M.G. I found my favorite new winery.. okay at least that is a bit closer than Downtime Wines. Their fruit wines are amazing. Not only do they sell full bottles but they also have half bottles which my cousins loved since they were easier to travel back to Kansas City with.

For a small fee, we each had a wine flight of 5 different wines. They have a huge selection of wines and I had a really hard time to decide which five I wanted to taste especially since there were many fruit wines that sounded amazing.

After some contemplation I went with:

Sunset Sunrise -- a white moscato. I am not one for white moscatos usually but this one was very good. It was sweet yet dry and there were no bubbles. Even my cousins liked this one. It is definitely one I would pick up for a party.

Jammin Blackberry Cab -- a blackberry Cabernet. This is very smooth blackberry. The hubby and I love blackberry wines so this was coming home with us.

Cherry Bounce -- a cherry pinot noir. This is my absolute favorite that I tasted. It literally tasted like cherry juice. A bottle came home with us. We are probably coming back to get it for Christmas.

Just Peachy -- a peach apricot chardonnay. Another tasty one. I will pick this one up the next time I'm in town. It is definitely a good summery wine.

Frosty Jo -- Riesling Ice wine. I am not much for ice wine. This one wasn't bad. However, if I was going to bring home an ice wine from here it would definitely be the Alyssa Ice which is a Cabernet Franc Ice Wine. This one was so much smoother, especially with chocolate.

Pomegranate Zing -- a pomegranate Zinfandel. This is surprisingly one of their best sellers. It wasn't bad. I'm not big on pomegranate but I can see why it is a big seller.

Other fruit wine flavors include pear/kiwi, pineapple, blueberry, green apple, and strawberry. Either have to go back and do another wine tasting (I do have another BOGO that's good til the end of the year) or blindly take home some of the more "exotic" fruit wines. I blindly took home the black raspberry wine. I figured I couldn't go wrong with that one.

I will warn you that it does smell like winery and very earthy. It just makes me thing of wine fermenting and that's a good thing. Oh and there is a very friendly dog that is there to greet you.

My cousin wasn't overly impressed with the reds and brought home fruit wines instead. Considering this winery is so close to mom and dad's, I'm surprised we didn't find it sooner. We will be back and it is easy for us to pick up some bottles for my cousins. I can't wait to go back and get more wine.

Craxi at the Movies: Crimes of Grindelwald

As soon as I heard Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald was coming out, I got tickets. I am not much of a movie goer. I think the last movie I saw in the theaters was Fast and Furious 8... in Costa Rica. I really wanted to see this one.

Honestly I was not overly impressed. It was good but it lacked something. I spent the first half of the movie confused as hell as who was who and who was doing what even though I know the Harry Potter story line and saw the last Fantastic Beast movie. I just couldn't make heads or tails of the beginning of the movie.

Once everything started to make sense, it was over. It literally left you hanging for the next movie. They exposed a huge twist and then rolled the credits. I have to go back and read Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows to confirm the twist.  I also have to wait two years to find out what happens next.

There were other very non-Harry Potter aspects of the movie that just irked me.

1. The teachers at Hogwarts when the movie took place wore regular fancy clothes like three piece suits... where are the cloaks and pointy hats??? It was more like a muggle boarding school than the greatest school for witchcraft and wizardry.

2. I thought they were at Beauxbatons (the French wizardry school) instead of Hogwarts based on how they cut to Hogwarts. It really didn't make sense at the beginning of the scene. It took a long to figure out they were at Hogwarts and that the man teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts was Dumbledore.

3. Speaking of Dumbledore, if the movie took place in the 1920s like it supposed to then Dumbledore really aged in 60 years which I suppose is possible. Dumbledore looked NOTHING like he should have in the movie. He opted for three piece suits and no beard. He didn't seem anything like Dumbledore. Very disappointing.

I get that they are really separate movies but please bring back the wizard robes.

I also need to get my hands on a Sirius Black Family tree. There is a character in the movie that could possible be a relative but doesn't seem so dark. More things to leave you hanging for the next movie.

As much as I don't like to search the internet for the behind the scenes thoughts and tidbits I might just have to in order to figure out the mind set for this movie.. Maybe reading the screenplay will help.

Now don't let me deter you from going to the movie. It is worth seeing but be prepared to be confused, angry, and slightly betrayed while you watch it.

A Little Bit of Birthday Bowling Fun

When one of our nephews was having his birthday party at the bowling alley, the hubby and I decided it was time for a little bit of friendly competition. The last time we bowled was back when we were dating.. over nine years ago. The hubby is a fairly decent bowler or was back then and I am a fairly pathetic bowler who only broke a 100 once... and that was the last time I bowled.

I was a bit worried how I was going to be able to bowl with my foot. I wasn't sure if it was going to like wearing a real shoe. However for the most part my foot was fine... my bowling on the other hand was just as bad as it always was.

I have a really bad bowling form. I literally walk up to the line.... stop.... bend... and release the ball.. and hope for the best. It doesn't help that I have a really bad cross body hook. However, as the frames went by I slowly started to realize this and actually compensated by starting pretty much all the way to the right. It doesn't help though when I only left the 7 (10?) pin and had to try to throw it straight down the lane without going in the gutter.

I finished last in the first game. I was just warming up and trying to remember how to do this bowling thing. The hubby beat me and his step dad. He was not bowling his greatest either. He was just slightly better than the rest of us. It was probably a good thing that the three of us were on the same lane as we were pitiful at times.

I did slightly better in the second game and beat the hubby's stepdad. It helped that I focused on what I was doing as well and not just throwing the ball down the lane. That is when I had the most problems.

Not only did I break an 100 in the last game, I also beat the hubby to win the third and final game. I started the game with a strike and had another one later on. It also helped that I didn't get back to back gutter balls after through those strikes.

Maybe one day before the end of the year we will go back and bowl another couple of games since we have free passes but then again it might be 10 years before we bowl again...

The Hubby Goes to the PAC

Mark it on the calendar... The hubby saw a performance at the PAC and it wasn't a concert or sports related. I picked up a FAN Pass to see an one-act show about Medal of Honor Receiptants. I just kind of left the FAN Pass hanging on the fridge without saying much. The hubby said he wanted to go. I picked up our tickets and let book club know I wasn't going to be there.

The show we saw was Beyond Glory which was a one-man show about several Medal of Honor Receipents. According to Google Books "In Stephen Lang’s theatrical adaptation of Larry Smith’s book Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words, Lang presents the stories of eight veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, rendering firsthand accounts of the actions which resulted in each of them receiving the nation’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor. BEYOND GLORY gathers these men together in the present to look back on the defining moments of their lives and to examine the meaning of courage, duty, and, ultimately, humility."

I thought the show was really well done. Stephan Lang protrayed each of these men using costume changes right on stage -- adding or removing a military jacket. Each of the men told his story of how he joined the military and what he did to earn the Medal of Honor. Like many receipents, these men were humble about the honor and believed they were just doing their job.

The hubby didn't really say about the show except he is not really into live theater. He did comment on how small the PAC really was and how comfortable the seats were. That is really all he said besides the security measures in place. I honestly don't think it was his cup of tea but he probably tolerated it enough.

I am glad that I decided to go back and get the FAN pass for the performance. It was an enjoyable show, even if it was hard to hear him at times. I like the theater prefermances but rarely have anyone to go with. I am glad the hubby was able to join me even if it was totally out of his element.

Picking the Brains of Psychological Thriller Authors

In case you haven't noticed I am a bit of a bookworm and library groupie. I love books. The hubby says I can't buy anymore books unless I get rid of one but I have far less books than most bookworms. 

Besides reading books, I love meeting authors that I have read. Book festivals are great way to do this. Those only happen once a year. But book tours happen all the time and once in a great while, an author will come to the Fox Valley on their book tour. This is how I ended up spending a few hours at Barnes and Nobles listening to Mary Kubica, Mindy Mejia, & Kate Moretti talk about their books. 

I have heard of Mary Kubica and read two of her books but I never heard of the others. I figured I'd meet Mary, get a book signed and be on my merry way like the hubby and I did last year when a local sports author was there. Oh no this was a whole formal event just like the book festival. It was very enjoyable.

Mary, Mindy, and Kate all talked about their books and their craft. One of them would pose a question "Tell how you got started writing" and then everyone would answer. After about an hour or so they opened the floor to questions. After another 30 minutes of questions or so, they signed books. 

The afternoon flew by and went much longer than expected. I was only planning on buying one book since I didn't know Mindy or Kate. However after hearing them speak, I did pick up Mindy's latest book. Hopefully it will become a book club read. 

I can't wait to the next author visit. I don't care if it's at the library or a bookstore. I always learn so much and the authors are always so pleasant.