Blue vs. Red

Okay I know this is really silly but I've always gone to a school with blue as the school color (Bulldogs, Vikings, Cougars) and my rival was always red (Sailors, Utes) anyway the school I am teaching at has red as their school color...how am I suppose to react to this? I feel so icky wearing red but I need to be a wonderful supportive health teacher so I will proudly wear my red Waukesha South Blackshirt (what kind of mascot is a Blackshirt???) sweats, t-shirts, sweatshirts etc. Oh the problems I face! :)

Mrs. Luke

Well today was my first day of school...actually it was just a teacher prep day so that doesn't really count, the students come on the 4th. It went pretty well considering I was the only one dressed up. People were probably like "oh she must have gone school shopping and wants to wear all of her new threads."

I have to be careful about what I post you know now that the whole world can read our blog. I really like my mentor teachers (I have two) and I think it's going to be a fun semester. I'll be teaching 4 classes that are primarily freshman. I think it'll be great! I REALLY need to get in the habit of waking up again. I'm an avid 8 hour sleeper and I only got 6 last night. I know I know you mothers are probably thinking that 6 is a real treat. Anyway today was a killer for me getting up at 4:45, David and I are getting old and are shooting to be in bed by 9:00-9:30. Well enough rambling. Happy Tuesday!

Rad Brad

Saturday was the Brad Paisley concert. It had been raining all week but luckily it was a beautiful night. Taylor Swift, Jack Ingram and Kelly Pickler opened for Brad and they were all so amazing. I was having a hard time focusing on the music because the batteries in my camera thought it would be a great idea to die the first 5 minutes we were there!!! Talk about frustrating...I promise we were really at the concert though ;) I finally blocked it out of my mind and had a great time. Brad is a GREAT performer, he had so much energy and was enjoying himself. The only bad thing about the concert was the fact that EVERYONE was drinking...grandmas, teens, everyone. Brad has a song "Alcohol" and I swear the locals think it is the National anthem because when he sang it everyone was on their feet singing along-probably with their hands on their heart and a beer in each hand. Oh it was ridiculous...that's Milwaukee for ya!

4 down eternity to go

Well David and I had our 4 year anniversary yesterday. Can you believe it's been 4 years??? Man how the time has flown by. It was great he came home for lunch (nothing beats leftover pulled-pork sandwiches!) and he surprised me with some beautiful flowers, I loved it! Inside the flowers there was a candy bar that had an ad for the Brad Paisley concert this Saturday...this was his cute way of telling me that we're going! I was so excited. We are both huge lovers of music, especially country, especially Brad. It was funny because I knew he was planning something for us to do on Saturday and then I heard on the radio that Brad was coming this weekend. I put two and two together but I didn't want to get my hopes up-what a great hubby! It's just a fun way to celebrate our anniversary and the end of summer. I'm looking forward to more fun years together!

Day with the Brew Crew

Yesterday was Kohl's annual BIG EVENT for corporate employees. They took everyone to a Brewers game (ok I had to pay $7) and paid for parking, gave us t-shirts, peanuts, cracker jacks. etc. It poured the whole day! Thankfully there were tents set up and the stadium was covered. The best part of all was that there was FREE food before the game. I mean remember we are in Wisconsin so we MUST eat at every occasion and it MUST be the worst food for you. Even with that knowledge it didn't stop us from chowing down on free fries, cheese sticks, bbq sandwiches, ice-cream, roasted corn, brats, hot dogs, italian beef sandwiches, fried ravioli..the list continues! Oh my! They even allowed the employees to walk the field before the game. David brought a football to play with before the game, unfortunately they wouldn't let us in the stadium with it so we had to make the trek back to the car (we probably burned off a few fries!) and took it back. By that time we realized that if we were to walk back and stand in line to see the stadium we would have missed the food...decisions decisions...I guess we'll see the stadium next year! The free food was definitely worth it!

Miller Park

Not sure what David did wrong at work for us to deserve top row seats!!! Just kidding...there actually isn't any "bad" seat in the stadium!

Mountains???

A few weeks ago I went on a High Adventure camping trip with the 14-16 year old girls in the stake. I'm not in young womens but hey let the blessing pour down on me! I had such a great time. The girls were so helpful and sweet, I couldn't have asked for a better group to go with. We went on a few mini hikes, a 10 mile canoe trip, saw the Mississippi river, had picnics on the beach and played in the river not to mention numerous fab meals in the dutch oven! On one of the hikes we saw some "mountains", I guess I'm just a little too blessed to have lived in Colorado and Utah...ya know the ROCKIES!!! Oh and we also saw a "waterfall" which is also known as 2-3 rocks stacked on each other in the river! Hey atleast it's green here right?

Health shmealth

I went to a pool party last week and decided to bring some "healthy" cookies. I figured that since we're swimming people might want to feel good in their bathing suits right? I thought that if I told them how healthy they were (low sugar, wheat flour, egg whites...don't worry there was a snickers bar blended in too) that people would be somewhat excited to eat a healthy snack(I know I know, only a health major would get excited about wheat cookies) to my surprise only ONE person tried one...TRIED one...not to mention she was the hostess. I don't understand this place. Ice cream isn't fatty enough for you let's add an egg and some cream and call it custard...hot dogs too wimpy of a food? why not make it a brat? plain oreos, snickers, cheese? NO NO these MUST be deep fried!!! AAHHH!!! Actually I really do love Wisconsin but it will be a bit of a challenge to teach freshman good lifestyles when they are bombarded with this stuff! Ok enough venting.

We're jammin'

There is a huge fruit/veggie farm here where you can pick buckets full of strawberries, peas, apples etc. for a really cheap price. In June David and I went and picked about 7 lbs. of strawberries. We had a great time...there was a Russian lady there with her 3 year old adopted daughter picking strawberries. They were speaking Russian so David decided to strike up a conversation with her. I really wanted to freshen up on my skills and talk with her but I was quickly reminded that native speakers are a LOT harder to understand than a professor! Maybe I'll hit up the next random Russian I see. Anyway I decided to make freezer jam with all my strawberries-I was pretty surprised at how easy (and yummy) it was. I'm definitely going to make it again next year. The empty jars are the ones we've (ok mainly me) scarfed down, I'm running out fast!!!

new threads

So we went to the outlets today to find some student teaching clothes for me and I was totally bummed. Things just weren't working out...either too long...too expensive...anyway after a few hours of sadness we were about to leave and lo and behold the very last store (which I didn't plan on going in) was a HUGE success! I found some great classic mix-n-match pieces that I'm very excited about. I came home and had a little fashion show and pulled out old clothes that will work with them... I'm hoping I can wear the same shirt over and over and just add a sweater or jacket and totally get away with it! I just need some snow now that I bought all these "fall/winter" clothes. Maybe I should spend a little more time actually preparing my lessons...ah it's all about presentation right???

Milwaukee

Another day at the beach!

What a tour guide I am!

My parents came out in July and we had a blast together. I felt bad because I'm still new to the area so we spent a lot of quality time reading maps, making u-turns, you know the usual tourist things! We went down to Lake Michigan a few times and then we went on a boat tour of the lake and Menomonee River/ Milwaukee River. What a fun tour-it was a little hard to take a decent picture due to the muggy weather (and other tourists heads/hands/kids) I'm excited for them to visit again :)

The Windy City

Mama mia!

So David HAD to go to Chicago for work (what a job!) to see the layout and what not of a Kohl's store down there, so of course I tagged along and we made a day out of it. We went to this AMAZING pizza place that was actually voted "best pizza" according to New York Times, Yahoo and Chicago Tribune etc. We were so excited to take home our leftovers and very surprised that we actually remembered...needless to say we left them on the sidewalk while we took pictures of the buildings! GGRRR!!!

A rockin' good time

In July we went to the largest music festival in the nation (actually Milwaukee is known for all of the festivals...I'm sure I'll mention more!) SUMMERFEST. It was pretty much a 2 week long concert with bands such as Live, Bon Jovi, The new Cars, Toby Keith, Collective Soul, G. Love etc. We went with some friends and had a great time. $5 to see some pretty cool bands not too shabby.

Well it has already been two months since we've moved to Milwaukee and we are absolutely lovin' it! Our first week here we went to IKEA and bought some sailing pics and everyone was like "Oh you must love to sail" when in reality we have never even been on a sailboat!!! Well those days are over- our friends have a sailboat and invited us to come. We had such a blast...despite the fact that David's brand new blackberry took a lil' swim in Lake Michigan!!! The water was a little rough (and cold...thanks for the jacket Becca!) but we had a great time.