The Girls Take Madtown

Erin and P.J. made the trek to Wisconsin. The weather was perfect and we had a great time! We walked on campus and down State Street during the day and at night. We made a stop over at the Memorial Union Terrace and the University Bookstore. We napped and watched "What Not to Wear." We sang some wicked karaoke! And now P.J. is going to call a drinking fountain a bubbler!

It was a blast sharing Madison, WI with a couple California girls.

Erin, P.J. and I get ready to hit the town.

Erin, P.J., Justin and I after a delicious meal at The Great Dane.

The Wisconsin Capitol building

Paul's Club, complete with tree.

Waiting for a late night slice of pizza.

Breakfast at Mickie's Dairy Bar.

State Street by day.

Cheesy!

Enjoying delicious, delicious beer and cider at the Terrace.

The Union Terrace and Lake Mendota.

Enjoying cranberry/vodka at Monday's on State Street.

Singing along at Karaoke Kid.

P.J. belts it out.

California Girls and honorary California girl, Kathleen.

Yes, there is a boombox in his backpack.

Waiting for Justin to pick us up is sooo funny!

Erin and P.J. are the newest Badger fans and my heart is still in San Francisco.

100 Bottles

I've had a week to reflect on 100 Bottles of Beer and while some of the details are still fuzzy, I think over all it was a great contest. The Midwest was well represented with participants traveling from Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and North Prairie. I know that l enjoyed the spring sunshine, bottled beer, and watching homoerotic wrestling. And nothing was broken, with the exception of Mike's toes and Ben's head. Congratulations to Ryan Anderson, Ben Campbell, and Mike Josephs. Now it's time to look forward to the 7th annual contest.

Everyone is calm and sober as they get in the zone.

Justin opens the contest with a prolific speech

Justin gives this year's contest a thumbs up

Justin shows Ben his teeth, Ben shows Justin his grandma style

Derek and Tim love the High Life

Law students and Dave unite.

And the winners are . . . classy

Post-contest wrestling.

Justin tells Mike Josephs that he is a winner.

Time for a nap?

Spring Break

Let me try again - I had written out a lovely description once before and my explorer froze and I lost everything.

I have to say that spring break begin in a stressful way for me and Justin, but for Justin mainly. He had spent half the week leading up to break competing at a moot court competition (fake appellate court) in Wilmington, Delaware. The plan was that he would fly out of Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, arrive in Madison on Sunday night and we would wake up and fly to L.A. on Monday morning. Unfortunately, for some reason that was never made clear to Justin, flights out of Philadelphia were delayed several hours and it was beginning to look like Justin wouldn't make it back to Madison in time to catch our 8:30am flight. He was entertaining the possibility of flying into Detroit, renting a car and driving over six hours to Madison. Luckily it never came to that and Justin was able to make into Madison with just enough time to retrieve his luggage and check-in for our flight to California.

From there on out the trip was lovely. The flight to L.A. was uneventful - except for a view of the Grand Canyon. Once in L.A., we met up with Justin's family and headed to the beach in Santa Monica. The water wasn't particularly warm, but the sunshine felt great. While in southern California we perused the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica and walked the Santa Monica Pier. We drove through UCLA and made a brief stop over at the law school. We ate lots of delicious food.

After Justin's family returned to Wisconsin, Justin and I checked out USC and the L.A. Coliseum and then made our way to the O.C. and spent a day at Disneyland. Justin met Mickey Mouse for the first time! From Disneyland we headed to my aunt and uncle's house in Huntington Beach. Justin also met them for the first time - lots of firsts for him. From there we headed north (after a pilgrimage to Newport Beach).

The hills along Highway 5 were a beautiful green and the fields were dotted with wildflowers. I do like them golden as well, but everything looked so fresh and clean (with the exception of Harris Ranch).

Once we made it to my parents' we were exhausted, but that didn't stop us from spending the next two days looking at wedding locations. We liked two of the 6 that we saw. Check out the websites and let us know what you think. Vine Hill House and Trentadue Winery