Friday, August 24, 2012

1 Year Ago

Any guess what happened exactly a year ago?  It was at about this time of night, exactly a year ago that I came home from dinner with friends to find Paul standing at the front door...about to propose.  Have we really been engaged for an entire year???  It doesn't seem possible at all.  Unfortunately we have to wait nearly another year to officially become the Joneses, but in the meantime we are having a blast being the Future Mr. and Mrs.

My kiddos arrive for Open House on Tuesday which for me officially marks the end of the summer.  Just when I was starting to getting bummed that we didn't get to sneak in one last fun summer adventure we managed to find a couple of days when neither of us had to work to spend some time together and get a little wedding planning in too.  We headed to New Glarus on Tuesday for a tour of the brewery.  Turns out - it's FREE!  That's my kind of tour!  :)  To make it even better, Paul thought to stop at the Chamber of Commerce for a coupon book for a bunch of the shops and restaurants in town.  {Apparently my couponing and refusal to pay full price for things is starting to wear off on him!}  We had an awesome time at the brewery even though the tour was self guided so we didn't really know what was going on.  We got to see them bottling the beer which was pretty neat.



From there we headed to the New Glarus Hotel for lunch.  An experience we will never forget.  Our table was directly across from the other dining room's door.  About half-way through our lunch the chef came out and started giving a cooking demonstration to the people in the dining room.  Talk about being the background to a show!  As if that wasn't awkward enough, the chef finished just in time for the yodeling demonstration to start!  You think I'm joking?  I'm not.  Luckily we had a 10% off our meal coupon from the book so it was ok.  :)

We wandered around town some more after lunch.  We taste tested some cheese at the cheese and fudge store.  Don't worry, we bought some fudge too.  We got our free gift at the flower shop thanks to another coupon and then headed home.  That night I drug Paul along to a FREE dance lesson.  {Thank you, bridal show!}  It was only 30 minutes, so he can't complain that much, and we had a ton of fun!



On Wednesday we headed to the Green Bay area to go cake tasting.  Why so far away?  Have you ever heard of Uncle Mike's Bake Shoppe?  That's why.  It helps that my bridesmaid Brittni's family owns the bakery but even so, it's worth the 3 hour drive for some of Uncle Mike's baked goods!  We taste tested some AWESOME cake, then spent the afternoon with Brittni and her fiance Scott.  Paul convinced us to go to Lambeau for the stadium tour.  You won't be surprised to find out that we used our student IDs to get a discount on our tickets!  :)  It turned out to be a pretty fun tour and definitely worth the $10 for the chance to walk out of the tunnel onto the field.  After the tour we went to Titletown Brewery for drinks and then out to eat at Margarita's.  It was an awesome afternoon with some great friends before making the drive home.

 
 

So, all in all, a great end to the summer!  We're both anxious for our new school years to start and excited to see what the fall throws our way!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Dear Chicago,

Dear Chicago,

After spending 4 days in your city I have some notes for you.
1.  Your taxi drivers are CRAZY and honk too much.
2.  Please inform your pedestrians to only cross the street when they are supposed to.  That means they should not cross when there is a red hand and I am supposed to be driving, causing the taxi behind us to honk their horn.
3.  Closing the streets we want to drive on and causing the GPS to "recalculate" 500,000 times is not appreciated.
4.  Your museums are kind of overrated and boring.
5.  The animals in the aquatic show at the aquarium need to listen better so the poor girl narrating the show doesn't have to stall for 10 minutes while the whales swim around instead of exiting the pool. Oh, and the hawk was dumb - eliminate that part from the show.
6.  We only came across ONE nice/not creepy waitrees/waiter the entire time we were there.  I think that says something about the people of your city.
7.  Is it really necessary to charge $22 for only 4 hours of parking?  I don't think so.
8.  Bernardo the segway tour guide is AWESOME.  Pay him more money.

Sincerely, Julie

PS - We were supposed to be there for 5 days but cut our trip short.  Add Chicago to the list of places my poor children will never get to visit.  Disney World is number 1 on that list.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

WAY up north

We got back Friday night from a great weekend in Northern Minnesota.  We made the 8 hour trip to stay at our friend's cabin in what can quite literally be described as the middle of nowhere.  We loved every minute.  Here's a picture recap of the fun we had.


Our beautiful home for the week.

We went swimming.

We water skied. 

We went tubing.

We fished.  Successfully.  With Sour Patch Kids as bait.

We made ridiculous trips back and forth from the boat to avoid getting wet.

We killed MASSIVE spiders with flip flops.  {Thanks again, boys, for saving us!}


Gorgeous view for the week.



Fabulous hostess for the week.  LOVE this girl!

One last family picture before heading home.

One of us slept the entire way home.  Can you guess who?


It was a great week!  Can't wait to go back!


Sunday, June 10, 2012

ready...set...GO!

Welcome to a crazy busy week in the Jones house.   I just finished up our school year, Paul is finishing up his PT clinical and we're leaving for vacation in less than a week.  Of course our "finishing up" is paired with a list a mile high of things to do.  Clean up and finishing organizing my classroom, do the laundry, dishes, and other cleaning.  Our carpet is staring at me begging for a cleaning and of course the dog needs a haircut, her flea medicine, and her nails trimmed before I end up with one more scratch on my legs from her very excited "HI MOMMY!  I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE HOME!" jumps.  Add that on top of the list of things to do to get ready to go on vacation and you get one crazy busy week.  It'll all be worth it though!

Monday, June 4, 2012

Fancy White Dress

Next step on the wedding checklist...complete!  After 4 stores and 2 days of shopping, I bought my wedding dress this weekend!  It's white, and sparkly, and makes me look super skinny.  BONUS!