Merry Christmas!

We had our now-traditional Christmas eve celebration; we went to church with friends and then back to our house for snacks. This year the group consisted of our friends Raeleen and Will. We hit a small speed bumb when we returned from Church and Mojo had broked out of the bedroom and put himself right on the top of the naughty list by opening presents, his and other peoples!

But we quickly got back on track getting food on the table. Raeleen made a Christmas tree shaped brownie and an amazing pizza sandwich! Yumm! We had the traditional bacon wrapped chestnuts plus cucumber sandwiches, Jeff's Buffalo chicken dip, cheese & sausage and crackers plus veggies (more to make us feel good about the table than for eating!) Top that all off with hot spiced cider and call it Christmas Eve! No one saved room for pumpkin pie, so we had to send it out in doggie bags!

After Mojo's adventures which included eating half a box of chocolate covered cherries (he spit the cherries out) he was WIRED and literally RACING around the house on his sugar high. But Will finally got him calmed down and when he crashed, he crashed HARD.

We celebrated Christmas with my family on Saturday with a ham and all the trimmings, and after all the Christmas eve indulgances, we slept in Christmas morning. Surprisingly, the puppies let us! (Mojo was probably still suffering from a sugar hang-over!)

Santa was good to all of us and we enjoyed opening our presents and then watching Christmas movies. I got some new cook-books from Anita, Jeff and Ashley along with a suggestion of Jeff's favorite rib recipe which we tried for Christmas dinner. Ribs in a slow cooker with a spiced peach barbecue sauce all day - It was a great suggestion!

All in all we enjoyed a lovely day relaxing and snuggling on the couch with only a small dread to Pete having to return to work "all the earlier" the next day.

Remembering Nana

We lost Pete's Nana on Dec. 18th, Following is the Tribute Pete gave at her funeral.

Margaret Theresa was my grandmother, but to me she was always Nana. It was hard the last couple of years to see her confined to a wheel chair. My childhood memories were of a woman who loved to sing and who especially loved to dance. She LOVED to dance. Did you know because of her dancing the South Side Journal once did a write-up on her? They called her “The Polka Queen of South St. Louis”? (There was a photo!) She also loved to go to the Cardinal games, and she would always let you know that her favorite player was Ducky Medwick. For many years, when I would see her she would ask “When are we going to a game”. She loved going places, and it didn’t matter if it was a dance or a ball-game, it was impossible to keep her at home. She loved life and being out in the world.

Unfortunately this wasn’t the case later in her life. Sadly, she no longer seemed willing or able to go out into the world and as time passed it was easier to just leave her be. I can only imagine how frustrating this must have been for her.I know everyone here must have a wonderful story of Nana from earlier days, at a church picnic or homecoming, but I would like to share a story with you from later in her life when things maybe weren’t so easy for her.

One holiday I was asked to pick up the Grandmas. I had Nana in the car and was off to pick up Grandma Ruth when Nana started to tell a story. Having no idea what she was talking about the radio probably had much of my attention. From the time I picked her up she had been very scattered, asking the same questions over and over. But once she started telling this story her demeanor changed. She seemed clearer telling her story with great detail. It took a minute but I realized she was telling a story about the time Grandpa Pete was very sick and in the hospital. She would always stay with him until the visiting hours ended but one night as she started to leave, he asked her not to go, he wanted her to stay with him through the night. She agreed and eventually fell asleep holding his hand. Later a nurse woke her saying “Miss Theresa, you need to leave now” My Nana objected saying that her Pete wanted her to stay. The nurse explained that she needed to leave because he was gone. And now she is gone.

But this is not a sad story because it has a happy ending. My Grandpa Pete has got his dance partner back and I’m sure they will be the first couple on Heaven’s dance floor dance floor tonight. (Can you imagine what that orchestra must be like?)

Good luck St. Peter when you try to track her down to give her wings!

We love you Nana and we will miss you.

Still Decorating!

LOVE THIS PICTURE!!
Pete took it while we were decorating the tree and the expression of the bird just seems to sum up a certain stage of Holiday prep. You know the one, there still a little bit of shopping to do, a little bit of food to prepare, a stack of Cards waiting to be addressed and a tub of outdoor decorations waiting for it to warm up just a little!

Nice... and Naughty...










DAaaAd! WHY?!? I love you anyway!!











Here's our lovely tree. It is a perfect shape, which is amazing considering when we brought it into the house it was a frozen solid block of ice!



Decorating is hard work!

It's BEGINNING to look a lot like Christmas!

We have the tree, we have the tubs of decoration unearthed and up from the basement, now we just need to finish the job!!

The weather here is going a long way to making it feel like Christmas! Milwaukee's December snow fall average is 11.5 inches. So far (Dec. 13) we have already gotten 20 inches of snow!!! Luckily we didn't get it all at once and some of it went away before we got hit again. Wednesday we go 7" of wet heavy snow, it was a pain for us, but the dogs LOVED it!

They are wearing their Christmas collars and leashes, they are trying to drink the tree water and when they are not bounding through the snow, I'm sure visions of rawhides are dancing through their heads! I know that Santa has a funny treat in store for them.

Well, this house isn't going to decorate itself, we've got a pot of peppermint coffee (my favorite!) brewing and a stack of Christmas movies and Cds, time to get moving. It's a little financial strain having both of us unemployed at Christmas, but it's GREAT to have the time to spend together. We can decorate without me having to rush off to a show in the middle of it.

Maybe I'll have some 'after' pictures later today!

Happy Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving down in St. Louis with family. It was a nice, relaxing weekend. Dad cooked a Turkey that fell off of the bones! Yumm. Mom made chicken and dumplings, Patty mashed the potatos and Pete made his usual fabulous pies. All the kids got a chance to play together and with the mutts. I finally got to hold my new baby niece Erin. Dominic has a new guitar and got some impromptu lessons from family friend - Tom. We also celebrated the November birthdays Madi, Pete and Patty and other fall/winter birthdays were also celebrated (Me! Mike, Dominic and Brenden)!










Friday night Mom and Dad, Pete and I went to the Blues game. We haven't been to a live game since before the stike. It was a very exciting game and best of all, the Blues won! 3-0!









Saturday morning we met my family over in Alton for Breakfast. It was very nice. Then we went to the Mills and saw "Enchanted" which was wonderful and sweet. Then we wandered the mall and wrapped up the day with a great dinner at Pujols 5. It was a great weekend!

Happy Halloween

Poor Mojo! He was a good sport about having the little pumpkin hood on his head! We had a happy Halloween, a friend invited us to the Milwaukee Symphony - they showed scenes from 4 Alfred Hitchcock movies on a big screen and played the scores to them live. It was a lot of fun. Mostly just a note to say that both Pete and I have updated our flicker - follow the links on the right.

The Quiltmaker's Gift

My show opened Friday and it is extremely cute. Based on a children's book, it is the story of a King who thinks he'll find find happiness in 'things'. He meets a Quiltmaker who makes quilts only for people who need them, not for sale. She refuses to make the king a quilt unless he learns Charity. She promises to make a quilt for him adding a piece for everything he gives away and when he gives away what he treasures most, the quilt will be done.
I would love to take credit for these beautiful pictures, but they were taken by our talented lighting designer, Jason Fassl. The first picture is our Quiltmaker, Liz Baltes, directly above is the Quiltmaker where the king strands her on an island and below, the Quiltmaker dancing with a Bear (Lee Becker - who you may recognize as Ernie the Moocher from my tour of Guys on Ice)


It's really a cute show and our King, local actor/teacher John Maclay is fantastic. The design of the show makes it look very much like a story-book and the characters have done a great job of making our little audiences giggle.



Not to give away the end of the story, but the King does find charity and the Quiltmaker makes him a quilt. There are three beautiful quilts used in the production. The one pictured above is a crazy quilt. All three were made by Milwaukee's Northshore Quilters Guild. They were made specifically for this production and they are fantastic.

Above is part of the cast, all of the children's roles are double cast, so our complete cast is 6 adults and two casts of 10 young performers each. Below are a couple of rehearsal shots. This line of cuties watching rehearsal from under the directors table always made me smile, and the last picture is one of our final rehearsals, our fabulous director, Todd Denning, giving a few last minute notes to the actors.

Conference in Chicago

The Monday and Tuesday after my Birthday I got to go to an expanded board meeting for my union - Actors' Equity Association. It was a great time. We have a new president and executive director and discussed the many positive aspects of the Union and then things that need work and how to make them better.




















Because I am in a liaison city (Chicago is the office city) when I participate in board meetings and committee meetings, it is always by telephone hook-up. The best part of the weekend was getting a chance to put a face with the other liaison voices.

After a long, unseasonably hot day, we all took open air trolleys to Navy Pier and the Skyline room of Chicago Shakespeare for the Regional membership meeting. It was a wonderful view of the city and a great meeting, very exciting.

Overall, it was a little like work, but it was a great birthday weekend!

Bye Summer

I've been back at work for two weeks and it feels like two months! I'm working at the Children's Theatre on a cute show called The Quiltmaker's Gift, a lot of hard work and some fun challenges, and suddenly it's October First!! When did that happen?


But before I went back to work, we had a lovely day at the beach with our friend Jay and his son Dylan (see Pete's Pix for more pictures). It was a beautiful Sunday and we drove up to Kohler/Andre state park and hung out on the beach. Dylan and the dogs dug in the sand and chased sea gulls on the beach while Pete, Jay and I relaxed in the sand and enjoyed some cold adult beverages! It was a great way to say good bye to summer.


We also got to see one more Cardinals game at Miller Park. Of course, as they have been want to do this season, they lost 13-5. But it was still fun to see our boys, or at least the Memphis Redbirds, one more time. We tailgated with friends and had a beautiful night for baseball! Check out that moon!


Even though the summer is over, doesn't mean we have to stop going to the dog park. Our pups still love romping through the trees, the creek and the mud. We had a great time the last Sunday we were there. We hooked up with a pack of about 5 other dogs including two shepherd type mutts that had the same personality as our mutts. There was a lot of running, chasing and rolling around! It was a great day and we had two VERY SLEEPY mutts when we got home!

Labor Day Weekend

We actually got to take a long weekend for Labor Day this year like normal people! So we left Friday after work and drove down to St. Louis. On Saturday we had a picnic in the Park and got to meet our new niece, Erin. We at BBQ pork steaks and Brats that were cooked on our spanky new grill and played a family game of soft ball. (There are more pictures of the picnic on my flicker - the link is at the right) After a long day, we really just went home and passed out!


Sunday we had a double header planned, we went to the Cardinals game in the afternoon and saw them beat the Reds 3-2 due in large part to a Rick Ankiel home run - welcome back to the big leagues Rick! Mom wasn't able to come to the game at the last minute so our niece Emily came along. We weren't sitting together, but I thought it was nice of Dad to look at the camera as I was taking this picture from 7 sections away!!


The second game of our double header was a Gateway Grizzleys game. It was the last game of the regular season and it was a cross-town clash against the Rivercity Rascals. If the Grizzleys won, they went on to the play-offs. Not taking any changes, they beat the reascals 16-5. Then, to celebrate, something Pete and I had never seen in all of the baseball games that we've gone to, the TP'd the stadium. They sold rolls of toilet paper for a dollar and as soon as the game was over, everyone started throwing the rolls on the field. The players, from the field, had a lot of fun batting the rolls back into the stands. There were fireworks, but the toilet papering continued through the fireworks and well after the game. It was really funny.

We had a few games of Eucher when we got home, but nothing like the all-night (or at least 3a) marathon of 4th of July weekend!.

Monday we all slept in and then had a great brunch at Uncle Bill's Pancake house and were able to hook up with our Nephews and Niece, Dominic, Brenden and Madison before we headed out of town and back to Milwaukee. So it was a great weekend. We saw all 8 of our nieces and nephews, saw two baseball games and even got to sleep in!

Railcats

Since we didn't get a chance to go camping, we spent the weekend doing new, fun things. Saturday night we went to a drive-in movie just south of Kenosha and saw the movie SuperBad. It was very funny and we had a good time. I haven't been to a drive-in for almost 20 years so it was a blast.

Sunday, since it was a gorgeous day, we drove down to Gary, IN to see a Gary/Southshore Rail Cats game. We learned a valuable lesson, when driving somewhere involving Chicago, allow an extra hour. We left around 11:30a for a 2:00 game and didn't get there until 2:30 or so. Luckily we only missed an inning and a half. It was a pretty park and we had a good time. AND the Rail Cats won! 5-4.

There was a train running past the out field and, like the TN smokies, in the middle of the 5th inning, a huge group of kids just ran from the left field corner to the right field corner. It was pretty funny.

It didn't take as long to get home, and I think we could try again as long as we had plenty of time. It might be more fun to stop there on the way home from somewhere or try to camp down there and see a couple of games in that league. But in the end, it was a good day and we added another park to our list.