T-Rats

By now it's become an annual thing that we get at least one game that is A-ball in April!! Sunday we went up to Appleton to a Timberrattler's game. It was supposed to be 39 degrees, but was actually in the low 50s and nice when the sun was out!!


The T-Rats played another of our favorite minor-league teams, the Beloit Snappers. The T-Rats lost, 5-3 but since we're Snapper's fans, it wasn't a bad day!!

And like we've said so many times, even a bad day in the bleachers is better than a good day almost anywhere else! And we weren't in the bleachers... another benefit of April A-Ball is that we walked up to the ticket window at 10 minutes to first pitch and got seats in the front row behind home plate!! Yeah Minor League Baseball!!

PS. Check out Pete's Flicker, he added about 4 pages of pictures last night!!

SURPRISE!!!!!!!

Well we did it! After about 2 months of planning, we surprised Pete's dad on his 60th birthday with a HUGE party at the Knights of Columbus Hall outside St. Louis. We were all amazed that we were able to keep it a secret, but even though he was snoopy and as mom put it, "a pest!" he still didn't figure it out, and until he heard "Surprise" thought he was going to an anniversary party for a fellow Knight. It was very clever of mom to come up with an invitation for them to THAT party!


Pete designed the decorations around a theme of Balloons that Mom had picked and the hall looked GREAT! There were little balloon flowers that Pete designed and we made on each table with balloon confetti (luckily we didn't get into too much trouble for the confetti!) He had 'Happy 60th Birthday" balloons and a banner on the present table along with some balloon garland along the back rail. The place looked Great!

Mary Jo bought a cake with matching balloons and some big birthday cookies for the kids and for Tony, Dad's friend who also had a birthday at the same time! All cakes were tasty, probably even more tasty on the themed Balloon plates!

When this picture was taken, you can't yet see all the FOOD that we had - Mom made three different kinds of roast beef... 40 pounds! I made another 30 pounds of ham! Mom had two different kinds of pasta with Patty's meat balls, I made German Potato salad and Asian Cole slaw, Diane McCart had two giant tubs of picnic potato salad and Mary Jo had a big tray of Vegetables & dip next to a million pounds of fruit that Patty had cut up! If anyone didn't get enough to eat, it was their own fault!








There was singing...
































Dancing...












































Leaning!...










TROUBLE......








Dad was my favorite "Dancing Queen" of the night!


















Sunday, his actual birthday, Pete and I took him to a Cardinals Game, the Cards didn't hold up their end of the present, and we had to watch a loss, but a bad day in the bleachers is still a pretty good day! It was 70's and sunny and we all left the park a little redder!

















Round the whole weekend off with some bowling and dinner and it was a long, exhausting, but extremely FUN weekend! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Slow News Day in Milwaukee

Not much going on here in Milwaukee - we went to a Brewer Game with the gang from the Milwaukee Rep. It was a good game... if you're a Reds fan. The Brewers lost 12-4 oops!







But here's the gang, at rest and then after a Brewer's Home Run. We also have installment two of Pete-at-the-game.



























Finally, after just over two weeks we finished a puzzle that had been taking up space in the middle of our living room. It's a fun thing to do while the ball game is on the radio! Now the question is, how long will we let it sit there before we can bring ourselves to put all of our hard work back in the box!

More Baseball!

So we were rained out on opening day and our Cards lost the make-up game, but since then, the Birds have been GREAT! We had a baseball open house at the end of opening week; Friday we had several friends over in honor of the Brewers Home opener. We turned the TV to the porch and watch them beat the Giants 13-4! The most runs ever scored on a Brewers home opener. We put Major League in the DVD and ate some more while we waited for the Cardinals to beat the Nationals 5-4. I had a very successful attempt at pulled pork sandwiches, we had smoked sausages from the grill along with a huge variety of sausages that Jeff (my brother-in-law) brought. Half a dozen dips and salads plus a Brewers cake with matching cup-cakes rounded out the party! It was a great day. Jeff said it was the best opening day ever! Of course we WERE going on our sixth hour of drinking when he said it, but I believe him anyway!!

Here are a a few more pictures of our first live game of the season - the 'spring training' game at Miller Park the Saturday before opening.














Pete wasn't the only one who got his picture taken with a sausage
Here's the line for autographs from Mike Cammeron & Corey Hart
And the first in the 'Pete at the Game 08' series - keep an eye on Pete's pix (link right) for the on-going series.












I know these pictures have nothing to do with each other, but I love the way they look together - Soup and Pu