Almost, Maine in Madison

So after a very successful winter run, my show remounted in Madison for three weeks the end of April/beginning of May. The show went very well and everyone who saw it, loved it. Unfortunately, it wasn't marketed at all and we were competing with The Lion King in the main theater so not a lot of people saw the show. Oh well, the work was nice and the hotel was dog friendly so Pete was able to come up on the weekends and the whole last week. We even had a little time here and there for fun - several of us from the cast, crew and Pete went mini golfing between shows one day. It was a blast.

Slacker

Yeah, I've been a slacker, or maybe there just hasn't been much going on - well at least nothing that we can officially report yet. Give us a couple of days.

In the mean time - here's what we've been up to in the past couple of months...


Pete and Jay decided that they would like to take up Curling. They went to an informal informational open house and were hooked. They will join the team in the fall - I'm sure that the fact that beer is included in their dues didn't hurt the sale!!








We spent Palm Sunday at Anita and Jeff's house celebrating Easter and got a chance to play with our not-so-little godson!
















Then - our first baseball season of the year. We went to another Brewers pre-season game vs. the Tigers. It was a nice day for baseball and we had great seats.

















Even though baseball season has started, we were able to sneak in a hockey game. I tagged along on Jay and Pete's annual blues game - it was a fun win!




Then we got in a couple of Cardinals games - Saturday - a good win with a bunch of friends after a great tailgate. It was a beautiful day for baseball!

Sunday Pete and I went to a Cardinals Brewers game, just the two of us. We weren't winning through most of the game and then Albert and Holliday hit back to back home runs to tie the game at 7-7 in the top of the 9th. Too bad the Brewers hit a walk-off homer in the bottom. It was a good time and I love the mini-sausage relay race on Sundays.





























Finally, we had a Milwaukee Rep Brewers outing since our friends from the Cast of Route 66 were singing the national anthem and our new artistic director threw out the first pitch. It was a great game, especially if you're a Brewers fan - The Brewers won 17-2 and batted around in two different innings.

Oops! Missed the tour!

Things have been pretty busy in Milwaukee - the Rep compressed their season this year so we did the same number of shows with less staff in four less weeks so it has been work, work, work for both of us. What did you miss while we were working? My show went out on tour for one night. For some reason I can't get into my MRT Guys on tour blog so I created a new one for future Rep touring shows you can see the link to the right.

Pete joined me this season in judging forensics for Golde middle school, so both of us are suddenly busy on Friday nights and Saturday mornings - I had my first meet last Saturday and Pete has his first meet tonight!

Still no word on where we will be this summer, but we'll keep you posted. The above show - Almost, Maine is back in Milwaukee for Valentine's weekend and then we close for a month and a half before we dust it off and take it to Madison for 3 weeks April 22-May 9.

Winter fun

We've been having some winter fun... Mom and Dad Koenig came up for the weekend with our nephews Brenden and Dominic and our niece Madi. While the folks were seeing my current play Pete took the kids sledding in the park near our house. Reportedly, a good time was had by all!


















Here they are in the aftermath of too much outdoor fun!














In an unrelated event, our buddies Jay and Dylan came over for an afternoon of fun, Here are our boys - Dylan and Mojo. Kisses for Dylan!


















And finally, I opened another play called Almost, Maine. It's a very sweet set of vignettes dealing with love in a small town in North-West Maine. It is Romantic, funny and at times poignent. So far it is having a very successful run which is good because we're in Milwaukee through Valentines day and then we play in Madison April 22-May 8.











The extremely talented actors in my show are Elizabeth Ledo and Gerry Neugent in the snowmobile suits and Steve Haggard and Deb Staples stargazing.

Holy Cats!!

I can't believe that I haven't posted since the end of October!! What happened to the end of the year?!

So... here we are playing catch-up AGAIN!

(PS. Check out the new link to Photo Mojo - Pete's new Photo-a-day blog! It's Great!)

And now - the end of the year by the numbers...

We got to see our Godson Gavin at the Johnson fall family birthday celebration - he's gotten SOOOO big since last spring.














I did a lovely play called The Year Of Magical Thinking at The Rep this fall















We went to St. Louis for Thanksgiving weekend and while there
Took a family portrait, walked around the new Sculpture Garden, then
Threw a surprise birthday party for Pete's Mom's 60th birthday































Then we went to Rochester MN to celebrate our Godson's first birthday.

























Finally a Christmas Eve open house that was a very relaxed evening with friends






























Christmas day celebration with some family

and after a very low-key New Years (I had to work both New Year's eve and day)
Santa finally brought our family Christmas present, which I am enjoying right now!

Last Camping trip of the summer

So even though we were in nature's playground this summer, we really on got a couple of camping trips in. But we did get one last camping trip of the summer the weekend after Labor Day up in Door County. We have only camped there once or twice because of their awful reservation system. It is very difficult to get a site in the summer without paying a fee that is almost another night of camping just to make the reservation.

Anyhoo... we drove up after work on Friday, we got out of town at a decent time, just not decent enough to make it to the campground before dark! So we set up in the dark, which was fine because there are 5 campgrounds at Peninsula state park and because it was after Labor Day, we had the place practically to ourselves! It was a beautiful site and huge!

It was a little cold on Friday night, after our experiences camping this summer, I may want to look into a little propane tent heater for next summer. But we got both dogs piled on top of us and it was warm enough to sleep. We woke up Saturday to what sounded like kids throwing rocks at our campsite. In reality it was a bunch of rowdy squirrels throwing pine-cones down from the trees to collect later. They were merciles and had deadly aim, all we could do is hide out in the tent until they were done! Saturday was gorgeous and we drove into Fish Creek to have some of Smilin' Bob's Bar Room Chili and some deep fried Door County Cheese Curds. (Yes a lunch that should only be accompanied by a trip to the cardiologist!) We wandered around Fish Creek for a while until we had haunted each of the shops and then headed back to camp to relax from the effort.

Our friend Lee had gotten us tickets to their sold out show "Guys and Does" so we drove into Ephram as the sun was setting over the Bay to see the show. It was cute, alot like Guys on Ice but in a hunting cabin.

After the play, we rushed to the Drive In to see District 9. It was a good idea and I'm glad that we did it, but we were not as prepared as we needed to be. we had our chairs and our cooler, but because we were running late we missed the beginning of the movie and couldn't get out of the car and set up the way we needed to. Plus, watching the moving from inside the car, our windshield was dirty and we had not washer fluid!! It was still a fun experience and we can red-box the movie if we want to follow it better!

Sunday was all about relaxing in the site until it was time to pack up and go. After we were packed, we did drive the long way out of Peninsula State Park so Pete could take some pictures of the scenery. We also climbed to the top of the tower. It was fun, but I did not stay up long! I wanted to try the Sweetango apples, so we stopped at a couple of farm markets on the way back including the one with the Corn Maze that we actually got lost in!

We stopped at Friar Tucks for dinner as we passed through Manitowoc and had the second perfect weekend in a row!

Then we followed the Cardinals home to Milwaukee

After a great weekend in Pittsburgh, we had tickets to the Labor day game at Miller Park. We had originally intended to tail-gate, but after the late drive we thought it would be better to sleep in! We had great Club Seats at the Labor day game it was a beautiful day for baseball.

We thought we had a chance of seeing a no-hitter, Carp had a great game going, the no-hitter was broken up by a cheap bloop hit to left field, but he still got the shut-out.

Tuesday, I went back to work, but Gail and Tom had invited us to a Brewers v. Cardinals game that evening. We again had great seats and it was a really fun game! The Cards were losing through most of the game and we got a chance to see the Hell's Bells entry of the Brewers closer, but the Cards made an amazing comeback on a Matt Holliday home run and we ended up winning the game! After the game, we had a late supper at McBob's, it was a lovely evening.

And it didn't hurt that we got a win!!

Anniversary Present

Since this was the first year since Pete and I have been together that we didn't get to spend our anniversary together, we planned an anniversary weekend for once I got back to Milwaukee. We also were afraid of not being able to see a new major league baseball park this summer. All of that was solved when we discovered that the Cardinals were in Pittsburgh labor day weekend!. Pete took a personal day on Friday and we took a 4-day weekend. Our plan was to drive to Pittsburgh on Friday, check into the hotel and finda bar where we could watch the game. We had tickets for Saturday's game and then we would drive back on Sunday so we could listen to the game and catch the Cardinals at Brewers on Monday (Labor Day). It was a good plan.

We did drive on Friday. We got out a little later than we thought we would, but it was a long game and we were still able to watch a few innings of the game. After we got checked into the hotel and got the dogs settled, we headed out to find a bar where we could get some dinner and watch the end of the game. We came around a curve and right in front of us was a Primanti Brothers restaurant. One of the guys at work had recommended that we eat there while we were in Pittsburgh and there it was with TVs big enough that we could see from the street that the game was on! It WAS a great sandwich and the Cardinals won!


Saturday we relaxed in the room and then headed in to town to explore downtown Pittsburgh. It is a beautiful area. We went to an old market type area and prowled around the shops and took a ride on an Incline. Sort of a tram that you take from the riverside area to the upper bluff area. We rode up, took a ton of pictures, got some ice cream and then took the incline back down. By this time, we needed to head to the game! The converging highways/bridges at the three rivers area are a little confusing and we somehow headed to the wrong parking lot and were on our way to a football game. But it didn't take too long to get back on the right track and back over to the correct side of the river and baseball parking. There are three bridges that cross from North to South and on game days, they turn one of them into a pedestrian bridge. It was a great walk over to the park. ON the street in front of the park, there was a street fair/ Irish fest going on which we wandered around just a little before we headed into the park.

The game was great and our seats were great and there were a lot of Cardinals fans in the park. We had Philly Cheese steaks that were enormous for dinner and generally had a great time. After the game there were fireworks and they were fantastic! Pete had been talking to a Cardinals fan sitting next to him throughout the game and after the game he asked if we would be at the game on Sunday, we said no we had to drive back. He had a sick kid at home so he had extra tickets, we must have hesitated because he said, here, let me make it easy for you and just gave us the tickets. We really thought there was no way to do it, especially with the puppies. But then we looked at the seats - they were 10th row, right behind the 1st base dug-out and fantastic. So now we were thinking about it.

Pete talked to his Dad while we were on our way back to the hotel and public opinion seemed to be that we find a way to see the game! We chatted with the hotel front desk in the morning and they agreed to give us another night for the single person rate and we found a way to go to the game with the pups nicely settled!

It was not a great game, we were ahead for much of it, but then Ryan Franklin melted down and gave it up. Blech. I'm still glad that we stayed and went to the game! The drive back wasn't even that bad. We had a plan to switch drivers every two hours, another plan we didn't stick to! But once you get into a driving groove, it's hard to give it up.

It was a fantastic trip!