Weekend of Dinners Part #2

Holly did not have her nursing clinicals on Thursday and Friday last week. It was some much needed time off for her. She really wanted to make chicken noodle soup with dumplings. It is something her mom always makes for her. Apple dumplings is another one of Holly's favorite fall foods.

Here is a picture of the soup and the sauce for the dumplings on the stove cooking. Our apartment smelled really good all day long.

Here is the dumplings floating on top of the soup. I really have never eaten dumplings in soup before meeting Holly. It is really good addition to the soup.

This is the final product of the soup. Holly even made beer bread to go along with the soup. It was a great meal. Holly worked long and hard for it and her hard worked paid off and she even had seconds. It was yummy.

This is the before and after pictures of the apple dumplings. They are pealed apples that are cored and filled with cinnamon and sugar. Then they are wrapped with a pie crust and covered with a cinnamon and sugar sauce and baked. They are so delicious.

Cinnamon Ice Cream is a must according to Holly. We have been looking all over for some and Holly finally found some at a different grocery store that we don't normally go to.

It was a great weekend. Holly was able to enjoy her time while not thinking about school that much. Plus I got to eat some delicious meals. The best of both worlds. Thanks Holly.

Weekend of Dinners Part #1

This last weekend, Holly and I had a dinner party with my cousin Eric and his wife Tina. They have a very cute daughter named Kylee. They live in Port Washington which is only like 30 minutes away from where Holly and I live in Milwaukee. We went to their house on Friday night for dinner. It was great to see them and Kylee.

This is Eric and Tina's daughter Kylee. She is almost a year old now and crawls around but no walking yet. Eric and Tina say that she hasn't started talking yet but is very close. This is her eating dinner right when we got to their house. Tina makes fun of Eric for always giving Kylee kid cheetos (you can see them in the top picture in the cup holder). They are smaller and are supposed to be good for babies. Eric thinks they are the best. It provided some really good laughs.

Here is a picture of their dog Maggie. Maggie is pretty awesome. She is full of energy and puts up with Kylee. They sometimes end up sharing toys and Maggie likes to lick Kylee, especially after dinner.

This is their rabbit Harriet. Harriet has attitude according to Tina and hasn't been fond of Holly and I in the past. Tina told us the secret to petting her is you just have to pretend you know what you are doing and she will let you.

After Eric and Tina put Kylee to bed we found the movie Repo-Men to watch. It looked really good but about a third of the way through it got a little strange. It went from a intense thriller to a movie we all started to make fun of. Overall it was a really great time with Eric and Tina. We definitely plan on doing it again.

Car Radio For Sale - Works but no Face Plate

Well not really an add in my newspaper but here is the story behind it. The weekend before my parents came to visit Holly and I, my car was broken into. I was lucky to not have anything really too important or expensive in my car. It was a Saturday morning and around 5:00 am during the middle of a thunderstorm. I was having trouble sleeping and woke up to the sound of a car alarm going off. I looked out to see my car lights flashing with a car with its lights on parked behind mine. I thought someone hit my car. I got out of bed, put a jacket and some shoes on and ran out. The car behind mine had left but I inserted my key to turn off my alarm. I opened the door and looked over at the passenger seat. It was filled with glass! Some IDIOTS had broken my passenger side window and TRIED to steal my CD player. The CD player was from my friend David that he gave to me because he had gotten a new one. It was sitting unused in his basement. I got the radio for free but it was something that had value to me because I used it almost every day. I especially liked it on long car trips. It will be missed. Thank you very much David.

The key word in this story is TRIED. They TRIED but did not succeed and just gave up because the car alarm was going off and making to much noise. They ended up doing some damage while taking just the face plate to my radio The face plate is the only way the radio will work. Here is the damage they did. I didn't take any pictures of the broken window because that day I was really upset and just wanted to fix the window. But here is one piece of glass remaining on the floor.

Here is a picture of my radio. My guess is that they went crazy with a screw driver and pretty much just started to pry where ever they could. They ripped out my vents and took off the display for the fan knobs. Don't know why they did that because the radio doesn't have any thing to do with those areas. IDIOTS!

Besides the cost of $180 for the new window to be replaced/installed and the fact they took just my face plate, this is what I was most upset about. They messed up my dash with their prying. It would really be the hardest thing to fix. I can find the new vents and thing for the display to the fan knobs at a junk yard for cheap, but the dash would be a pain to replace. Not really worth it.

When my parents came to visit, I had them bring my old radio. I just got around to installing it last week. I had to reconnect a lot of wires because I cut them all to install the other radio. But now I have it in and can listen to the radio again. I will have to work on the vents, missing one vent but could really just replace the whole thing. The fan knobs display it there but broken. Doesn't light up and is cracked in a few places. It is not as good as before but it is better. Jetta (aka Rusty) will roll on and continue being awesome with over 200,000 miles. Lesson learned by me..... don't keep anything in car, even if it was free. Some IDIOTS will TRY to steal it and end up with a face plate that is useless without the radio. Maybe they will see my add here and try to buy it from me.

Holly's Birthday at the Orchard

Yesterday was Holly's birthday. She turned 25 this year and our yearly tradition around her birthday is to go to an apple orchard and pick apples. Luckily it was a beautiful day in Milwaukee for a trip to an orchard. We drove almost to Madison to find an orchard that had Holly's favorite Haralson apples. Haralson apples are Minnesota apples that become ripe right around this time of the year. I spent some of the week trying to find these apples at orchards in Wisconsin and I guess the Badger state doesn't like things from Minnesota. When we got to the orchard, we went into their shop to find our Haralson apples. They only had 4 apples left- that's right 4 single apples. We couldn't believe it. We drove all that way for those and only got 4. But 4 is better than nothing. Next we went out into the orchard because picking your own apples is the only way to go to an orchard for apples. The pickings were pretty slim. They only had four different varieties of apples to choose from. No Haralsons but we found some other apples that were tasty.

 The apples we picked from the four varieties were: Blushing Red, Empire, and Jonagold. This is Holly reaching for some of the Blushing Red apples.

This year the apples ripened early so there weren't many great apples since we went so late in the season. The good apples were all the way at the top of the trees. It was hard to reach the good apples and sometimes I ended up lost in the trees in the process.

 The best part is that if you get hungry while at the orchard, there are plenty of apples to choose from. Just don't let people see you eating them. Holly was trying to be sneaky here.


After we left the orchard with our bounty of apples we had plans to go to dinner. We had some time before dinner to explore. In the city where we were going to eat there is another orchard. It is called The Elegant Farmer.

 The Elegant Framer is a very commercialized orchard. It is not really the kind of orchard that Holly and I like. The main problem is lots of people. Too many people make it feel like you are just at the grocery store- they even sold things making it feel even more like a grocery store. 

 We did have to buy some things though. These apple pies that they bake in paper bags are apparently so good that even Oprah has talked about them according to Holly.

 This is another part of The Elegant Farmer we didn't like. They had a place for making your own caramel apples. Everyone was sitting in here eating caramel apples instead of going out and picking their own.

 Plus, GROCERY CARTS should not be allowed at any apple orchard. Little wagons like they had at the other orchard we went to are allowed.

 At the orchard we go to in Minnesota, they have Cider donuts. They did have them at The Elegant Farmer, the only real plus side for me.

 After the Elegant Farmer, we went to dinner in a town called East Troy. Melissa, one of Holly's friends from nursing school, lives in East Troy and her mom owns a restaurant called Ivan's "On the Square". It is a very cute place that is decorated just like something Holly would do herself. The food was very very good. I had steak and Holly had scallops. No pictures because it was so good.

We came home to open presents. Holly was lucky to have many family and friends send her things.

See, look how happy Holly is with some of her presents. These were a few things she got from her parents.

She also got these pillows for our futon in the spare bedroom. I am sitting on the futon displaying how nice the are.

This is all the presents that Holly got for her birthday. Overall it was a great day and nice to get away from the city for a bit. Holly was able to enjoy her day without having to worry about school plus now we have tons of apples to enjoy for a while. Holly would like to say thanks for all the gifts and cards from everyone.

NEW BLOG!!!!

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" Find it in your newspaper or just in my new blog! What you have all been waiting for. I have finally started my blog of life on the east side of Minnesota in the state of WisconSIN. If you don't already know, Holly and I moved to Milwaukee. She is going to nursing school at Marquette University and I decided to move along with her. We moved out here in June and I am just starting my blog now. Better late than never like Mom always said. I have never had a blog before but have followed Carolyn's and Sharon's blog for a while and feel like since I moved away I should start a blog too. I don't know how often I will update but I will try my best. I defiantly wont have mountain adventures (like Utah) or ocean excursions (like California), but will try to keep you updated on the interesting things in my life and touches of Holly's too. I hope you all enjoy. 


The picture of Holly and me to the right is of us at our first Brewers game. It was in June against the TWINS!!!! The Twins lost the game but it was our first baseball game in a place other than the Metrodome. Strange feeling to me.