Lets Play!

Brad finished off this semester on thursday! So it is time for us to play before the next semester begins. Once again the guys did a bead growing competition from Thanksgiving to the last final. We got together for a big dinner at Chili's to vote for the best beard and to enjoy being over with one more semester of school. The countdown to boards begins now. Also on friday we got to go to the Nutcracker! The milwaukee ballet did a really good production of it and it was a very enjoyable evening except for the parking ticket we found on our car at the end of the night (who knew that the meters around the Bradley Center were in effect till 9 pm even when there are no games). Well after Brad ranted about how he hates parking tickets I did tell him I had good news, we are going to save over $50 a month on car insurance. Really our insurance agreement just expired and after some good recomendations for Progressive Insurance I got a quote and starting today we will be saving a bundal on car insurance.

Here is Brad's beard this year

Here are all 3 Brads and their beards


And the group of beards (now that is a lot of facial hair)


And here we are after the Nutcracker, we didn't get a chance to take a picture at the theater.
(and notice clean shaven on the next day)

Sheards in Wisconsin

So we were lucky enough to have my parents come visit us here for the first time last weekend. My dad had a work conference in Michigan so they drove over afterwards. The first full day here we took them to Chicago, you can tell from the pictures that it was cold enough to start busting out our winter gear that weekend. We went up to the Sears Tower (now called Willis Tower) which used to be the tallest building in the world. It was pretty cool to get a new view of the Windy City. And best of all they just built these glass boxes that stick out the side of the building so that you can look down onto the street. This is my new favorite spot in Chicago. My next favorite is the Bean, which of coarse we went to, and can't miss famous Chacago Pizza. Brad even took the day off studying to go down with us (which he is making up now by studying for finals on his B-day). I took monday off of work so that I could take my parents around Milwaukee, not quite as busy but just as cold. We went to the Pabst Mansion which was all decorated for Christmas, out to the art museum and the lake, to a lighthouse, the bronze Fonz, and on a Sprechers tour. And best of all my parent took Brad out to dinner for his B-day to Claim Jumpers and we got the biggest brownie I have ever seen for dessert, lets just say that it was so big that we took some home with us. Thanks Mom and Dad for visiting!


Here is the view of the magnificent mile from the top floor.

Here we are in the glass box over 100 stories above the ground.

I told Brad that I was confident they over engineered the glass structure so here he is jumping in it to prove his trust for engineers.

Here we are looking down.

Proof that my mom did step out on the glass.

Reflection in the Bean.

Parents doing a typical Bean pose.

Brad's excited to be here jump (he gets those mad hops from when he was a skater)

True Chicago Pizza, we finished it all.

Here the Pabst Mansion is behind me, we couldn't take pictures inside.

Here we are outside of Milwaukee's Lighthouse.

My mom wanted to see Lavern and Shirley when she was in Milwaukee, when we went on the Sprechers tour they had a bottling line that looked just like the one on the show, so close enough for her.