Simulated Fun

What do you do in WI when snow is still on the ground, but spring is right around the corner?

Go to a bar and play golf on a golf simulator.

That is what we (Mike Jr, Mike Sr, Cathy and I) did.

Let me tell you, it isn't for the faint of heart. You have to be prepared to do poorly. For me, that is just par for the course (pun intended). Give me a sport with a ball and watch me go down in flames. Jr and Sr, on the other hand do not have the same familiarity with failure that I do. This led to far greater frustration for them. I was even happy...happy to share my failure with Cathy. She contributed nicely to my ridiculously bad score. I was just glad I didn't actually have to go chase that stupid ball after every hit. Now that is my kind of golf.

Now, when you look closely at the score keep in mind Jr had a previous chance to practice on the simulator. He knew what to expect, where Sr and I had to figure it out on the fly. Granted, I could have played 20 times before and Jr still would have beaten me. Yes, we all know he is annoyingly good at everything.

Yeah, I was swinging so many times I looked like a windmill.

BTW, that is only 11 holes. I don't know if the computer could count high enough if I played 18.

Well, spring/summer can't come soon enough.

Whether I am playing real golf this bad, or doing whatever. I will be happy as long as I am outside.

Nordic Skiing

Nordic Mountain

(Mountain should be used loosely here. It is really just a big hill.)

On Fridays girls ski half price. Now that is my kind of skiing. A good opportunity for me to try skiing for the second time. Mike's plan was to try snowboarding for the first time.

Right after we got our gear on.

It quickly became obvious we were very over dressed. After a run or two we shed some layers and it was much more enjoyable.
Getting ready to take on the bunny hill.

The last smile you will see on Mike's face during his snowboarding attempt.
Frustration quickly set in.


Mike on the snowboard going down the bunny hill. Good thing he had that helmet on. One of his trips down the hill he wiped it and the helmet went flying.

Heather looking like the snow bunny that she is.

How could she not with the world's coolest sunglasses on.

Oh yeah, did you notice Mike is on skis now. He decided to take on snowboarding in stages. One hour at a time. The rest of the day he had fun on his skis.

Taking on a blue square hill (intermediate). Not bad for my second time skiing. It is important to mention the first time I skied was about 18 years ago, so does that even count? I hated it that time. All I can figure is the skis have greatly improved since then and that is why I was able to do it.

You know she wouldn't be this cool with out those sunglasses.

Heather taking on a black diamond. A short run, but steep.

I am cool by association. Just gettin in close proximity of those sunglasses will do that for ya.
Heather was just so happy she finally got me to go skiing. I was just happy I was able to do it this time.

All I am thinking here is "Go, go, go before the chair catches me in the back of this legs. And please don't wipe it."

Mike was happy he got me to go skiing too.

Look at Mike coming down behind me. He has the form down pat. Me...not so much.

I did greatly improve over time. By the end I was sliding to a stop on two skis.

No snow plow/pizza stops for me.
Would I go again, Yes.

Chicagoland...um,not really

Mike had to go to "Chicago" for training this past week. I went along to make a mini trip out of it. Well, the training was in Deerfield about 45 min. north of Chicago. Deerfield is Suburbia land. All business parks and apartments.

Our first night we got to the hotel just in time to flip on the Super Bowl and order a Chicago style pizza. It was GOOD! The Super Bowl and the pizza. This ended up being the only picture worthy thing we did.

One thing we did do was eat. Cheesecake Factory on night two. We all know the cheesecake is good, but we had fried olives stuffed with sausage as an appetizer. YUM! On Tuesday I was pretty much snowed in. Mike took the Element to class and ate at the cafeteria. I had left over pizza. Dinner out was at the Ram...not very note worthy. Lunch on Wednesday was good. We went to Portillos. It is known for its Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago style hot dogs. I had the beef sandwich and Mike had the hot dog. Very good. Wednesday night we had Chicago style pizza, again. Guess who's idea that was. Pizzaboy! He can't get enough. It was awesome as well.

When he got done on Thursday we thought about venturing into Chicago, but realized by the time we did anything we would be fighting rush hour traffic to get home. So, we just headed home but took a detour to go to the new Cabelas on the way. Big store, but not sure it is worth all the hype.

So, that was our adventure to Deerfield. Maybe we will make it to Chicago some day.

Venison Brats from Scratch

We have been wanting to make our own venison brats for a while now. We decided to buy a kit to help us in this endever. However, we are venison purisists and did not add any pork or other animal fat. It was a learning experience as you will see.

Everything we need to make brats. We decided to add some garlic, onion and onion juice, fennel, and liquid smoke to the seasoning provided.

No, this is not a bowl of tapeworms. These are natural casings. Yup, pig intestines. I know, I know what about the "no other animal" thing. Well, these came in the kit. They are even more disgusting then they look. You do not have the priledge of being engulfed in the gag inducing odor they exude. Removing them from the vacume packed pouch released the most potent wave of indiscribable aroma. Soaking them and rinsing them created more unpleasent waves of odor.

Trying to get the casings on the grinder was another challenge until we figured out a system.

Let the stuffing begin.

Keep your mind out of the gutter people. It gets worse.

Our first batch.

Not too bad, but they are pretty hefty MAN brats.

Round two.

Jez found this all very interesting.

The last little bit we decided to make a mini rope sausage.

For those of you who do not know what rope sausage is...it is just a big brat.

You can't have rope sausage without sour kraut.

Mike is the first to try it.

...and the verdict is?

Not bad.

Like I said this was a learning experience. We have decided, we do need to add fat of some sort. Venison on its own is just too dense. We will try adding cheese next time.

Flavor wise they are good, but just don't have the brat mouth feel.

Maybe when we get it perfected we will have a brat party.

Hmm...What to do on a cold winter night?

BOWLING!!!

Have to get clever names put on the scoreboard

We have our own shoes. That makes us real bowlers...

well one of us anyway

Non-bowlers

I forgot to turn off the flash so it is a bad pic.

I wanted to get another one later, but didn't get a chance too.

Fun was had by all!

Nordic Tubing

Bound and determined to have some fun in the winter no matter how cold it is. Below are some pics from tubing at Nordic Mt Ski hill. We didn't let the sub-zero temps deter us. It did slow us up a bit when it came to trying to put our outer layers on in the parking lot. Frozen fingers do not zip or button very well. We actually had to take a break and jump in the car to thaw out so we could finish. Off to a fun start, huh?

All bundled up and ready to go

My nephew Gabe, my sister Heather, my bro-in-law Chris.

Heather and Chris' hats should tell you something about them. They like to have fun!!

Heading back up for more tubing fun. We only had to walk part way up and then got hooked up and pulled the rest of the way to the top.

You can't see it, but you go down the hill so fast (roughly 30mph) that your eyes water and it freezes to your eyelashes by the time you get to the bottom. It was easily 15 to 20 below when you figure in that windchill coming down.

Heather and Gabe having fun.

Chris getting ready to head down.

Mike poised to take the plunge.

The camera battery froze, so we couldn't get any more pics.

It was a ton of fun. One plus for winter. I hope to add a few more pluses on the side of winter so that it balances out and I can enjoy the whole year.

Isn't that adorable?

Mike might kill me for this one, but I couldn't resist. So cute! Jez just loves to snuggle in the winter. Her amazing cat powers can get us to adjust to her every whim. She has trained us that when she tickles our face with her whiskers we lift up the blankets so she can crawl in. If we are in too deep of a sleep to feel the whiskers she resorts to licking the nose or eyelids. I think a person in a coma would wake up when that tongue scrapes across their eyelids. When she get too hot under the covers she finds her way to the pillow (usually mine because she knows she can take it over and leave me with a corner...maybe).

Good thing she is so soft and furry and cute.