As Seen on Candy Cane Lane

When Steve and I moved into our house a year and a half ago, we had no clue what we were getting ourselves into during Christmas! Being out-of-towners, we had no idea what Candy Cane Lane was, what it all meant, or even where it was located. The previous owners of our house must have seen "suckers" written all over our faces when we did our first walk through.

For all of you who were in the same boat we were 2 years ago, Candy Cane Lane is:

*a 4 block Christmas wonderland (think: Christmas with the Kranks)

*an effort that was started by neighbors over 20 years ago to raise money for the MACC Fund (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer) As of tonight, they've already collected more than $30,000 this year!

*a Milwaukee tradition that begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and goes through Christmas

*an opportunity for us to become creative in things like: getting home after work, leaving the house in the evening, and attempting to not feel like zoo animals as carload after carload (and the occasional bus) of people drive by and look at our Christmas lights.

Candy Cane Lane really is quite the phenomonen-and it's amazing to see all the decorations that the neighbors put up! And it all goes to a really great cause (although our accountant did say that our December electric bill does not count as a charitable donation). Each night a different neighbor plays Santa, and local "celebrities" (radio station dj's, the Racing Sausages, etc.) come to help collect money. In addition to collecting money for the MACC Fund, they also collect non-perishable food for the Hunger Task Force. Tonight I walked a bag of food up to the collection point and took some pictures of what Candy Cane Lane looks like tonight. Sorry about some of the blurry pictures! It was a little cold, and my hands got a little shaky! The West Allis Fire Department was helping take the collections tonight.

And while our house isn't quite decorated to the extreme as some of the others, we hope that it gets the message across that Christ is our light, and our reason for celebrating this season.

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!

A Very Packer Thanksgiving

Since we're a week away from Christmas, it's really only appropriate that we do a Thanksgiving post, right? :)

This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the very first time (sort of!). My brother had to stay in Wisconsin because of a hockey tournament the day after Thanksgiving, and my cousin Daniel was going to pick up some extra hours of work while he was on break from Concordia. Steve had been busy working in Atlanta, helping to do some clean-up after their flooding and was getting just the week of Thanksgiving back at home, and since we felt there were some things that needed to get done around the house (think winterizing...), we also had made the decision to stay home for Thanskgiving. And since a frozen Tundra Thanksgiving didn't really sound like too much fun for the St. Louis crew, we had a Thanksgiving feast for the 4 us! And to say it was a feast would be an understatement! I'm not quite sure what any of us were thinking when we put together the menu, but boy did we have leftovers!

The whole day was really very relaxing. We had most of the food either cooking or ready to go before the start of the Packers game and we were able to sit and watch the game while munching on some crackers, cheese and sausage. (What'da expect! We were having a very Packer/Wisconsin Thanksgiving!)

The table is set!

The boys go to work on the Turkey and the Duck

Mike takes care of pouring our wine and Steve's Miller High Life

Dinner is served! Buon Appetite!

Oh....

...so we're suppose to be updating this?

Life seems to have gotten away from us a bit over the past few months, but I think it's starting to finally get back together! And since we've been so neglectful towards updating this, here's a recap of our past couple of months.

I survived another year of VBS, followed by a High School Girls Retreat. While I was on the retreat, Steve went with my grandpa, dad, brother and cousin for guys fishing weekend up in northern Wisconsin. They caught a few fish, but the memories they took away from it were priceless!

Once we both returned from our various weekend trips, we packed our bags and headed WAY south, to New Braunfels, TX. I did my DCE Internship in New Braunfels, but the reason for the trip was to visit Steve's sister, Robyn, who moved down there in December. We also went to help her move into her new place. But, while we were there, we got to catch up with some old friends I had worked with, drove a couple hours to visit with some good family friends, and FINALLY got to eat some good BBQ! Since I moved from New Braunfels 5 years ago, my mouth hasn't stopped watering for Rudy's BBQ, so needless to say, it was the first stop on our list!

While we were in Texas, we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! It's hard to believe it's already been that long, but at the same time, it's hard to remember a time when we didn't know each other! We celebrated by driving 2 hours and having lunch with some really good family friends--their daughter was our flower girl!

This guy...

Became this guy....

and forever ruined our ability to watch a football game without having someone discussing it. And it also ruined our ability to watch the sports-cast on our local news channels. At some point and time people forgot that sometimes we just want to watch the Packers without having to talk about Favre.

We spent a weekend playing tourists with our friends from Springfield, IL-The Gauvins. We spent some time at the Children's Museum, playing around at the lakefront, and of course...a stop at the Bronze Fonz.

Also new since we last updated...Steve welcomed in a new decade! At the end of September, Steve turned the big 3-0, but we celebrated St. Louis style with his best friend, Paul. Paul and Steve have been friends since the 2nd grade, and since their 30th birthdays were only a month apart, we had a combined party for them at the end of August. We celebrated Steve's actual birthday in Wisconsin with my mom, brother, aunt and uncle. They loaded him up on all kinds of fishing supplies, so it looks like another Guys Weekend is in the works!

These guys clinched the Central Division, but first we got to see them play again in Milwaukee. Mike and Steve were the grill masters as we waited for traffic to clear out of Miller Park over Labor Day.

One of the local grade schools was in a bit of a bind for a 5th-8th grade coed soccer coach, and one of the parents (who belongs to our church) found out that Steve used to play soccer. Before long, this dad and Steve became the coaches for the Elm Grove Lutheran soccer team. As of today, they are 2-0 and Steve's having a blast coaching. And from the sound of a couple girls in my Confirmation class, they seem to like him too.It's officially fall in Southeastern Wisconsin! The leaves have started changing colors and covering up our green grass. The temperatures definitly are more fall like, and we are desperately trying to avoid turning on our heat!

A Month Gone By...

...much too quickly!!

July started out while I was still at Camp LuWiSoMo for a Servant Event with some of our high school girls, and it has just seemed to disappear since then! We did get to take a trip back to St. Louis to celebrate the wedding of one of Steve's friends.

Brett, and his bride, Christi

We lucked out on this trip to St. Louis, because the wedding fell on the weekend before the All-Star game! So we took some time to check out everything downtown had to offer! And we got to do it while spending time with my cutie of a godchild!

Jordan, and her godparents

Outside Busch Stadium

Following the trip to St. Louis, I headed off to New Orleans for the National Lutheran Youth Workers Conference, where I was able to catch up with some friends from school and was able to start scoping out the city for the 2010 National Youth Gathering.

Next on our list? Vacation Bible School and the High School Girls weekend retreat for me, and a boys fishing trip for Steve, followed by VACATION to see Steve's sister in Texas, and a trip to St. Louis (where else?!) to celebrate the 30th birthdays of Steve and his friend Paul.

We're hoping that your summer has been filled with all kinds of good memories!

Summerfest 2009

The largest music festival has officially come to a close here in Milwaukee. And sadly, we were only able to attend one night. :( Steve and my brother, Mike, went to a concert earlier in the week (Jason Aldean) while I was at Camp LuWiSoMo for a Servant Event with some of our high schoolers. After I got back from that, we headed down on the 4th to see Huey Lewis and the News. We anticipated being the only 20-somethings in the crowd, but we were pleasantly surprised to see how many of us there were! We did leave that concert a little early to head over to another stage to see Flogging Molly, an Irish rock band. We ended up REALLY enjoying that one!

This is Huey, thus proving we were at the concert. (Even though you're just going to have to take our word on it since even with my 16x zoom, we were still too far back to get a clear picture).

And of course, one of our favorite pasttimes at Summerfest is people watching and tshirt reading. On our official panel of judges, this shirt received runner-up. Apparently, some people in Wisconsin are still a little bitter about Brett Favre possibly/almost definitly playing for the Vikings next year.

And this shirt took home first prize...

You can't beat a Brewers fan (and yes, he is one! We asked!) who can still admit that the Cardinals have a manager who can outsmart theirs. We did not however, ask what he thinks of their new manager.

From our front porch looking out

The tree in our front yard gets the most beautiful white flowers on
them during this time of year!

Everyone's Polish...

...at Polish Fest!

Festival Season in Milwaukee is well underway, and we took full advantage of some free tickets that we received and headed down to Polish Fest. The weather was crummy (just a lot of rain), but the food was FANTASTIC!

Here's Steve and Mike showing off their Polish Plates and Potato Pancakes.

A little rain couldn't keep some die hard polka-ers from sitting down! They just grab an umbrella and dance away!

And even though we weren't able to spend the day with you, we'd like to wish our Dad's a happy Father's Day! We love you both!

Catching You Up...

So, it's been awhile! Here's our attempt to catch you up on everything that has been going on in our lives for the past month...

On Memorial Day weekend, I celebrated my 28th birthday with the family! We spent the day looking at condo's for my brother, Mike, who moved up here in early June, and then got to celebrate with an ice cream cake from Maggie Moo's! Steve got me tickets to the Cardinals/Brewers day game the Wednesday following my birthday, so we played hooky and FINALLY got to see the Cardinals win a game in Miller Park! (Here's to hoping the Greene curse has lifted!)

Steve's friend, Scott, from Springfield came up for a visit and the boys spent a few days out on the golf courses around town. And of course, we had to take him by the Bronze Fonz.

We got around to doing some minor demolition on our garage. The previous owners had installed some old cabinets and make-shift benches (made out of plywood and 2x4's), which were serving us somewhat well for storage. Unfortunately, both were very damaged, and not really helping us in the organizational department. So, Steve and Mike starting tearing them apart, and we put up some new shelves that are giving us A LOT more room in the garage.

Here is our garage before...

And after...

So it was a little dark when we finished, and the picture didn't turn out the greatest, but everything has it's place now!

And who could forget the little surprise we found when we moved the benches....

Yes, that is a crack in our garage floor, and yes, that is the outside you can see. Fortunately, our garage is not attached to the house!

Just this past weekend, we got to head down to St. Louis and celebrate the 1st birthday of this cutie pie...

Our nephew Liam turned one and we spent some time celebrating at the park with the family before we headed out to celebrate with this lovely couple...

Steve's best friend since second grade married his sweetheart, and Steve was honored to stand up and witness it. Thank you so much for including us in your special day, Paul and Margaret!

I'm sure they haven't changed much since 2nd grade...

The Culprit Identified

The Brewers fan behind the broom left at my car finally revealed herself.

It was our friend, Lis. Well played friend, well played.

A Reminder...

that we no longer live in "Cardinal Nation". Over the weekend, the Milwaukee Brewers were playing the Cardinals in St. Louis. As with any other time they play each other, it was the catalyst of some friendly banter back and forth amongst us and the Brewer fans at church. Unfortunately, the 3 game series did not prove to be friendly to the Cardinals, and the Brewers won all 3 games. Which is why on Tuesday morning when I (Jaime) left to go to work, I found this propped up against my car.
A close up view of the bottom portion of the broom. (Yes, those are tiny dead {thankfully, fake} cardinal birds).The person who left it there is still to be identified. The usual culprits have all claimed innocence thus far. We definitly got a good laugh out of this, but hopefully we'll be able to return it to it's rightful owner after the next 3 game series when the Cardinals are here in Milwaukee next week.

What's New?

So, it's been a bit since we've blogged...our apologies! Here's what's been new in our world since the last time we updated...

We made a quick trip down to St. Louis for the memorial service of a friend's Dad, and while we were there, we were able to celebrate Sarah's (Jaime's cousin) birthday first at Fast Eddie's, then with the family at The Old Spaghetti Factory.

On April 25th, we celebrated one year in our new house! And we toasted to only having 29 more years to go on our mortgage!

While we were celebrating one year in our new house, we were helping our friend Lis move into her new Condo. While Steve and Jaime's cousin Daniel worked on hanging up some new light fixtures, Jaime and Lis ran to the grocery store and ran into the Klement's Racing Sausages. Here's Lis with the Chorizo...

For Mother's Day weekend, Jaime's Mom, Aunt Laura and cousin Sarah came up to visit. We had lunch one day at the Friday's Front Row at Miller Park.

And we hit another milestone! After only 2 1/2 years, we were able to send off our final payment on our Dodge Caliber! It's (almost) officially ours! The check has cleared the bank--we're just waiting on the title to come in the mail!

A Windy City Easter

He is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter! Because of visits from family (Jaime's brother and parents came to visit the weekend before) and visits to family (we're heading to St. Louis soon...) surrounding Easter, Steve and I got to Easter to celebrate as a family of 2. We celebrated Christ's resurrection at the sunrise service at church, and then left for the Windy City! Steve found some great deals for a hotel room just off Michigan Avenue, along with tickets to the Shedd Aquarium. We spent all day on Sunday walking around Chicago, taking in a lot of the touristy attractions. The weather was beautiful (around 45 degrees or so), but it certainly lived up to it's nickname!


We rode the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier-complete with beautiful views of Lake Michigan and the city of Chicago.
We went to the big mirrored bean thingy as a joke, but ended up being very captivated by the whole thing. It's in the middle of Millenium Park, and is literally a large mirror in the shape of a bean. It gave off great reflections of the city (as you can see in the picture above)! A bunch of people were standing underneath the bean, so we headed inside to see what all the hype was about! It was pretty crazy! Can you find us in the picture?


It's ok if you can't...I still can't find us either...

On Monday, the weather took a turn for the worse--rainy and temps barely above zero, so we hoped into our first ever Hybrid taxi and headed over to the Shedd Aquarium. We had great time looking at all the different types of fish. Steve even made a friend!

And since no trip to Chicago (at least in Jaime's mind) is complete without a trip to Ikea, we hit up Schaumburg "on the way home" for a shopping spree. And since no trip to Chicago (at least in Steve's mind) is complete without a trip to Portillo's for Italian beef, we stopped and got dinner there before heading back to Milwaukee.