I feel like this last ~week or so has been fun!
Backing up to last Thursday- I already talked about my nursing symposium presentation + fun “little adventure” out for happy hour with Ivan.
Friday was stormy and low key and we had tornado warnings.
Side note: I haven’t mentioned here yet, but we had the craziest stretch of weather last week! Including multiple tornado warnings on different days (including one that jolted us awake to sirens at midnight and we all stumbled to the basement… turns out there was an actual tornado like 1.8 miles from our house…
During another daytime storm, there was baseball sized hail in the area (thankfully not at our house). Ivan was at work during the hail (opposite side of town) and his car got absolutely pelted. Except that it wasn’t his car, it was a rental car, because his car was in the shop. Recently, Ethan was driving Ivan’s car on the interstate and a TRAILER HITCH fell off a truck in front of him and bounced.. bounced…. bounced… and then landed on the hood (at like, 70 mph?!), making a massive scratch/ dent. 😩 But omg, thank god it didn’t go through the windshield!!!! The damage was kind of right on the edge of the hood and the front grill, so it was pretty extensive. We filed a claim. Well, now we just had to file another claim on the heels of the first one, because of course when Ivan took the rental car back, they were like, umm, yeah, there are pock marks all over the entire car from the hail, we’re starting a claim with your insurance on file… 😩 AWESOME.
We also got some water in our basement (not a ton, but this one trouble spot where this tends to happen in the guest room), so that was another annoyance to clean up and dry up.
ANYWAY, back to the good stuff.
Saturday I had lots of fun planned!
The day started out with a drive to Brookfield to finally meet up with blog reader Kaethe. You might not know her, because she’s not good at commenting 🤣🤣 (just had to call her out there), but she’s a loyal reader of many of you who also have blogs! She’s also been listening to Best of Both Worlds since episode 1 and is a SHU/LVK superfan. 🙂
Kaethe and I live only an hour apart and she lives one town over from where I grew up. Her oldest 2 girls are also in college here at UW-Madison. (Kaethe has 6 kids.) We have been trying to get together for ages now and Saturday it finally worked.
We met up at a Panera, after she finished her 11 mile run…. impressive. It was SO FUN!! We hit it off instantly, although I felt like she definitely knew more about me than I knew about her! haha. (Makes sense, if she reads the blog…I share a thing or two. 😅)
We talked non-stop for 2 hours and we both agreed we could have sat there and talked all day and barely scratched the surface. lol. She was so great and I am excited to have a new “pretty local” friend!! 🙂
I met up with my parents afterwards for a quick lunch, since I wasn’t far, and then drove home.
Saturday night we had more fun plans.
First, Ethan had junior prom. This didn’t involve me too much, because he was driving himself and just meeting up with some friends. Apparently there was not going to be a formal “photo session”…. sniff.
While I was gone meeting Kaethe, Ivan helped Ethan get his outfit sorted out. Yes, on the morning of prom. HA. Oh, boys….
Thankfully he’s around the same size as Ivan, so he just borrowed one of his suits. I think they maybe ran to buy a new tie and shoes? (I had been asking Ethan for 2 weeks now about his prom outfit and he kept waving me off…oh well, I guess it worked out.)
He looked so handsome! 😍
As soon as he left, Ivan and I headed out for our own plans.
We had bought tickets for one of those candlelight concerts where a string quartet plays in a dark room with ‘candles’ (just LED!) everywhere. They do different themed music- this one was Beatles and Queen songs.
We wanted to take Ivan’s cousin and his wife out to thank them for watching Charlie. (Ivan didn’t think they’d accept cash!) So we bought tickets for this and then took them out to dinner after.
It was such a fun night! I feel like the concert was maybe a little letdown. I mean, the musicians were excellent, but in the pics/ videos it looks like the candles are literally EVERYWHERE, and that wasn’t exactly the case. The particular venue here (a “lecture hall” at the Monona Terrace) was a little meh, too. In some of the promo videos the venues look amazing. (I think it would have been better if the musicians were on some sort of elevated platform- from our seats, I couldn’t see all of the candles. We also wished the musicians had been amplified! It was just acoustic (in fairness it was a pretty small venue, but it just wasn’t super loud, and for Beatles/ Queen songs, would have been nice.)
Monona Terrace is right downtown on the lake, so we of course snapped a pic:
We walked to nearby Nattspil for dinner, another Madison restaurant I had been wanting to try.
I LOVED this place and am absolutely going back. It’s super eclectic and totally unique. And everyone’s food was amazing! And the prices were so reasonable.
They do not take reservations, and it’s quite small, so I wasn’t sure if we’d get in, but thankfully after ~10-15 minutes, we got a table. It was busy the whole night.
We were seated in this dark back corner area, which I loved. Candlelight and so cozy!
Sunday was a much needed combo day of leisure + catch up. Spent time in the morning doing my March recap, which was fun. In the middle of the day I deep cleaned our freezer, made a meal plan, got groceries, etc. while Ivan cleaned the master bathroom, and washed all the sheets and towels. We ended the night with a couple episodes of The Pitt.
(The boys were doing their own things, as is often the case these days… 😥 Ethan was working, Asher was golfing and fishing and at the gym and I don’t even know what, but he is a busy bee and likes to be off doing something basically constantly.)
So far I’ve felt very focused and productive at work this week. I’ve been doing some time tracking AND time blocking, which is interesting and fun for me. Haha.
Yesterday’s big accomplishment was finally cleaning out my van. It so badly needed to be wiped out and vacuumed! It was 75 degrees out, so I was able to hose off my floor mats and everything. Feels amazing!
Asher also had his first real high school golf match! It was at 2:30 pm, so he had to miss school. Sounds like it went really well! He apparently had the best score from the group from his school he played against and he was really satisfied.
Ivan also took advantage of the beautiful weather and grilled steaks. I made roasted potato wedges and cream of zucchini soup, and we had a container of spicy guacamole/ salsa verde that Ivan had picked up from a Mexican restaurant recently.
I am feeling a definite “spring in my step” with the warm weather this week!! YAY!!
How’s your week been going? Any fun things happening in your world?
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful that Charlie’s vet is literally 2 blocks from our house. So convenient! I had to run him there yesterday for a flea/tick injection.
GRATEFUL KAE 