It was a lovely New Year's Eve for us. My girls had asked us if we could go to Madison, since their cousin was back there for the holidays, and we thought, "What the heck".
Of course, the day before we were supposed to leave, we got 6 inches of snow and the temperatures plummeted, but what're you gonna do?
On Saturday morning, the roads were a lot better, so we headed to Wisconsin. We got into to town around lunchtime and went straight to Hopcat to eat.
My brother's family showed up and we watched the Iowa State game. As you can see, Coadster was excited to celebrate ISU's first win in a bowl game since 2009. Yea!
After that we checked in at our AirBnb and then met our friends who were coming up for the weekend as well. They were at a cool pool hall and we hung out with them until it was time to meet my brother's family again at a new restaurant that a guy my brother graduated from high school with owns.
It was a great place with good beer, and since I can't drink that much alcohol, they also had really good non-alcoholic beverages.
The food was amazing. The photo above? That was beer cheese soup. Family? What family? That soup is the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to Wisconsin.
Earlier in the day, my sister-in-law told us about a rooftop bar with a great view of the capital, so I asked our friends to meet us there.
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| My friend Dawn ordered us to make jazz hands. |
The service was great and since I let myself have a drink, I ordered a margarita and it was the best one I've had since I was in New Mexico. Woot!
The Wisconsin bowl game was on and everyone in the bar was watching it.
The next day was New Year's Eve and I was so tired. It was one of those days that I felt exhausted after every activity I did. All I wanted to do was take a nap, but I never got a nap.
We did get to go to our favorite breakfast place in Madison. My girls had never been there before, and they seemed to love it too.
Afterward, we met my brother to cross country ski. Ironically, there was less snow and warmer temperatures in Madison than in Iowa City. It got all the way up to 9 degrees in Wisconsin that day. There is a park in Madison where they make their own snow. It's not a huge loop, but I hadn't skied in 2 years, so I wasn't looking for much of a challenge.
I worked on getting my courage up to even descend the smallest of hills. The first few slight downhills, I practically walked sideways down them, but I kept trying and got better braver and faster down them. Luckily, it was cold enough that the snow was pretty slow. If it had been icy, I would have been sucking my thumb and breathing into a bag as I tumbled down those hills.
We skied for about an hour and half before my hip flexors started feeling sore. I knew better than to push it too much, or John would be pushing me in a wheel chair the next day, so I pulled off and went into the shelter with John. While my brother was finishing his ski, we watched the other skiers, ice skaters and sledders. What a great little park. It's nice to see so many people playing outside, even in the very cold temperatures.
After our ski, we went back to the AirBnB and I showered. The girls got back from shopping with their cousin a few minutes later. They showed me their finds. Coadster basically bought her whole NYE outfit on her trip. Adorable.
We picked up our friends and headed to my brother's house for a little get together. It was his mother-in-law's 84th birthday, so we had some lovely cake and, because we're old, we toasted the New Year at 8 o'clock.
I was cranky and tired, and I just wanted to go back to our place after we left my brother's house. Both Stinky and John were also not feeling up to going out. Poor Coadster. She wanted to go and play, so she met my brother's little brother (from the Big Brother/Big System program (he's now 38)) and our friends out. I was sad I missed the fun. They went to an old style steak house/bar that Coadster said looked like something out of "Mad Men".
We woke up pretty early on New Year's Day. I think the actual temperature was like 10 or 15 below zero. We all went out for breakfast before we headed back home. It was a great weekend, but I was ready to get home and check on the cats and hope our pipes hadn't frozen while we were gone.
We got back around 2 and John and I went out to Cross Country ski. It was really cold for it. We only skied for about an hour, before we froze our faces off. All that skiing and hanging out with friends and family was a great way to end 2017 and start 2018. As always, I hope I'm able to spend much of this new year that same way.
May all y'all have a great new year too!
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