Yay for Arrivals, Boo for Departures

My brother, Jeff is on his way back to Utah and we all feel like this....

That is not a staged picture. I snapped it because Chloe is having a hard time finding her smile since Jeff left. Notice though that she is wearing her favorite shade of lipstick, Dorito dust, and that will help to heal her broken heart.

We were blessed to have Jeff fly in last Friday for a brief visit. We didn't do too much but we all miss Jeff, so we are always happy to just have him sitting around making wisecracks.

We took very few pictures because, like me, Jeff is not a huge fan of jumping in front of a camera. I forced everyone to take a couple just to prove that a visit happened at all.

And here is how that visit played out.

Saturday we hung out at the park for Alex's taekwondo picnic/kickball game. The teacher and the kids played against the parents, and some of the parents were way too competitive and really, really wanted to beat the kids. One guy even got mad because Seth purposely let Alex's fly ball drop. Kind of silly. The kids won though. The teachers had to adjust the rules to work around these dads who were kicking over the kids heads and acting all savage. Hello grown men...in a just for fun kick ball game, let your kids win. Anyway, no pictures of the picnic but I do love that the taekwondo school does stuff like this. They take time to be with the kids off the clock and I think that is so cool. We are bummed out about missing their Halloween party next week, but it is at the same time as our Trunk or Treat. Oh well.

Sunday's festivities were the true reason for Jeff's visit. Okay, maybe he came to see us too, but he purposely planned to come at this particular time to go with Seth to the Rams/Packers game. Jeff is a lifelong Rams fan and neither he or Seth had been to an NFL game. I would loved to have joined them but we were practicing for the Primary Program (this Sunday) and one of us had to stay home and take our kiddos to church. I sent the camera and pleaded with Seth to come back with pictures. And he did...?

Those are the Packers, they are just in throwback Acme Packers jerseys. Also, they don't have cheerleaders so the cheerleaders from UW-Green Bay cheer at their games. Kind of funny.

I should have been more specific when I asked for pictures. He didn't even get one of the two of them together, or even one of Jeff at all. I guess photo documentation does not make or break the experience for men. Oh well. They had a great time, and of course the Packers smoked the Rams. Go Pack Go!

Monday, Seth took the day off so that we could hang out. We had talked about going to game 7 of the Cardinals/Brewers series but the Brewers loss on Sunday ended the series and squashed that idea. Bummer! I would have loved to see the Brewers go to the World Series the same year the Packers went to the Superbowl. Wisconsin sports teams are on fire this year!

Anyway, we sat around all Monday morning trying to figure out what to do. Seth wanted me to make a plan but I am not the make a plan type. At almost 11:00 I decided that we should go pick the kids up from school and just head up to Milwaukee and find something to do. As we drove I searched my phone for Milwaukee attractions and we came up with a list of potential places to hang out. We started out at the Bronze Fonz though, since we had never seen it. Not much to see really, and we are not really Happy Days fans, but the Fonz is an icon and we had to show our Wisconsin pride.

While we were walking around downtown the kids were calling that clock tower mini-Ben. I thought they were so smart to know Big Ben and then play off of it's name, but they informed me that mini-Ben is actually from Moshi Monsters.

We had to stop at a taco cart for a quick snack. Mexican food is hard to come by here so we have to take what we can get.

Next on our agenda was to hunt down a delicious donut. We drove to two different places that we found online and they were both closed on Mondays. We actually learned that lots of museums and attractions are closed on Mondays. So we put those bakeries on our lists of places to try another day and started to try to narrow down our entertainment options. We had a handful of choices, but we had missed the time slot on some and other were closed that day so we finally decided to reserve a tour at Sprechers. Our tour was at 4:00 so we ate at Maggianos, walked the mall and then headed over.

If you do not live here, you may not know that Sprechers makes Root Beer. They make 11 other sodas too but mostly root beer. My kids loved the idea of a tour where they could drink unlimited amounts of soda, or at least as much as their mother and father would allow anyway. So what we didn't know about Sprechers until Monday, is that they are a beer brewery. This is Wisconsin, so I suppose we should have guessed. They actually only started making root beer as an afterthought, and it turned out to be far and away their best seller. Thankfully the place smelled like root beer because Miller Brewing Company reeked.

After our tour we were given souvenir glasses and sent to sample at the bar. The adults were given wristbands with tabs on them that entitled them to 4 glasses of beer.

You can only see 3 tabs in this shot but I promise that is just strawberry soda in Seth's glass. The kids got souvenir cups as well and soda was unlimited. We actually dumped a few flavors right down the drain, but the root beer, cream soda, orange dream, and cherry cola were all pretty tasty. Also, none of them have caffeine which is cool because it is really hard to find cherry colas without it.

After our soda guzzling fest the only thing left to do was find a dang donut! Since we struck out at the bakeries, we stopped at Krispy Kreme. We used to have one by Six Flags but a few years ago we drove over for what Alyssa called ''invisible frosting donuts" to find it closed down. Apparently we have not been to another one since, because while Alyssa remembered it, Alex and Chloe looked like they had discovered a new world and we marched home with 4 donuts a piece. Excessive? Maybe, but we had family in town and I think I am the only one who actually ate 4, or I mean, 7, but who's counting?

Tuesday we just hung out. The monkeys were back in school, including Chloe. I would have taken them out again but I am taking them out ALL next week. We just hung out and then laughed through a whole class session of taekwondo, which is my thrice weekly entertainment. You really haven't lived until you've watched my silly little guy do taekwondo.

And that is about all we did. Since Jeff lived with us in Utah, we don't always do a good job entertaining him when he comes. It just feels natural to have him with us again, and we are always sad to see him go.

Luckily we do have more family arriving on Saturday!