Beer

Yep, a post about beer.  Because I need a mental (and physical) break from the damn bookcases that are sucking the life out of me.  We do have all the shelf cleats up and are still making progress, but I'm tired of talking about it.  Let's talk about the Great Lakes Brewfest that we went to a couple weeks ago instead!  Beer helps you through any project, right?

It took place at Racine's Festival Park, on the beautiful Lake Michigan shore.  They had over 90 craft breweries for our drinking pleasure, and Lakefront Brewery even had a dude walking around with a keg on his back so you didn't have to wait in line!  That is service.

We made some pretzel necklaces to make sure we didn't get drunkity after an hour, you can see my really long necklace in this picture of me with a dude wearing a ladies shirt.

It says "I bet you wish these were filled with beer" across the chest.  I couldn't resist a picture with this stud!  We made some new friends...

And checked out the boats, even though it was rather chilly that day. 

Then I asked Shaun to take a picture of me with my beer, and this unflattering little photoshoot happened:  

But I finally managed to look normal for the last one. 

And then we got a nice one together, even though ALL THE PRETZELS WERE GONE and we were still drinking.  Watch out!

One of our new friends looked a bit like Shaun when he's sporting longer hair and a mustache, so we took a very serious picture at a bar post-festival to document their twin-dom. 

Watch out, they will cut you!

We're on the map

I certainly never thought that our city of Racine, WI would be a place our president would care about.  Well, he must, because he came here today! 

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He held a town hall meeting downtown at Memorial Hall, which I wrote about in this post.  It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the city, it was perfect for this occasion.

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In a cool surprise, the motorcade first stopped at Racine's Danish bakery, O&H.  Obama wanted to pick up some famous Danish Kringle for his daughters, he also sampled some and spoke with the employees.  I love this picture, how funny!  He think he liked it.

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Nobody is really sure why he chose our city for a town hall meeting.  I can only imagine it is because our unemployment rate is over 14%, well over the national average.  He wanted to speak about jobs and the economy, but most people were so starstruck by his presence that I'm not sure anyone cared what he said.  There was a line a mile long to secure tickets to the speech, some people had camped out since 10pm Monday!

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I was certainly glad when everything was over, during lunchtime there were police everywhere and many streets were blocked to accommodate the motorcade.  It was a very exciting day for our city, though!

Wine all you want

On Friday night Shaun and I decided last minute to attend a wine tasting that was put on by a great organization called Young Professionals of Racine.  We were very excited to have an opportunity like this so close to home, so we signed up online and made a night of it.  Can you tell how excited I am when we first got there?

As you all know, I put wine on my cereal I love wine, and this particular tasting event was set up as an 'International Wine Flight'.  There were tables of wines and complementary foods for North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and even a table for Japan that sported Sake and 'western' sushi for sampling.  We had fun and ran into people I didn't even know worked at my company, such as Ben here:

Nice looking guy, right?  If you're interested, I'll ask him if he's single!  We also hung around with a friend of mine from work, the lovely Kim (on the left), and her equally lovely friends:

Please ignore my horrible face in this pic, okay?  The event was held in the Sapphire room of historic Memorial Hall, downtown Racine.  This building was constructed in 1924 as a tribute to war veterans, and it was wonderful to see the original architecture mostly untouched. 

The moldings!  The doors!  The ceilings!  The limestone exterior!  The granite and marble interior!  I just love old buildings.  And wine, you know...in case you missed that. 

If You Liked Him Then You Shoulda Put a Hat On Him

Last Saturday we had a very fun (albeit drizzly) day at Party on the Pavement, the annual street festival in historic Downtown Racine: 

(Image from atop the Ferris Wheel, courtesy of Racine Post)

We wandered around with our beers, stopping into various shops, bars, and art galleries.  We listened to live bands, ran into friends (well, just my brother), pet lots of dogs, and just meandered around to our hearts content.  Then we found a shop that attracted Shaun like teenage girls to glittery vampires.  The selection of hats at Copacetic on Main street is totally amazing.  Their tagline is "Look good. Feel happy", and we were certainly happy while shopping.  Here is the great assortment we played with for about a half hour:

The one he is wearing in this pic is the one he bought, but there were many trials before the winner was picked. Observe:

             Seriously, do people really wear Leprechaun hats?

             Essential accessory for all your 'pirate' ensembles.  I am really not sure if this is here for Halloween or all year round??  Questionable.

 

The 'Samuel L. Jackson' look, complete with serious face.

Hopefully he never really takes up hunting....ugh!

The winner!  Justin Timberlake, this is how you wear a hat. 

In between snaps, I also got in on the fun. Now I know where to go if I ever win a trip to the Amazon. 

Newsboy, or gangster?  I'm not sure, but I can't pull it off either way.  Doesn't matter, I will just steal Shaun's when I want to ham for the camera:

I was so glad we got out and supported our local business owners.  Hopefully there will be many more 'exploring' days where we find other gems in our city.  By the way, I totally think I look cuter in this hat.