Milwaukee Marathon weekend

A week ago, we headed up to Milwaukee with some friends so they and Matt could run the Milwaukee Lakeside Marathon. It was Matt's third marathon, and he'd been training like crazy all summer for it, hoping to set a new personal best. We drove up Friday morning so we could have a few days to relax and explore the city (well, really, the downtown). We had to take it a bit easy, you know, marathon and all, but it was nice to have a chill time with friends (sans baby, see below) and explore a new city.

The first night, we had a fabulous fish fry dinner at one of the local breweries. There was even a polka band -- hello, Wisconsin! We also frequented a great coffee shop called Colectivo, which had the best espresso machine ever.

Finally, Sunday -- race day -- arrived, and the three runners headed out bright and early for the start. It's a point to point race, so they actually had to be shuttled 26 miles to the start (the finish was about a mile from our hotel). Meanwhile, I slept in (bonus!), then walked to Colectivo for breakfast and some treats before heading to the finish line (past the beautiful Milwaukee Art Museum and Lake Michigan) to catch their finishes. It turned out to be a gorgeous day.

Chris finished first, and he snuck up on me in a group, so I didn't have time to snap a picture. Matt came by about 25 minutes later, blasting through his goal and crossing at 3:39:00 on the dot. I was so excited for him! Stephanie finished third with another solid race.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, B was spending his first weekend alone with the grandparents. This was the first time we'd both left him for more than a few hours, so we were a bit nervous about how he would do, but everyone did great! When I texted my dad to see how things were going, these were the pics I got in response:

Ha! Pretty good, I'd say. Thankfully, my dad and step-mom didn't leave until Monday evening, so we some family time on Monday with a tasty breakfast and some time at the park.

 

Finally, my dad had one more surprise waiting for us when we got home. As you may recall, we began work on the shelving unit in our downstairs playroom last winter, but after the initial installation of the pre-fab shelves, our work stalled out, and it's looked like this since January.

I'd mentioned to my dad (a super handy guy) that we planned to finish off the shelves with molding, etc. to hide the edges and make them look like true built-ins and that maybe he could help us with that on a future visit. Lo and behold, we came home to this masterpiece:

I have no idea how he even had time to do it all by himself (He even primed it! We just need to do the final coat of paint.), but man was it a welcome surprise! Check another item off the to do list. All in all, a fabulous weekend.