This weekend was the culmination of months of planning for my ten year class reunion. During the past year I took it upon myself to organize a reunion because it did look like it was going to happen unless someone stepped up. I had the help of a couple ‘mates in the planning and was hoping everything would go off without a hitch.

On Friday after work I hooked up with Will who had flow in from San Fran for the reunion. He spent a couple days in Chicago and was hitchin’ a ride to Falls with us. He met me at he bus stop and we bussed it to WFB. I gathered all the stuff we’d need for the weekend and we headed to Falls. Friday’s activities included checking out the homecoming football game and then some drinks downtown. Before we met up with everyone we said hello to my mom at St. Mary’s. Then we went to a nice little restaurant in downtown Falls called Beans and Barley. We had a quick but delicious dinner and headed into the brisk Falls weather to check out the Falcons. We watched the game for a couple quarters and met up with the class of 96. There were surprisingly a lot of people that came out for the game. We left at the end of the third and went to the O to meet up with all the other cold 96ers. The rest of the night was a blast. It was a great group and we bounced around downtown Falls being crazy and getting caught up on old times. Not much planning of night one but it was a lot of fun.

Saturday was the big day. I didn’t have to do much during the day. J and I hung out by my brother’s and watched the Badger game. About four we headed to Bruce’s in Elkhart where the dinner and mixing was going to take place. I got everything setup and the squared away with Bruce and got ready to have fun. Everyone started to trickle in around five so I fired up the 1996 mix. Once everyone arrived I was able to let loose because everything was done. I drank some beers before dinner, mingled and took some pictures of the classmates. We ate dinner at six. We had the “Sheboygan wedding buffet” of chicken, tips, ham and the sides. It was all very good. For $20 a person I challenge anyone to throw a better shindig that we had. After dinner we hung around Bruce’s and talked some more. We packed things up at ten and headed to the Brown Bear which I think is one of the best bars around. The craziness proceeded to continued. The drinks were flowing and the high school immaturity was resurfacing. It was a lot of fun though and there was some face hurting laughs during the night. As the night went on people trickled home. The last group of us ended up leaving a little after midnight. The party was a success and worth every second of planning and out of pocket cost. We went over our budget by about $80 which is good planning. It was more than worth it to get to have some good times with my old high school mates. Thanks to John, Christy and Sarah for the help. Digger won the crazy drunk of the night award. See you all in five years!

Sunday J and I took off fairly early. We drove to the Kettles and went to Parnell Tower to check out the foliage. It was a nice fall day. We hiked up, snapped some pics and hiked down. The drive home was nice with a little back road driving. Once back in WFB I hit the couch for some Packers and rest.

After a week of unpacking, organizing and looking for a lawnmower on Criag’s List I needed a bit of a break. We didn’t do anything on Friday but Saturday we were able to listen to the Badgers roll over Northwestern. After the first half we went to the Sprecher Brewery to take their tour. We have now swapped our go to brewery tour from Lakefront to Sprecher. Have to love MKE when one of the things you change in a move is your brewery tour. Sprecher is a short drive or longer walk away, probably same distance as Lakefront was. So we took the tour and listened to the yadda yadda so we could get our four samples. We bought some growlers to go (3 for $18 is a crazy steal) and checked out the gift shop. We headed back to the house and drank some Sprecher and continued to unpack and organize. We then got a call from Schwenker and he stopped over. We looked at some pictures, listened to some tunes and worked on the growlers. We were having some heated political talk because everyone knows that nothing goes better than politics and a beer buzz. We extinguished the political talk and got back to reliving the good old days. At about ten we headed to the only local bar around, The Village Pub. We headed over and it was a pretty cool bar. We grabbed a stool and some food and had a good time. We only stayed a couple hours to get a feel of our new local bar. The food was amazing and the atmosphere was something I can get used to. After that we headed home and capped off our first true weekend as Whitefish Bayenites.

This weekend was a very exciting one but I have to admit not one I was looking forward to. We closed on our house on Thursday and our apartment’s lease ended on Saturday. That meant moving all of our belongings over the course of a couple days. We started Friday night. We rented a van from U-haul and took three loads of boxes and smaller things. We weren’t planning on renting the van but looking back on the weekend we’re lucky we did.

Saturday we got to gettin’ early. Conveniently all of my friends were in Lacrosse getting hammered at Oktoberfest so it was the two of us doing the whole thing. My first trip was all the big stuff and I thought the rest of the day was going to be a cinch, wrong. We moved from eight to eight and I swear that our stuff tripled in the moved. I joked that we’re going to need a bigger house. I have to thank Jocelyn’s mom too. She came up and helped unpack some of the stuff while we were packing up the apartment. After an exhausting day we got everything in though. We have a house! My first act at the new place was showering and collapsing on the couch, I sense these exact actions will be recreated many time over. I was wiped from the days events.

Sunday I woke up sore as all get out. My brother and his family came to visit. He evaluated our house and did a little planning on how to go about tearing apart the house and getting it into the millennium. We’re going to enjoy it for a month or so and then start going This Old House on the thing. After some home inspecting we took our first of many trips to Taco Bell. Expect to see me balloon in weight due to all the easily accessible fast food restaurants around our location.

It’s a very, very, very fine house!

We finally got our piece of the pie.

We closed on our first house today! Come visit!

Jocelyn had to head to Illinois this weekend so instead of sitting on my butt I went with Luedke and one of his co-workers and wife to Ann Arbor for the Badgers v. Michigan game. Luedke picked me up at work at noon and we carpooled in his friend’s van. The drive to Michigan was long and uneventful. We got to the hotel, checked in and immediately hit the hotel bar for a couple drinks. Luedke and I played some pool while we waited for everyone to settle into their rooms. After everyone got settled and met us at the bar we hung out for a bit and continued shooting some pool. We then cabbed it downtown and had dinner at Ann Arbor Brewing. I had a burger and a brew sampler, the food and beer were both delicious but be forewarned that when they say their Cajun burger is hot they mean it. After dinner we hung out there about an hour when everyone wanted to go back to the hotel. L and I wanted to get crazy so we stayed out. We met this dude at AAB and he took us to a hard to find bar that he thought we would like. We walked for quite some time and the dude didn’t even really know how to get there. The more we walked the more I thought he was going to lead us down an alley and have his way with us. We finally found the place and I admit it was a hard place to find. It was a really cool bar in the basement of what looked like an apartment building. We stayed there for a bit but we wanted to ditch the dude who brought us so we took off. L and I walked around and found another brewery. We ordered up another round of samplers and those lasted us until bar time. After the bars closed it was impossible to get a cab so I started asking people at the stop signs for a ride for $10. One guy said he would give us a ride but he had to drop his buddy off, we gave him the old “yea right.” So we continued our search. There were drunken Badger fans everywhere so we were hooting and hollering with them. One car we saw full of Badgers went through a stop sign and proceeded to get t-boned by another car, not a fun weekend for them. The cops were there in a second so we continued on our way. We kept on walking around and then out of nowhere that guy that said he had to drop off his friend drove up to us and asked if we still needed a ride. We did, so we hopped in and he took us back to our hotel for the night.

L and I woke up super early and trekked to the gas station to pick up some beer. Of course they didn’t have beer and they said there was nothing in the immediate area. So we went back to the hotel and slept a couple more hours. After we woke up we hooked up with Erica and all her friends. We went down to their room and drank some Guinni and talked Badgers. We all hopped on the shuttle with a bag of beer in tow. We arrived at the stadium and really didn’t have a plan. We walked around and found a liquor store where we bought some beer. We then camped out on the lawn of house that was nothing but Badgers fans. It was amazing. In the heart of Michigan country, and rows of houses with Michigan parties, there was a lawn of cardinal. We squatted there for the entire pre-game and met some of the people there. We finally made it to the game. It started out good with the Badgers winning and it was close at halftime. The second half wasn’t as fun because Michigan pulled away. The Michigan fans were ignorant asses. They didn’t know a homerun from a touchdown. I got about two dozen mini footballs thrown at me during the game and at half time I almost got in a fight with an old man and his family for calling the Michigan band a high school band. His quote was, “You can insult the team all you want, but don’t mess with the band.” Someone got his tuba pooped in when he was a kid. After the game we were walking away from the stadium and all the asses when we ran into this black dude. He was a Badger fan and we got to talking. He was a nice guy from a town over. He wasn’t very big but he proceeded to tell us that he used to be a linebacker for the Badgers and now lived back in Michigan, we were skeptical. We asked where to go for some fun and he told us the main bar area was the other way from the direction we were walking. We started to turn around when he asked us if we wanted a ride. Of course we said sure and in his car we went. While we were driving he told us about Madison and how hard it was for a black athlete. The guy was very interesting to talk to and he took a shine to us. We finally got to a restaurant area and we saw another brewery so we had him drop us off there. Interesting dude but this wasn’t the last we’d see of him. We did some boozin’ at this really cool brewery that also made their own alcohol. We met some more Badgers fans and even a couple nice Michigan ones. After a couple drinks Luedke noticed he didn’t have his cell phone. It fell out of his pocket in the dude’s car. So L called it up from Anna’s phone and asked if he could return it and he said “no problem,” he’d drop it off. So about half and hour later the guy showed up. Not only did he have L’s cell phone he had his varsity pictures with him. The dude wasn’t full of it. We talked to him a little bit and then went back inside. We stayed there another hour or so before heading further downtown to get some food. We ate at a good Mexican restaurant and had some margaritas. From there we headed next door for some beers at an Irish bar. Then we met Erica and all her friends at a pool hall. We hung out there an hour or so when we decided to someone heard of this awesome bar that was “a ten minute walk away.” An hour later and getting the “ten minute walk” answer from five other people on the walk we arrived at the bar, which was closed. So we hit up a dive bar called Touchdown. There were some overly drunk Badger fans causing a ruckus in the place. All the bars had at least a 7:1 Badger fans ratio. This bar was 100% drunk Badgers. We hung out there until the club opened. We thought this was going to be the cats meow. It was overly touted and identically to Bullfeathers. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Bullfeathers, but I thought this place was going to be something different. It was a good time though. Lots of Badger fans drinking and a couple crazies playing flip cup. I was running on fumes and wanted to leave and so did the others so we headed back to the hotel. We had a couple more at the hotel bar and concluded a crazy day.

Sunday was a long drive back. I felt fine but it’s a long drive. Fall is definitely in the air!