Gurnee Mills

In early August, when we still had our rental car, we took the family down to Gurnee Mills, a huge mall about an hour away from Milwaukee in Illinois.

I don't really remember why we went, or if there was any purpose at all.

[Ah yes, I remember now: my wife had gone there a week before and saw an exhibition of live tigers. For $25 you could play with the cats, and we wanted to at least show the kids the beasts.]

Well Gurnee Mills is huge, 1.7 million square feet, and we parked on the wrong side of the mall. So after looking through a used bookstore and a few other shops, we settled in for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.

This is a pic of the cafe mascot, which Parker just freaked over, giggling and smiling nonstop.

The wife and I had an appetizer platter that included calamari, and one of the few times I've been disapointed in YaYa was when she tried it, liked it, and then spit it out once I told her what it was. :(

For desert, we blew the diet and ordered a Volcano, a brownie/ice cream combo with a lit sparkler in the middle. That's ironic, because we despised the fact that the kids menu portion of hamburger was three, count 'em three, medium sized burgers. What the heck, why not just include angioplasty free with the meal?

Last but not least, this animated crocodile scared the heck out of Middle Child.

And with good reason, now that I look at the photo again :)

After that we stopped at a dollar store where we bought the girls ceramic ballerinas and Parker a toy hammer, the Disney Store and a few more places, discovered the tigers were a travelling exhibit and no longer there, and drove home.

Not a bad day at all.

Old World Wisconsin

Call this the weekend of Dan.

On Saturday I dragged the family down to Eagle, Wisconsin to watch a Civil War Encampment at Old World Wisconsin.

Old World, host of school trips galore, is a massive 576 acre museum that includes 65 buildings from the 1800's that have been moved to the site from locations across the state.

We got out there around noon, and you know what: we missed dang near all of the civil war stuff. The re-enactment was of Sherman's March to the Sea, and as part of the atmosphere the action moved from settlement to settlement as the 'raiders' foraged for food.

Well, when you have three kids (and a 16 year old cousin) with you, it's pretty hard to catch up with a roving band of Yankee marauders :)

It didn't help that two minutes into the trip we got sidetracked by a restroom stop and a tree frog YaYa found outside.

We then boarded a tram toward the German settlement, alleged locale of the next raid.

I've seen the whole place a half dozen times, but it still gets me going. The kids alternated between fascinated and bored, as expected, but for the most part kept their cool.

You can tell your kids are city folk when they go ga-ga over a few horses.

Love this fence.

And this garden

The kids got a chance to see chickens and oxen up close

Finally word came that the Yankees were coming. That was at 1:15.

Around 2 o'clock there was a small amount of gunfire - a smirmish at best - and some rebel cavalry fled the area.

That's it.

Whoo-hoo.

So we boarded a tram into the village, where there's 19th century shops (blacksmith, etc) and a Union encampment.

Unfortuantely, Old World was also hosting the North American Angry Hornet convention. The da** things swarmed the whole village and were bold enough to land on some of us.

So adios any desire to see the Civil War stuff, and on towards the restaruant back at the visitor center.

But . . .

On the walk back we passed the schoolhouse, and we stopped in just in time for an old fashioned square dance.

At first just the Mrs. and YaYa took part, but Middle Child quickly hollered 'me go dance too' and joined them.

As the 'shy' one, you wouldn't expect her to take center stage, but low and behold she was one of the first few 'women' to sashe (sp?) up the aisle

and bridge the rest of the group

All this was done to a host of genuine applause from everyone in the room. No one expected this allegedly shy little girl to take the reigns the way she did. I couldn't stop beaming!

Then it was YaYa and Mrs. turn

They had a blast!

On the way out I saw some children's toys laying outside, and we took it upon ourselves to play Sticks and Hoops.

Now we'd never played before, and it not only looked boring but hard too, but it turned out to be both simple and a blast. All you had to do was get the hoop rolling, then follow along and whack it from behind with the stick.

We even had a race across the meadow

Note: not all the pics loaded. Check back later for more hoopstick pics! It's worth your time! (UPDATE: they're all there now)

At the restaurant I dined on Buffalo meat. Yum.

As a P.S., on the way home YaYa so impressed a gas station clerk with her maturity that the Mrs. overheard her telling other folks about her (unaware she was YaYa's Mom).

Ha - wonder what she'd think of her on a bad day :)

 

Layton Boulevard

You'll have to excuse me, as the next few posts will be all out of order chronologically.

Today the Mrs. and I took Middle Child and Parker (YaYa was overnight at a friend's house) on a walk down Layton Boulevard.

Layton Boulevard is the name of a southern strip of S. 27th Street aka US 41, a street that bisects the city and has the longest continuous strip of businesses in Milwaukee. Why the name change for a mile or so? Ask someone else, I don't know.

What I do know is that Layton Boulevard features some of the most amazing single-family houses in Milwaukee. A shame really, as they're located in a 'changing' neighborhood, or, if you are less charitable, an 'almost ghetto'.

I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

The basis of the walk was exercise, but I always wanted to photgraph the houses on that stretch. So bear with me as I post some of them here.

I love the arches on this next one. Note the window AC unit tho' - very few of these houses have central air.

I like the trim on this one.

 

I think this one is gorgeous. I have a fetish for dark green awnings, and I adore the brickwork.

 

These next few are of my dream house. It even features a pair of pineapples on the front steps - the logo of my employer.

Nearby are several houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, including one I've heard is the only creation of his to feature a garage - because he designed it for a buddy.