SOF - Brat Days

This past weekend for our Summer of Festivals we went to Brat Days in Sheboygan, WI. One of my good friends from HS joined us for the weekend. Unfortunately her significant other couldn't make it but we had a great time with Shannon! Shannon is one of those people who is very easy to talk to and it feels like no time has passed when you get together with her. We met up at the KOA in Fond Du Lac which is by far the best KOA we have ever been to!! It doesn't even compare to the last one. Great for families! We wanted to set up the tents right away because it was about to rain. Shannon and I had an interesting time setting up the one person tent...I just remembered we took a pic of that too I should add it. That tent was the talk of the campground! I don't think people are used to seeing a tent like that at a KOA, it's more for backpacking. We figured the tent out though (thanks to our neighbors).

Then we were off to Brat Days! This seems to be a big event for Sheboygan. There were a few bands there and lots of brat foods. They had regular brats of course, brat tacos, brat burritos, brat pizza, brat nachos, brat eggrolls and even brat stuffed chicken wings! I think out of everything we tried the brat taco was the best.

After Brat Days we went back to the campsite and taught Shannon how to play Ticket to Ride in the tent since it was raining. Her fiance, Jeremy, is really into games like us and Shannon hasn't crossed over yet. So we taught her this game so she could go home to Jeremy and tell him that she learned a new game! Plus it's a fun and easy game to learn. After the rain stopped we enjoyed good conversation and tasty marshmallows around the campfire. Then off to bed.

The Festival














Brat Taco














Budweiser BBQ Sauce tasting (with brats of course)

































Me and Shannon














Ticket to Ride in the tent














The next morning we saw Shannon off and then we headed back home. By the way, we LOVE Marquette County in WI!! We drove through a little town called Montello and we loved it! It would be a great place to have a summer cabin because it has a great downtown area, lots of lakes and it's only 30 min to the Dells plus about an hour from Madison. It's 2 1/2 hours from Rochester which is the perfect getaway. We can dream for now. We stopped at this REALLY cute little sandwich shop. The food was delicious and the donut holes are amazing. You need to stop by if you're in the area...it's called the Underwood Market. They supposedly (according to some locals we talked to) have an amazing breakfast too. We will be back!

Our Lunch

The Donut Holes

SOF - Raspberries and Wine Festival

SOF stands for Summer of Festivals, otherwise the title is too long. Well this summer I guess we haven't been to as many festivals as we've wanted to but we've still gone to a couple none the less and it's been fun. We went to the Raspberries and Wine Festival at Winehaven in Chisago City, MN. What a great festival! This vineyard is family owned - family run and is gorgeous! We enjoyed some raspberry barbecue ribs, a free wine tasting, live music and tours of the vineyards and winery. We especially loved the Deer Garden Red wine, the grape was actually bred in their vineyard so it's exclusive to this winery! Winehaven has many events going on throughout the year and I think we'll be heading back up there...maybe we'll make it a tradition :) After the festival we headed to Laura and Darren's since they were only about 15 minutes away and plus we wanted to share our new wine find with someone. Laura is a merlot fan and this was a little sweet for her taste but she still liked it. We then made a stop at the Mall of America and IKEA before heading home.





Scott smelling the wine before tasting it


Not quite ripe yet




Sunday after church we decided to FINALLY use our picnic backpack we got last Christmas from Scott's mom. I love this backpack!!! It has everything you'd need in it; plates, utensils, salt and pepper shakers, a blanket, wine holder....I could go on and on. Anyway, so we decided to use our county parks pass and we went to Chester Woods where we hiked until we found a suitable spot to picnic. We actually found a pretty nice spot overlooking the lake! It was a very nice, breezy summer afternoon and we enjoyed our new wine, cheese and crackers.



Our view


I realize this is a weird pic of me


Our lunch (not an ad for Triscuits, although we do like them a lot)


Cheers!

Summer of Festivals - Rhubarb Festival, Lanesboro

This was such a nice little festival. When we showed up we saw Garrison Keillor and a few video cameras following him around. The Rhubarb Sisters sang some very cheesy rhubarb songs, there were rhubarb olympics, rhubarb contests and just rhubarb everything.

The best part was the rhubarb tasting. We got to sample 30 different unique rhubarb dishes!! It was so tasty, but very filling. I think we ended up choosing the pickled rhubarb as our favorite, mainly because it was the most unique and centered around the rhubarb. Other dishes just put some rhubarb in it but you couldn't really taste it. I also bought a tomato plant, very excited for fresh tomatoes. Also, both of these pictures got into our local paper!!

The worst part? We parked on the wrong side of the highway and got a parking ticket! The ticket was supposedly for $127!!!! I guess instead of raising our taxes Pawlenty decided to add "little" fees to our parking tickets. Anyway, we weren't very happy about that, especially since you'd think they'd clearly mark not to park there (there were several cars there before we parked) especially since there was a festival going on. Anyway, I ended up calling the office and the lady told me the ticket was only $24, maybe the bill hasn't gone through yet not sure. But that was much better :)

We bought some rhubarb cake and garlic bread for our get together with our friends Eric and Leah later that night. Good times :)

Summer of Festivals - Whalan Stand Still Parade

Scott and I are making this the Summer of Festivals. Actually that's kind of what started my idea for a blog, I wanted to blog each festival. We want to focus on going to festivals that are related to food (Scott's idea). The first one we went to was actually the Whalan Stand Still Parade, not related to food but there was still food there of course. Anyway, I made a blog on our website for this and I don't really feel like doing it again so here's the link:

http://209.23.153.221/newelder/blog.htm

Next I will post our time at the Rhubarb Festival in Lanesboro.