Wisconsin Weekend

Yesterday Brad and I returned from four days in Wisconsin. (Well, more like two days since we were driving for roughly half the trip.) Our purpose in going was to go to a wedding (more on that in a minute) but we also got to visit with some friends. And unfortunately I don't have many photos to share with you since the day before we left on the trip I dropped my iPhone in the toilet. (Sad but true. At least it was into clean water. It's still drying out in rice and much to my surprise is showing signs of life.) We started our trip in Madison and visited two sets of friends there, including Mary and Paul Lourich (above). We forgot to snap a picture of the four of us together with her camera, but Mary knew I'd like a photo for my blog so she sent one of the two of them later - thanks Mary! After leaving Madison we drove to Milwaukee. Our time was short and we couldn't see everyone we would have liked, but most of the people we visited were folks we hadn't seen in many years. Dear friends in Shorewood hosted a beautiful party for us on Saturday night and we left feeling very blessed to have so many special people in our lives.

As I said the purpose of our trip was to go to a wedding. Peter's best friend for the almost nine years we lived in Racine was a boy named Peter Tessmann. They were in school together all those years and played on the same sports teams pretty much year round. Peter got married on Sunday and we were thrilled to be able to be there. It was great to be there, to spend time with Peter and his family, and to catch up with friends and teachers from Prairie - most of whom we hadn't seen since we moved to Poland in 2001. It was a very special evening. As we were leaving, Peter dragged his parents and me and Brad (and some silly props) into a photo booth that was one of the wedding reception activities - and above is the result! It was a fun way to end our evening and gave us a unique memento of the wedding, for which I was especially grateful - being without a camera as I was!

As I type this post we're about to head out the door to pick up Mary. She is less than an hour from landing in St. Louis after her super long journey from India. This is a photo from a trip she took to Kashmir last week. If you haven't read about it on her blog, I highly recommend it. (Click here to get to her blog.) And if you didn't already figure it out, there will be more to come of Mary's visit to St. Louis!