December to Remember

This is officially the 18th blog in this series. If you've stuck with it for this long, I'm guessing you're not a talent agent.

December is that time of year when stress is at its highest and money is put into the hands of wives and airlines. This has been the case for me (us) for the past two Decembers. I should say, it is Alise's birth month. So, just as many celebrate the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas day, we are required to celebrate Alise's birth for all 31 days. While I have tried to carry this mandate into the great month of February, I normally have three days less to celebrate.

This December flew by as holiday months usually do. I started off the month with a quick work trip to Minnesota, and during the first weekend we got to visit our favorite town: Burlington, VT. We needed to run a quick errand for something that I won't reveal here until February. But while in our favorite town, we ate at our favorite restaurant, drank our favorite Bloody Marys (complete with bleu cheese-stuffed olives among other hors d'oeuvres on the stirring stick), and had some fantastic flatbread pizza. We also had our second Flat Stanley project visit (this one life-size, rather than drawn to scale) and showed him around town too.

But more importantly than errands we needed to complete, and educational school projects for cousins, we also visited Switchback brewery. Switchback is a pretty popular craft brewery in a less than picturesque setting on the other side of the tracks (literally) in Burlington. Don't get me wrong, it is a great beer. However, since they've only been brewing since 2002, they simply have had so much good beer to sell that it doesn't look like they cared about the retail end of things. They bottled their beer for a short time (and told us during the tour that they may do it again) but currently only sell in kegs.

In other words, since you can't carry out a 6 or 12 pack (though you could maybe pick up a keg?), there's not much to do at Switchback besides go on the 30 minute tour and have a few sips of the good stuff. Despite the lack of scenery, cool stuff on the walls, or good food to accompany the brew, as of late the Switchback tours have been filling up. We got reservations via Facebook along with 28 other beer lovers, and about 20 more were turned away at the door. Bummer. Luckily there are about 10 more breweries within 20 miles of Switchback, so those people had options.

Kegs only at Switchback Brewing Company.

We drove to Burlington and back with no problems, except for when we went over the high altitude mountain passes of this three hour 164-mile one-way trek. At the apex of each hill we would find snow falling, and iced roads. Some people skidded into the ditch, and we saw one guy lose his entire wheel. It rolled across our two lanes, and the other two lanes without hitting anything. Knowing how steep the hill was and realizing it was going at least 50 miles per hour, me might not get it back. It took us almost 4 hours when we returned south.

Being just a few weeks from Christmas, activity at Alise's employer really ramped up. Alise switches mostly to mail-order mode during these few weeks as packages must be UPS'd around the world to both famous and not so famous people who love the sharp aged cheddar found at GVCC. Alise and I definitely enjoy the generous block or two of cheese she receives each week, but two pounds per week is about a pound or two too much when your fridge is already full. So, in its second year, many relatives received a block or two - or we just shredded some for Christmas meals themselves.

While I've always liked the cheese at GVCC, I never realized what kind of company I was in. When it comes to aged cheddar, this is the stuff. One day Alise sent me an email asking if I knew about 10 different names. Eight of them I instantly recognized, while two I had to look up. A short time later, she revealed that the trivia related to 10 of the fine people she mailed cheese to that day. Let's just say most of you would know at least 80% too, and have probably watched, read, or voted for (or against?) their work.

Adding credibility to the GVCC cheddar reputation, I recently read a pretty interesting book called Cheesemonger: A life on the wedge. I'm not going to say it was Shakespeare, but it kept me entertained throughout following a punk rocker-turned-cheesemonger (as I have learned over the past 1.5 years - cheesemongers are the [typically] guys in shops/stores that have cheese exclusively, or an exclusive cheese section, that are in charge of buying, stocking, displaying, and ultimately selling cheese) in his journey of learning about cheese. At one point he mentions that GVCC cheddar is some really great stuff. But, I learned a heck of a lot about cheesealong the way, and also learned more about unions, fixed-rent housing, worker-owned cooperatives, and many other left-leaning issues that I don't have much exposure to. I would recommend it if you want to learn a little about cheese, or want to read a memoir of someone who probably had a very different lifestyle as a young adult.

The second weekend was my company's holiday party, preceded and followed by the 2010 Sjostrom cookie making extravaganza. This year, I can honestly say I held my own for 50% of the work. I could have done more, but unlike nearly every other aspect of my life I love food so much that I don't want to screw it up. I mean, if something Alise makes doesn't turn out (which is less than 5% occurrence on new recipes; almost 0% on tried and true classics) I immediately scold her for not paying exact attention to the directions and trying to throw in a triple salchow when she can't even do a toe loop. 

I suffer from the other extreme as I won't touch anything I can't pronounce or haven't performed exactly before. When it comes to measuring I insist on washing every measuring device between usage to ensure perfect composition of food chemistry. 

The last two paragraphs of ramble were basically warming me up to say: "We had a great time making cookies, check it out at http://a4kinit.blogspot.com/2010/12/holiday-baking-2010.html"

The next weekend we did something we have never done before - attend a professional football game together. As you can imagine working in a dairy association, we have our fair share of Wisconsinites. With that comes the unfortunate traits of Packer syndrome, the Badger boast, and occasionally the no-cure Brewer. When the Packers roll into Foxboro, it seems like half the office is at the game. Because of that following and another pair stepping out (not rabid enough, I guess) Alise and I filled in two seats and had a great time at a game when we didn't care who won. Mostly, I was cheering against the Packers for the heck of it, but after fist fights started breaking out all around for no reason amongst different groups of Patriots fans, I was glad I wore my navy blue Carharrt jacket.

We probably dressed a bit too warm for the occasion as the weather was forecast to range anywhere from 30 F to nuclear winter, but luckily it stayed high and we still have all our toes.

After a few days back at work, we took seven whole days off making it our "vacation" for the year. As you know, we take weekend vacations at least monthly, so we're not complaining. But we just hadn't had many weekdays off and it was nice to be with family.

Alise tubing with a niece.

I volunteered to go first, and was able to tell everyone, "Yes, do bring goggles and wear a scarf". It gets cold as slush flies into your face at 30 mph.

We made it home no problem minus a six hour delay. We planned to have a cousin reunion at 6 pm, but didn't land until after midnight. On the way back no problems at all. For two years in a row we flew on dates three days before or after Christmas, and I think that made a world of difference (we've been very lucky to avoid snow storms, knock on wood).

Back in New England we faced another two day work week due to New Years, and then we partied it up at a local Italian restaurant that switches into a two dance floor three bar club after about 9 p.m. It was a lot of fun with some great friends, and we had an entertaining cabbie (yes, a cabbie way out in the sticks) to take us home.

Until next year...

Lucas and Alise

No Sleep and Brotherly Love

Another month, more trips for Lucas and Alise.

More and more people have been commenting about how we "get around" and "don't sit still very long" or "are just lucky to be enjoying each other". I think all of those are compliments, and true, but really we're just trying to keep from getting too crazy. We were both always busy as individuals, and now that we're together a weekend relaxing at home is almost unimaginable.

We do stay home, but relaxing can never be part of the full 60-hour weekend. Alise enjoys cooking way too much to sit still for long. Lucas - more likely to be found on the couch than his spouse - is always researching something on his phone or computer. Whomever says Wikipedia is unreliable, is either unreliable themselves, or Lucas has learned a lot of made up stuff.

On a stay-at-home weekend, it isn't unusual to find Alise in the kitchen making something that we don't really need (the fridge is full, the husband is full, but the cook must experiement), Lucas with the History channel on (America: the story of us is an instant classic) with the computer on his lap (keeping track of sports scores) and the phone in his hand (skipping from Wikipedia topic to Wikipedia topic).

So, as you can tell, we don't leave the house for weekend adventures because we're bored, but instead because we're already on food and electronics overload. So we can only escape to our Mazda with the moon roof, giving us a sense of open road and fresh air.

After one of those above-described at home weekends to start November, Alise and some girlfriends visited New York City.

Surprisingly to me, of the four girl crew Alise was the veteran New Yorker - having been there twice - while the others made their inaugural trip to the Big Apple. They did it all

and Alise was a great tour guide - at least that's what she told me. They visited many of the normal sites, and also took in a Broadway show - Chicago.

In the meantime, I headed to the Upper Midwest for work in a combo trip to Minneapolis and LaCrosse, WI. I returned on Wednesday of that week, and then planned one of the best impromptu trips we've taken.

Alise mentioned it was time for another oil change (she doesn't even let it get close to 2,999 miles in-between, but that's a different story). The car needed some other work and checks as well, so we took it to the closest dealer in Keene, NH. Since Keene is now 45 minutes away, rather than 30, I started researching "what to do in New Hampshire" just to see if there was something we were missing out on.

For regular readers of this blog - if regular means once per month - you may remember our surprise that there were some pretty nice ocean beaches on the east side of New Hampshire this summer. NH is known for being a conservative state with a small budget. New Hampshirites don't really flaunt or "brand" themselves like Vermonters do. In Vermont, everything is labeled that it is made or produced or touched the holy water of Vermont. It means that Vermont gets a lot more notoriety for its tourism, while NH stays a scenic secret.

Anyway, I found out there is a Currier and Ives Trail that starts just northeast of Keene. Again, being in New Hampshire, this isn't very well advertised and has almost nothing to do with Currier and Ives (though I made Alise read all about Currier and Ives on Wikipedia during the ride since she had no clue what a Currier and Ives print was), I was interested to see some of the scenery. Grandma Ade always fills tins of cookies with Currier and Ives prints on the front, and of course there is the reference in the song Sleigh Ride. After getting on the road, we took the 30.0 mile tour through small old towns with waterfalls, covered bridges, and saw Daniel (the real human dictionary) Webster's birthplace.

Daniel Webster's birthplace. Sounded like a good stop at the time.

Statue at New England College, Henniker, NH. Go Pilgrims!?

So... it was nice, but probably would have been better with the colorful leaves of fall, rather than the death preceding winter. Once the trail was completed, we had a new destination: Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Merrimack, NH. Once there, I checked out a tip on foursquare and found that there was a semi-secret "brewmasters tour" that gave you a more in-depth explanation of the facility. Well, it was totally worth it. The free tour would have been great, I'm sure, but we went home with a bunch of free stuff, and got a 10% discount at the gift shop (picked up a large amount of stuff to make our "entry fee" back - not on purpose).

But the best part of the whole tour: tasting Bud Light at 36 degrees off the finishing room floor.

Such good Bud Light. It was amazing.

Now, Alise and I do love beer and breweries (in moderation of course), but we aren't huge Bud Light fans. Well, after this tour, my taste buds have adjusted. It is some good stuff.

Okay, so that was just one Saturday in November. A few days later we had Thanksgiving break and headed for Pennsylvania. Luckily, my wife has already blogged about this, so I'll just send you that way for basically our exact itinerary and some pictures here: http://a4kinit.blogspot.com/2010/12/holiday-of-brotherly-love.html We started out in Scranton, PA, eating at the famous Poor Richard's Pub (made famous by The Office), and then went to Gettysburg National Military Park, Hershey World in Hershey, PA, and finally Philadelphia. My wife left out pictures from one of the most important places in history; Independence Hall.

It is worth a visit (especially since it is free) to learn about how this country was founded. Indy Hall is where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were created. Next door is the under-appreciated (in my view) Congress Hall, where the House of Representatives and Senate met from 1790 to 1800 while D.C. was being built. President George Washington was sworn in here during his second term, and then the world witnessed the first peaceful transfer of power from Georgey to John Adams.

The U.S. Senate, 1790 to 1800. Sits above the House of Representatives.

That rounds out the month. It is already the 12th of December, and we have freezing rain in New England. Meanwhile, the Midwest is digging out of 3 to 12 inches of snow. The worst part though, is the 40 mile an hour wind gusts, resulting in drifts as big as 5 to 10 feet tall depending on where the wind breaks send the snow. Here's a picture my mom took of a 5-foot drift in front of our milking parlor door. My younger brother is in the tractor with the industrial snowblower - we sometimes need to clear the 3 mile path over state highways from our house to Grandma and Grandpas so our staff make it to work; also church and neighbors are in-between so it can be a vital tool during the winter. The amazing thing to me is always how 6 inches of snow can make 5-foot drifts!

We're excited to head home for Christmas, and looking forward to seeing everyone, and hoping roads are open by then!

Peace and love to all of you this holiday season,
Lucas and Alise

Twice as good - September AND October

Well I skipped last month, so now I owe myself twice as much. With one aunt lecturing me to keep up with the wife, I guess it is not yet time to leave my shoes on the blogging mat.

We've had a fun and extremely busy couple of months. As I explained in August, we made the move south to Massachusetts just across the border. The first weekend though, we headed back to Minnesota for our traditional pilgrimage to the Minnesota State Fair. We went on Labor Day Sunday, just one day after attendees set the all-time record for daily attendance of 234,384. Also during the weekend we attended two family functions; an afternoon party with Alise's family and an evening at Outback with mine.

Deep Fried Cheeseburger (and pickles)

Chocolate Covered Bacon

The next weekend it was Alise's company party, and then again we went to Minnesota, this time for a wedding. And what a wedding it was! Not only did we get to see many of our closest friends from college, but we also got to see (likely for the first and last time ever) a trained boar pull a cart fit for the bride and groom. Also that weekend I was able to join my best friend and his girlfriend for my first ever visit to Target Field.

Twins lost, but I made it to Target Field, so win!

All this while we were still settling in, but I took one more trip to the Upper Midwest as I was able to attend the biggest event in dairy in Madison, WI. During my weekend there, I showed some Russian dairy-related visitors (bankers, farm owners, government agriculture officials, etc.) the quality of genetics in Wisconsin and showed them around the Expo grounds.  That was it for September.

My Russian friends with the World Champion Milk Producing cow.

After Expo, I was home for a few days and then I headed east - to Russia. I was afforded the opportunity to attend an agricultural trade exposition for a few days, and was able to visit a farm managed by one of my new friends who visited the U.S. The trade show was for four days in Moscow, but for one evening I was able to make it to the famed Red Square. Otherwise it was all business in a country that has a lot of space, but is still really building its culture and tourism.

Inside a 3-year old freestall barn. Domestic cattle with a little European Holstein genetics mixed in. Herd averages around 6,000 kl/year (10,000 kl = 22,000 lbs).

Apartments like this were everywhere.

Old (really old statue on the right) meets new (Google billboard on the left) at the front of the Exposition grounds.

You can view a complete album of all my pictures from Russia here: 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3042884&id=13926685&l=d5d6cb5f8d

While I was gone, Alise went home for a surprise birthday party for her mother. It wasn't a surprise just that Alise was coming home, it was a surprise to her mother that they were even having a "weekend retreat" at a cabin north of their house. We don't have any pictures to show you, but if you're friends with Em on facebook, you can check them out there. Sorry!

With all my traveling away from my lawfully wedded wife, she/we decided it was a good time for a vacation together. We made the trip one of both fun and learning, heading to the literal beginning of the U.S. of A. We made our way to Provincetown, MA, which - in case you didn't realize (we didn't) is the actually initial landing of the Puritans here in the U.S. After a few weeks near present day Provincetown, MA, they made their way across the bay to what is now Plymouth, MA. On the way out on Saturday, we stopped in Buzzards Bay, the Cape Cod Winery

They tried to grow their own grapes, but after a couple hard winters their crop has been down.

en route to Falmouth, Chatham, and slept in Eastham (all in Massachusetts). Little did we know how many lighthouses we would see, and how related they were. After stopping on a beautiful beach in Chatham, we saw a pretty nice lighthouse that was owned and run by the Coast Guard, and didn't think much of it. 

The Chatham Lighthouse

Beautiful beach, but no swimming today. Red flag is up (and its like 50 degrees)!

Once we got to Eastham, we investigated a free tour put on by a historical society. We learned that this was the lighthouse that was modeled in many movies, cameos, and paintings, and most importantly was on the front of the Cape Cod Potato Chip Company bags. It turns out that pre-rotating lights, instead they built multiple light houses so that everyone knew where they were. The Eastham (Cape Cod potato chip - owned by the local historical society) light originally was called the "three sisters", because there were three short lighthouses next to each other. The cliff there erodes quickly, so instead of basically allowing the Coast Guard to dismantle the lighthouse as the land under it eroded, the locals saved it and now maintain it.  Therefore, it is no longer about to fall off the cliff, like it is on the bag of chips itself.

Look familiar?

CapeCodChips.com

I'll just say we weren't the youngest people on the tour. But everyone was younger than the lighthouse.

The Chatham lighthouse (our first stop on the southeast corner of Cape Cod), originally had two lights - one of which is still standing, and the other now stands as the Eastham "potato chip" lighthouse. Finally after we woke up on Sunday we drove north to the Truro lighthouse. Again, here the coast constantly erodes during winter storms and the lighthouse has needed to be moved back twice. Luckily this one will likely be permanently preserved due to the very nice golf course surrounding it.

Good picture auto-timer and fencepost!

Even better picture, Alise!

We continued north to Provincetown (P-Town as the locals call it) to get to the far reach of the coast and explore more of the Cape Cod National Sea Shore. For those of you who don't know (we really didn't until we moved out here), Province town is at the north tip of Cape Cod. It reminded me exactly of Key West, only colder. Near here is where the Pilgrims actually originally landed - but they didn't settle here. In fact, shots were fired on both sides (bullets on one, arrows on the other) at the first encounter, but no one was injured. So while the big boat continued to explore, eventually it found present day Plymouth, MA, and came back to pick up those on the Cape.

So, around 1900, they built a tower so you could see the entire cape and mainland Massachusetts all in one spot. It was a long climb, but unlike other old climbing attractions (Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty) ramps mostly replaced stairs, making it a very bearable up and down.

This is a view looking northeast out of the tower. Provincetown itself is at the south end of a little curl at the tip of Cape Cod. So in the above picture, the road back to mainland starts in the bottle middle of the picture, and then curls up and to the right, behind the camera man, and then mainland Massachusetts (and the rest of the U.S.) is on the left of the picture taker (obviously not shown in the picture).

After descending from the tower, we decided to go check out the harbor and Cape Cod National Seashore; it looks like what you would see in movies; which is why, I guess they put it in movies.

Alise sells seashells by the sea shore.

If you thought it was time to go home, boy were you wrong. Yes, we headed back north, then east (this is the Lower Cape, the part farthest from mainland - lower means "down wind" in this instance because of maritime directions... nothing to do with north or south. Maine residents are called "Downeasters" for this reason), then south (putting us on the Mid-Cape - the "vertical" standing portion) then southeast, then west (putting us Upper Cape - the southmost and closest to the land), until finally we were back across the Cape Cod Canal.

Cape Cod Canal near Buzzards Bay - we actually stopped here on the way out, not in.

Our next history lesson took place at the most famed book in U.S. history books - Plymouth, or Plimouth Plantation as the tourist trap is called. This was a nice little stop that allowed us to learn quite a bit, take a rest, and talk to both present-day Native People (as they liked to be called) and New Englanders stuck in 1617 (actors). Real authentic place, heavy price, but worth the trip, once.

Leyden St, Plymouth, MA - Oldest Street in America

Plymouth Rock - though they added the "1620" in the 1800s

By this time I had been reacquainted with the Eastern time zone. But I had a few days to head west to Reno. A national conference for dairy farmers on both the policy and promotion side allowed me to meet with friends and business associates I have met during the past year, learn the pulse of the industry, and see where we're going from here. It was a celebrity-filled weekend. On my flight from Las Vegas to Reno, I saw someone who was wearing a bunch of clothing for a certain world-famous brothel. After a quick internet search on my phone, yep, it was him. At the meeting itself, Howie Long gave one keynote, while Gloriana the up-and-coming country band performed. And on the way back from Reno to Las Vegas, I saw the Republican U.S. Senate candidate (who may be the Senator by this time tomorrow) on my flight.

Finally, to round out the month we went to Salem, MA, to learn about witches and more early American history. Evidently, none were burned at the stake or drowned with rocks (though that happened in England, the Puritans - the colonies' Lutherans and other protestants - were purposely different than their Europeon counterparts), only hung and one was pressed. Also, there were less than 20, and it was all done in just over a year. Who knew?

Last standing structure that has anything to do with witch trials - the Sherrif's house.

Yes, that's a person.

I'm not sure what that is.

Before we went to Salem though, our tiny town has a pretty intense scarecrow competition. Check it out.

.

There were all sorts of unique designs

But then we had a Halloween of our own to celebrate back at the ranch, in true Big 10 (11? 12?) style:

Pretty good, don't you think (yes, Alise made one with cheese in it, the M is hers too).

Mine was the football, maybe the least difficulty, but also the least toothpicks (zero!).

Happy Halloween!

Love,
Lucas & Alise