12.12.09

This was taken at the fabulous holiday party that Nancy had (and that I helped make the invitations for way back when). It was so fun! Look at El in her sequined dress! Lookin pretty fab if I do say so myself. Nancy and Tyler put on a good party as well. They whipped up together some delicious apps and drinks and I gladly helped myself to a few champagne cocktails, thankyouverymuch. Yummm! The company wasn't too shabby either. It was so great having everyone (for the most part) in the same place at the same time. It seems that that doesn't happen very often...and taking into consideration the impromptu Charlie Brown Theme dance off at the end of the night, I think everyone had a fine time!

This is going to be the "Annual Fabulous Holiday Party", right Nanc? ;-)

11.14.09

This chica is celebrating the big 3-0 in a couple weeks, so in celebration her husband, Mike, threw her a surprise birthday/Badger tailgate celebration. A fine way to ring in one's 30s if I do say so myself. We had so much fun! Sometimes I really do love this town.

I am breaking the rules for only the second time this year and include 2 pictures for this day...because on our way downtown, we stopped to get gas and witnessed a truck blow up! We saw the small fire starting up under the truck, then watched it go up in flames, then the gas tank blew up and the ground literally shook. Before it was completely in flames there was a guy up in that crane and jumped out of it to escape the flames. It was a really intense 5 minutes until the firefighters showed up and made it all better.

11.2.09

11.1.09

These are our pals, Mike and Michelle. They are all over the internet - you can find them here and here. They asked if I would meet them downtown to take some quick pics for them...and I mean quick...we all had a Packer Game to watch soon after I met up with them. I liked this fun outtake.

(The Packer game was so upsetting. I decided my love/hate for Brett Favre is very similar to my love/hate for Britney Spears. Yes. Hear me out. Sometimes Britney does things and I am all like, "what is wrong with you, Britney? And what are you wearing??", but then she busts out with something amazing like Womanizer and I cannot help but love her and remember all the great years of entertainment she has provided for me. And then there is freaking Brett Favre. Again, I am all like, "Brett, what is wrong with you? You are breaking my heart!", but then I see him interviewed or watch him play and I can't help but kind of like him a lot.)

10.31.09

I headed downtown right before game time on Saturday in hopes of getting a great pic showing how many people come out for the Badger games and all the red you would see if you were around Regent Street on a game day.

So here's the thing. I got some pics. I took some looking down Regent where there are people walking toward the games for blocks...I got some of the crowds of people waiting to get into Camp Randall...and I got a few looking down a block of tailgaters. None of them did anything for me though except the one above...which does not show the scope of Badger Saturdays at all. I need to work on backing up off the subject and showing some context. How fun is this little dunebuggy though?? I love Badger Saturdays...

10.30.09

Check out these beautious pumpkins that are in the window display at Bop! I'm obsessed. I think I may go out tomorrow and buy the necessary materials to replicate that blingy one.

10.21.09

This is Shari. She turned 29, so we went to The Icon, which is apparently our cold weather bar of choice. It was just so great to get together with just the girls and talk and laugh. It is rare that all of our schedules allow us to be at the same place at the same time, but on Wednesday it happened. So yeah, that was all well and good, but let's get back to the real issue here. She turned 29!! You know what this means? 29 is right around the corner for me too. Make it stop!

10.11.09

The Memorial Union Terrace chairs.

At least I think that is the technical name? The locals simply call it "the Terrace". These sunburst chairs are famous and photographed often. I see them in engagement and wedding photos all the time...and actually there was a couple taking engagement pictures while I was there today!

On a nice day, the terrace is packed with people studying, drinking beer, sailing, sunbathing, etc. etc. It's awesome. A must stop on a visit to Madison.

In other Sunday/weekend news:

• We managed to make it through half of the 3rd season of Dexter. Dang, that show is so good! Michael C. Hall is so great and might officially be my favorite actor.
  
• Jon's friend Ben finished the Chicago marathon in 4 hours and 2 mins (unofficially). I really wish we could have been there to cheer him on! Great job, Ben!
• I spent my day grocery shopping, cleaning, swapping out summer for winter clothes and cooking. I am seriously so exhausted from all the activity. This is concerning. Won't I be even more busy than this when I have kids? Will I just be always tired? Probably.
  
• Jon made homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and bread from scratch. The cookies are amazing - why don't people put chocolate chips in peanut butter cookies more often? It's kind of a no brainer...and I am here to tell you they are delicious. The bread didn't really turn out though - he is doing research as to why it didn't turn out. (I love it)
  

10.3.09

I realized last week that this city o' mine and its recognizable landmarks have not made their way in this little project. So I am making it my mission to get out on the weekends (because of the lack of light after work!) and take pics of those things we Madisonians love so much about our city. This may be difficult, seeing as though weekends at home have been few and far between as of late, but I'll try my best. I have a few of the obvious ones in mind already, but I welcome any suggestions!!

I decided that this flower display (display?) would be first to be photographed since I am sure the flowers won't be around much longer. It might not seem that interesting or unique, but I always like seeing it when I am driving downtown.

9.13.09

IRONMAN!!

Everyone must see an Ironman at some point in their lives - even though I think these people are a wee bit crazy - I still think it is AMAZING and AWESOME that they train for this impossible event and succeed. This was my first year going down for the swim and it was freaking ridiculous. What you are looking at is probably over 1000 swimmers in Lake Monona. The sight and sound of this is something that cannot be conveyed in a picture. You must see this in person.

So, my friend Heath was doing his second Ironman this year and I was determined to see him at some point during the day. I parked myself within eye shot of his bike at the transition. I had my telephoto lens all set to go and I had an eagle eye on that bike rack, but I swear I saw everyone take their bikes from his rack, but him. Argggh! It was a bummer. We went home to take a nap (I left it to the Ironmen and women to do the exercising that day) and I went back out around 4:30 when I knew he would be around State Street for the run. I missed him on the first loop, but managed to catch him about 5 blocks from the finish. I walked with him for about a block to chat and tell him how awesome he did and then he ran into the finish. Btw, he really did do awesome. He finished an hour earlier than he did last year. AN HOUR! That is completely crazy bananas to me and I am completely in awe of him and all the other athletes that finish an Ironman.

9.5.09

Last year, Jon and I went to the Taste of Madison and happened upon a band that was so amazingly awesome and unlike anything we had ever seen before. A year later, we learned that they would be returning to the Taste and well, to say the least, we were pumped. Like majorly pumped. There were moments we worried that maybe we had been hyping them up too much and we would be let down...and our friends would wonder what we were thinking when they saw them themselves.

Thankfully, there was nothing to be worried about.

They. Were. Awesome.

They are called Too White Crew and they are an old school rap/hip hop cover band. Yes, old school rap, as in Run DMC, Snoop, Salt N Pepa, Biz Markie, Warren G. Ya know, the good stuff. They dress the part, they have dancers (the girls in the green pants), they play all the music live and they are funny! They are seriously great entertainers. If they are ever in your area, you MUST go see them.

5.24.09

I got up at the crack o' dawn this morning to go cheer on Emily and Tom at the Madison Half Marathon. Surprisingly, I was up and at 'em right away at 5:45 when the alarm went off. This is noteworthy people. I do not do mornings.

Back to the race.

I met the J family at the Alliant Energy Center after grossly underestimating how much traffic there would be. There were cars backed up on the beltline for at least a mile. Yikes. I got there about 20 minutes before the race started, but I'm sure there were a lot of late runners!

We found a spot at the start to see them off. Then we headed out to catch them again around the 6 mile mark (where this pic was taken). They were looking so good! Then we made our way back to the finish. Much to my dismay, they did not cross the finish holding each other's hands. I love that! Instead, at the last second Tom took off and left Emily in his dust. Such a nice brother he is ;) Emily still put her hands up in celebration as she finished just a few steps behind. They finished in 2:03. Great job, guys!!

Here's a question though - whats the deal with the dudes starting the race with no shirt? Do they just know they are going to end up taking it off, so they just skip a step? We thought it was a little weird. Especially because it wasn't a sweltering hot day today...

5.11.09

My downtown dwelling friends gave me the word a couple weeks ago that the tulips had bloomed at the capitol and that I needed to get down there to take some pics, stat!

But ya know, sometimes a girl has Britney Spears concerts and garage sales to tend to, so I didn't have time to get down there until tonight after work.

They were a tad past their prime, but still quite beautiful.

4.14.09

Look who is making another appearance as a good little model!

Tom and I grabbed some dinner on Tuesday (at Five Guys if you must know), and then I made him model in front of The Red Shed. As I was going through the shots, I realized most were almost identical to this one. Red wall and everything! So I opted to change things up and go for a close up.

3.12.09

I have a confession. We've been married for 7 months and I just changed my name today. I have felt like such an imposter! I just never took time off work or made the time to go on the wild goose chase that is necessary to make the change. No worries, now I am officially KC. Just like that, I was no longer KG. It was kind of weird and bittersweet actually.

Oh, and my goose chase brought me downtown, so I took a pic of the capitol.

1.24.09

*nancy is 27*

I had one of the most pleasant evenings I have had in a long time celebrating Nancy's bday on Saturday night.

And I had 2 delicious martinis to boot.

Not bad.