Stuff Lots of Stuff

 Weather, weather, weather. Global averages and weather similar to 1885... or thereabouts. Contrary to popular claims that we've never seen weather like we had this winter ever before. Well, probably not many of us were around in the later 1800's...

 In real life (vs picture life) this actually looked like shiny frosting.

 Just plain pretty.

He's not heavy, he's my brother

Our friend Beorn came to visit

Cows... and a pig... out...(near our dead car lot - no one liked the idea of us opening up a car lot for parts. What?)

We went out to see a musical. Since I have high-parking-large-vehicles-in-Madison anxiety we arrived hours early (no kidding). We lucked out as we got a spot right away and right across from a Perpetual Adoration chapel so we paid a visit to Our Lord.

6 of us were on the trek

Checking out the Captiol, unfortunately it was closed by this point so we weren't able to go inside.

We tried to get into a restaurant called Nick's but they just shook their heads since we had no reservation. So we wandered around in the bitter cold (sub-zero) for a while and then landed ourselves at a Gyro restaurant "Opa!" They had some really comical artwork.

YUM! So good! Thumbs up!

We still had quite a while to wait but it was too cold to wander around and the stores here are outrageous.

In case you didn't know how to get in and out of the various sections of the Overture Center, this is a clue.

The King and I - woohoo!!!

Waiting, waiting, waiting. 

We had some really far-out seats. I mean waaay far out. But it was a FABULOUS show! The singing was amazing, costumes, everything, truly wonderful!

The next day we had a High Mass for Quinquagesima Sunday.

Games. This card game Squeek is way to fast for slow people like me, but it is still fun. It is like a very large solitaire game.... just not very solitary.

A couple days later we went to see some of my nieces/nephews in a family-friendly version of "Into the Woods" They did a great job!

Cutest little cow in the whole wide world!

Since this was also Fat Tuesday and we still had some Culver's gift card money left from a Christmas Gift (Thanks Bridey!) we stopped a the "World's Largest Culver's" Wow. World's largest.

We went to the Wisconsin Aviation for a great class/tour.

I love witty things, clever, creative.

The only class in which you can actually make paper airplanes and fly them in the classroom without getting into trouble.

Heading out to scope out the inside of a tiny aircraft

I remember many times flying as a child and getting to go take a look-see inside the cockpit. Seriously, that used to be allowed. Now there are so many unfortunate dolts such things aren't allowed.

 Enjoying Voles that live around the place. So cute! Like tiny chinchillas

 Afterwards we stopped at Planned Parenthood to pray a Rosary.

 Across the street is the lovely Women's Care Center.

 Then *breathe-breathe-breathe* we went to Pizza Hut . Some of the kids had bookit coupons.

 And that same day *not-hyperventilating* 10 of us belt tested.

 Kili

 Marigold is taking a big leap going from yellow to Camo and getting her sparring gear!!

 Fitness test

AWESOME!!!

 The other 8 of use were next. Starting with bowing in, and some conditioning.

 Intermediate and advanced color belts do forms, weapons (nun-chucks), sparring, and fit test

 Brown and Red belts have to break boards so 6 had to break boards in order to pass their belt test.

 Permission to break boards!

 Merry broke brown boards at 14 (that's the 18 year old board)

 I was delighted to beat my last fit test score of 243 by 40 reps achieving 283 reps. Not bad for an aging lady haha!

 Frodo took a midterm so that he can second degree black belt test before worlds. Unfortunately he was wounded when we went to nationals.... (see next post...)

Just the same, he did well considering he was a gimp!