This last fall after we went to visit my cutest Grandma Katie, I was determined to not let 18 months go by between my visits to Wisconsin.  Since Madison isn't the easiest place to get to -- I have to take advantage of holiday weekends.  Thus, this last weekend we exhausted ourselves with a quick trip to Lodi, Wisconsin for some quality time with Gram.  We had a great trip.  Our last one was pretty rocky (some days Gram does really well, other days not-so-much) but this last weekend was fantastic.  Gram knocked our socks off!

Gram surprised us with time at the piano (she used to be the most amazing pianist), story telling and belting out (in her 90 year old voice) some of her old high school cheers - hand motions and all.  That was too cute.  We got it on video - but posting that will have to come another day when our office is back in business.  We dyed Easter eggs together and played plenty of cards.  Gram can still win at Steal the Pile and still knows how to cheat!  :)  My favorite line though was when she owed Lee a card or two while playing "Go Fish" and I was helping her pull them from her hand -- I said "Gram, Lee is stealing all our cards!" and her response was "Well, you're the one taking them out of my hand!".  I loved to see she's still got some wit and feistiness in her!

Although our days were spent at the Good Samaritan center with Gram, our evenings were spent with family.  After two prior visits to WI, I was determined to get Lee outside of Lodi and into Madison.  My Grandpa Champ was quite the brilliant Soils Physicist and is honored on campus in the soils building.  This trip I made sure Lee got to see it.  Fortunately for us, the grad students in the building responded to my pounding on the door and let us in. :)   We also spent a lovely evening with Chris and Katie -- it started with a walk around the Square, followed by fried cheese curds (DELISH) and a Friday night fish fry.  Yum!  Then we all got killed by Katie at "Blockus".

My aunt and uncle act as a pretty fabulous B&B.  Breakfasts of cheese and toast are the staple and who needs more when you've got aged Wisconsin cheddar? We also were spoiled by my Aunt Lynda's exceptional cooking skills with a delicious Easter brunch. We brought my Grandma over from Good Sam and they invited a couple of other friends to join us.  And the ultimate small world story is that someone my uncle works with knows Lee's brother.   CRAZY!

We had an exceptional visit to Wisconsin and were very grateful for the time we got to spend with my Gram.  She's incredibly important to me and I'm so happy this visit turned out so well.  It was definitely worth the trip! More pictures are at our photo gallery for those interested family members.

As you may have guessed -- progress on the house pretty much stopped the week of our trip to Wisconsin.  Hopefully we'll make headway on finishing up our living room this week!