Dinner with Nick & Iz

Jenelle here...

Ben's grandparents, Nick and Isabelle, celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary back in July. It took us a while, but we finally took them out to dinner to celebrate. We've only been out to dinner with just the two of them a couple times, but everytime we go we're reminded just how well-loved they are. For example, when Ben and I arrived at the restaurant, Nick & Iz were already seated at the table of their choice and talking and laughing with the restaurant owner. After we ordered our food, the waitress brought out Italian bread and cheesy garlic bread -- compliments of the house.

Grandma Iz ordered one of the specials -- breaded cod -- and Grandpa Nick snuck a few bites. He told our waitress how great the cod was, and with wink and a smile she asked him if he wanted a couple more pieces. His mouth was saying no, but his head was nodding an emphatic yes. A few minutes later, the waitress came out with a heaping plate of breaded cod -- free of charge.

After we had eaten and eaten and eaten tons of food, the waitress brought us our check, but asked us not to leave... dessert was still on the way. Four bowls of spumoni ice cream.. again, compliments of the house.

Maybe it's just their friendly demeanor, but Nick and Iz sure know how to get the best service at any restaurant!

Wishin'

Here's a photo from the Walk for Wishes that Jenelle and I attended on Saturday morning. We had lots of fun, and we helped support the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin.

I thought it was an appropriate time to update my wish list, so I did that. Enjoy!

Walkin' Season Already?

Last Saturday: Happy Birthday, Gina!

Last September and October, I participated in four fundraising walks. This year, the number might actually increase. The fun begins this Saturday at the Milwaukee Walk for Wishes to benefit the Make-A-Wish foundation. Jenelle and I will both be participating. We're not going to do a lot of bugging people about donations, but let us know if you'd like to make a contribution.

A big thank you to Uncle Nick, who is giving us lots of guidebooks and tips for our trip to Walt Disney World next month. I last visited in 2000; Jenelle has never been there. It's going to be great fun.

31 + 3

I'm one day late on these:
Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!
Happy Anniversary, Andrew & Holly!

I added one April event to the history site, which will continue to get PR in this weblog. Can you guess on what day the event occurs? Hint: The day has a 2 and a 6 in it. :)

In other news, I'm continuing to play guitar on Wednesday nights at church. I'm reaching the point where I'm trying to play a lot of the songs without even looking at the chord sheet in front of me. For some reason, I get nervous when I do that. Perhaps I should just not even have the sheet in front of me and see how well I do. I've been playing a lot of the songs for at least a year, so they should be pretty well-established in my brain.

Anyway, if you ever want to see me play, the service is at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 2219 Washington Avenue, Racine, on Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. I guarantee good seats. :)

Thirsting for more?

I had the craziest dream last night. I was extremely thirsty. I recall being at many different locations drinking every available flavor of Gatorade. To my surprise, nothing would quench my thirst! On some Monday mornings, it's very difficult to get out of bed without hitting the snooze button on the alarm a few times. Today, it was not a problem. I walked directly to the kitchen and drank a huge glass of water. :)

Time to make another plug for the history site, which mentions that pictures can be added to any event. Those of you would like a living example of this, be sure to check out the site this coming Wednesday. Or, if you're very eager to check this out, just do an event query for August 18.

By the way -- for the entire month of April, there's no events in the database. Gasp. Can anyone think of some historical Isaacson family moments that occurred in April? Anyone?

Photo Time

This oughta keep everyone busy for a while:

Oregon Trip - General Photos

Oregon Trip - Amanda and Dave's Wedding

Oregon Trip - Street of Dreams

Okay, back to the olympics. :)

Celebrations All Around

Congratulations to Eric, Gina, and Hunter on the new addition to their family. Tanner was born on August 8.

Jenelle and I have returned from Oregon. Amanda and Dave's wedding was wonderful. Jenelle was the most beautiful flower girl I've ever seen. :)

I took 140 photos throughout the course of the trip. After I figure out the best way to organize them, you'll see the best of those 140 photos online!

We're looking forward to a fairly calm weekend ahead. We'll be catching up on correspondence, cleaning the condo, and doing plenty of other "recently got back from out of town" type tasks. I'll also be planning for the upcoming "Walk Season". I participated in four fundraising walks last year -- we'll see how many I attend in the coming months.

Ready for the Big Day

Yesterday: Happy Birthday, Eric!
Eric and his wife, Gina, are expecting their second child any day now. Prayers for a smooth delivery are in order.

Things continue to be exciting here in Oregon. The rehearsal was at 10 a.m. yesterday morning, and a meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory followed. The wedding is at the Willamette Valley Vineyards near Salem. The vineyard is on a hill (like I'm guessing most are), so there's a great view, which I have already captured on digital film. It's a beautiful place to get married -- and that explains why there were two other weddings going on yesterday after the rehearsal.

The dinner (or would you call it lunch?) was also very nice. Family and friends shared stories about Amanda and Dave -- everything from when they met to when Dave proposed. The parents had plenty to tell about their childhood years, which was really cute. After the meal, we gathered around them and prayed for their future together. This was something I had never experienced at a rehearsal dinner before, but I think it really prepared us for the joy and excitement that today's wedding will bring.

More fun stories from our trip when I have the chance to write about 'em.

I'm So Exciting

Our travels to Oregon yesterday were fairly smooth. The only trouble we had is that our luggage did not get successfully transferred from the MKE-ORD plane to the ORD-PDX plane in time, so our bags were delivered to us this morning. No big deal at all.

Speaking of the luggage, here's an interesting tale from the MKE airport. After we checked in, we put our three bags in the spot where the agent could properly tag them. The agent completed his task and handed the boarding passes to Jenelle. Clearly excited by the fact that we were on our way to Oregon, Jenelle grabbed the passes and began the walk toward the gate. What she forgot is the agent mentioning that we had to take our three pieces of checked luggage (weighing a total of about 60 pounds) to the big x-ray scanners about 20-30 yards from the ticket counter.

Standing by the three bags, watching Jenelle leave me behind, and laughing inside at her oversight, I said, "Oh, I guess I'm supposed to carry these." I slung my carry-on backpack over my shoulders, hoisted the dufflebag-style luggage over my left shoulder, and grabbed the handles of the remaining two suitcasess, one with each hand.

As I began my trek to the scanners, Jenelle quickly realized her mistake. She looked back at me with the cutest "oops" smile I've ever seen. "You need any help with those?" she asked with a chuckle. "Nah, I got 'em," was my reply, also with a chuckle. We were soon on our way to the gate.

If more interesting things happen to us while we're out here, I'll be sure to post them. Have a great weekend, all!

366 and counting...

Happy Birthday, Ella!

I just fixed a bug in the History Site that was preventing any events with a day less than 10 from showing up on the main page. If you did an event lookup on such a day, the events would show up fine. The entry for Ella's birthday is now appearing as it should. A big thank you to all of the people who e-mailed me about the problem.

Also, congratulations to Holly for entering event number FIFTY into the database. Exciting!

Catching up

Two short photo albums:
Rachel's Third Birthday
Roma Lodge Italian Festival

From Friday: Happy Birthday, Adam W.!

As usual, I've been pretty lazy in updating the webjournal. Oops. This weekend was another fun one. Jenelle and I saw Anchorman on Friday. We comprised 25% of the entire viewing audience. We went to dinner at Gibson's Charhouse on Douglas, which was a Big Boy the last time I was there -- the food was suprisingly good.

Saturday was a relaxing day -- we didn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff, but we did run a bunch of errands and clean up the condo a bit. Of course, you wouldn't know that by looking at the place now. :)

On Sunday, we went to Lodi to see Gail, Mike, Laura, and several other members of the Isaacson family. We celebrated the third anniversary of Ryan's departure for heaven. We are all thankful for the ways he blessed us, but it's hard not to think about what life would be like if he was still here today. In any case, I truly enjoy trips to Lodi. It's always nice to visit with family -- and while Minocqua has transformed into a tourist trap, Lodi remains a quaint small town.

I didn't have to "work" on Monday, because my team had a group outing to Great America. I managed to ride all of the roller coasters I planned on riding. The only one that had a wait more than 20 minutes was Superman. It took over an hour, but I think it was worth it.

More fun is ahead in the coming weeks. I'll try and keep you loyal webreaders a little better informed.