O'Wich 2013 - A Year in Review...or at least a summary until the end of September!

For some goofy reason, I thought to NOT blog in 2013. I thought that my entries were boring and always similar to the previous entries. The entries were always about our travels; the construction, the traffic, where we stopped and what we ate. Once we got to O'Wich, the entries were about what we ate, what we did or that we didn't do anything. I rarely used my camera, if I even took it along. What was WRONG with me???!!!

So now, I missed almost an entire year and of course I missed writing in my journal all the memories of the past visits - whether they were boring or not! I went over my calendar and then looked through my phone and I was able to put together a basic outline or shall we say - more of a timeline, of the visits we took and was able to recall some of what we did.
Aside from the recurring, boring stuff, here's a summary of January to September - comes October, the blogging will be back in full force, so look out! You've been warned!

First, I found out we ended 2012 with several trips to O'Wich after the end of October. Sadly, there are no photos, that I can find, and no memory of these visits...so I got nuthin' for the end of that year. Let's begin this journey with our first trip of 2013 which occurred the last weekend of January.

I can only recall visiting Salon 51 and having Connie give me a cut and a color. Wow, tons of fun, right??? It'll get better!













We didn't get back until March, when everything was covered with snow. Even though it was cold, the snow made everything look so calm and pretty. Seriously, it does get better!

     

Next, April rolled around and we decided to purchase a leaf sweeper and a gas powered leaf blower while we were at Menard's. Everything looked, well impressive, once we used our new toys...er, I mean our new tools! Carlo swept six loads of leaves - I would like to point out that we still have t-o-o many trees. We tried the new leaf blower and since it operates by gasoline, our leaf blowing abilities have been endless. For some reason the river was beginning to rise and was slowly and steadily creeping further onto the property. Let me mention that the river is far if on foot but very close if by flood!

 

I was on vacation in May and Karen was with me from the 16th through the 21st. We had such a fun and relaxing time. We had a couple of fires, ate very well, went to a couple of re-sale shops, visited with Betty one day and Carla and her new puppy another. Karen was being a bit camera shy and of course wanted to take pictures, so I took a panoramic AND some self-portraits! Had to note the visit somehow!





                                           

We left on the 21st and I was home for just one night when Carlo and I headed back to O'Wich for his vacation and more of mine. We were there until the 27th. Carlo cut the grass and we dealt with our loud, obnoxious neighbors. Carlo gave me ear protectors to wear OVER my headphones - YES! They were THAT loud! After dealing with the nonsense for many hours, we decided to go for a trip into Baraboo - just to get away from the noise. The next day was nice and quiet since the neighbors left, and we did some target shooting at an undisclosed location and had a lot of fun - concussion and all- sounded and felt more like explosion! Gotta love the multi-use ear protection. We headed home for one night and ended our vacation with a weekend in Kenosha for Val and JT's wedding.
The third weekend of June brought us back to O'Wich. We decided to convert the multi-bed bedroom into a "king suite" - how's that for fancy words?! (Just a bit too much of HGTV!) We went to the Verlo store at 9:00 am only to realize the reason they weren't open was because it was Sunday and their Sunday hours are 11:00 to 5:00. We ran some errands at some stores that were open and got back just as the lights went on. That evening we went to the drive-in and were surprised at how nice the place was - reasonable in cost too!

     

It was clean and they even had grass; unlike the drive-ins around home that are gravel. Our enjoyable, restful evening came to an abrupt, screeching halt when on the way back to O'Wich, at 1:00 am, the road was flooded - or beginning to flood. All I know is that the water was deep. We were happy to have gotten through the water that was filling in the road. Worried about the truck, we contemplated leaving right then, but we were tired and concerned we would not be able to make the drive, so we took a nap...a very short nap, then packed up all the food we bought (we were planning on staying a couple of more days) in our make shift cooler, abandoned our bedroom project and at 5:30 am we E-V-A-C-U-A-T-E-D!

          

As we left there was water in the front yard (that means there was a lot of water) and Carlo had to find a high enough spot on the ground to drive on to keep water away from the engine. To say I was worried would be putting it mildly...I was downright scared! Good-bye O'Wich - stay dry!
The time between our evacuation and our next visit were days filled with watching the NOAA website and wondering if our trip planned for August would even happen...and it did! On August 10, Karen and I left early in the morning and stopped for groceries before getting to O'Wich. We unloaded, unpacked and got lunch ready in time for Carlo's arrival. He came for the weekend while Karen and I stayed a few extra days.

 

We put the bedroom back together - we now have a king bed and a twin bed. It looks pretty nice! During the process of attaching the headboard there were some injuries to report. They were minor and did not need any medical attention, but from the bantering between Carlo and Karen, I was thinking a psyche-eval may have been in order. Carlo hurt his leg on the new bed frame and Karen's arm was injured with a hammer. Depending on whose version you listen to, Karen DID sustain an injury...but they ended up blaming each other! I am pleased to say - I didn't see a thing! Our loud neighbors were back - more obnoxious than ever - starting at the crack of dawn and going until the wee hours of the morning. Their voices were loud, their ATV's were loud, their dog was loud, their music was LOUD! At one point I decided to sing-along since I knew the words and believe it or not, they eventually turned it down. I think they decided to find something else to do...Carlo and Karen think it was MY obnoxious voice that did it. Well then I guess it pays to have ZERO singing ability! We enjoyed many good meals, lots of great conversation and tons of laughter. Karen even found a new enunciation for the word "bottle". This incident cannot even be described but every time I hear the word "bottle" I can't help but laugh. Before Carlo left, I made them...YES made them take pictures on the porch. Talk about a bunch of sour pusses!!!

    

We switched our September trip up a bit and rather than stopping at the Pine Cone and Gander Mountain, we drove through to Tamarack since it was a Saturday and we had a taste for pizza. We enjoyed a very good lunch and then picked up some groceries. We found our road in a shambled state because a neighboring property owner was having his trees 'select cut'. The heavy equipment and the already softened ground made deep ruts and this made for a difficult ride to drive on. We spoke with the roadside lumberjack who said gravel was on its way - we shall see!










We had a pretty busy weekend. We cleaned the maintenance room and went through all the drawers and cabinets, eliminating many unused and unnecessary items where the only thing they were good for was taking up space. We had a lovely visit with Tom and Judy. I cleaned the shower with a new product I found - Iron Out - and although the bottle (ha ha) was only enough to clean the shower walls...it looks damn sparkly! I'll clean the doors when I get more!



We got a load of firewood from Bernie and he and Garry stayed for lunch and a visit for part of the afternoon. On Sunday we went to a truck stop for breakfast and took some Halloween pictures with the decorations they had up. Overall, it was a great weekend!

   

The following weekend we headed back to get everything ready for a new project that we talked to Garry about. So we emptied out the bedroom and got some snacks together for them since we would not be there once the work began.

 

Carlo cleaned out the gutters and we spruced up the outside the best we could in the limited time we had since we were expecting a visit from Betty, Steve and Kathy. While sitting at the fire waiting for them to arrive, Tom and Judy pulled in the drive and after visiting with them for a couple of hours, we realized our original planned guests had stood us up and were a no-show. We wrapped it up for the night and relaxed watching TV for the evening. I think we had ice cream sundaes! Yum!

I snapped up some last minute "before" photos prior to the soon to-be construction and our departure.