Sheri and I took a week off together last month, and I started to write about what we did, but I never finished. Below is where I left off. I left in the notes to myself. They are reminders about what I was going to write about. If you have any questions just let me know.

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I started writing this on November 15, 2002

Jennifer (reported to me at Bank One) is pregnant! Yay! She is due on June 12, 2003. Congratulations Tom and Jen!

Sheri and I have taken this entire week off of work together. Here is what we have done so far:

Friday 11/8/02
Don't remember

Saturday 11/9/02
Sheri did a lot of house work and I watched the OSU game. I can't remember too much else.

Sunday 11/10/02
I pruned the maple tree directly behind our family room, and took apart the dryer vent to clean out lint. I used our leaf blower to do a final blow out of the exhaust line.

That evening we rented Windtalkers

Monday 11/11/02 - Veteran's Day

Tuesday 11/12/02
When we first started discussing this vacation week a month or two ago, the original plan was a driving trip through Wisconsin. We were going to tour a bison ranch; tour the Harley Davidson factory; tour the Kohler faucet factory; tour a number of cheese factories; go to the Milwaukee zoo; go to a Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum; the Jelly Belly jelly bean center (what ever that was); the Miller brewery; and the J.C. Johnson Wax building in Racine (the very famous and cool office building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright).

Fortunately Sheri called all of these places last week just to confirm that they were open. Most of them were not! The J.C. Johnson Wax building is only open on Friday afternoons, and only by appointment. The appointment list fills up several months in advance. The bison ranch wasn't really open. It is slaughter season, but they said we could come by and maybe see some bison if they were out. Harley Davidson only has tours in the summer. Same with Kohler faucet. Poop!

So we just decided to make Wisconsin a day trip. On Tuesday we drove north and stopped at Ikea first a bought a new coffee table. I have sanded the top of the table to take of the light coat of stain that is on it, and have already applied a first coat of polyurethane. This way we won't have to worry about coasters.

At Ikea we had $0.65 hot dogs, $0.85 cinnamon rolls, coffee, and Diet Coke for breakfast.

We then headed north on I-90 to Monroe, Wisconsin. Once we got to Beloit, WI the drive was really pretty. Two lane highway; rolling hills; turkeys in the road; huge tracts of land to grow feed for the cows to make cheese.

It was about a two hour drive to Monroe. We had little trouble finding the cheese "factory" at first. I expected signs that said "This way to the cheese!" or something like that. Nope. Almost hidden. The only description that Monroe has on the Wisconsin chamber of commerce site is "Historic cheese producing region". I would have expected a little more fanfare.

Anyway, we entered the building which took us directly into the retail store. Every cheese that they make was available for tasting. Yum! Then we walked through a door in the back to the observation gallery. It was a small operation. Very interesting. In a big brine vat there were hundreds of cheese cylinders floating on end as a guy took big handfuls of salt and tossed it across the tops of the cheeses to cover them. On the other side were too guys working a big tub (5 feet wide by 25 feet long by 3 feet deep) of fresh milk, salt, and culture (cheese bacteria). One guy walked back and forth with a big contraption that was spraying the milk mixture into the tub. I think the source of the milk was the tub, so I think this was just to mix everything up. The other guy was elbow deep into the mixture. I think he was smoothing out the plastic cheese cloth that appeared to be lining the whole tub. Very cool.

We went back to the store and bought $18 of different kinds of cheese.

I guess Monroe has a lot of Swiss immigrants because there were a lot of references to Switzerland that we saw in the city. There were a few Swiss-named restaurants, and we went to one. I had wiener schnitzel and Sheri had chicken cordon bleu. Was pretty good.

Wednesday 11/13/02
Went to the Hollywood Casino in Aurora. Had lunch/dinner at their buffet, and then played the slot machines for about 30 - 45 minutes. Didn't win anything.

Bought a 500,000 candle power spotlight for the car at Harbor Freight for $5.00! Plugs into cigarette lighter.

Today I made a 4 pound batch of soap. It was 50% palm oil from a Liberian friend at work (she gets half the batch); 25% coconut oil (for lather); and 25% olive oil.

Palm oil is a deep dark orange-red color. The final color of the soap is kind of like pumpkin pie.

I scented it with 4 essential oils: tea tree oil; lavender; cypress; and patchouli.

For an exfoliant I was going to add ground oat meal. To clean out the coffee grinder to grind the oat meal, I thought that grinding some raw rice would do a good job of scrubbing any extra coffee grounds from the blades and side of the hopper. It did, but I liked the way the ground rice looked, so I used that as an exfoliant instead.

Thursday 11/14/02
Took the train into downtown Chicago.

Big breakfast at Lou Mitchells. It is an old famous diner. All the women get a box of Milk Dud's when they enter. Everyone gets a complementary donut hole at the front door. You have to go their for breakfast or lunch when you visit.
Water Tower Place Mall

Went to a Jenny Jones Show taping

Harray Caray's for a steak dinner; Sheri had filet, I had porterhouse; split sides of spinach sautéed in olive oil and garlic, and a side of sautéed mushrooms; $100 tab with tip

Took cab to Union Station to catch the 6:50 PM express train.
Took train back home
Rented Harry Potter
Stayed up till 2:00 AM

Friday 11/15/02
Watched Harry Potter
A few errands