out of hibernation

if you were working this past monday the 19th, i have only one word for you ....

Sucka!

monday was drop-dead gorgeous. that morning, jon's youngest sister, joanna, (who was in town for her spring break) went out to breakfast with me at the sunroom cafe, where we chowed down on breakfast burritos and spinach & feta omelettes before strolling up and down our vibrant little state street. we eventually made our way over to jon's place on the west side to pick him up and return back to central madison for a leisurely, long walk in the arborteum.

it was so gorgeous out that we made time to lay down in the grass and absorb the rays on our pasty white legs and arms. it was the kind of day that makes you love living in wisconsin, where you appreciate the seasons, and get to feel what it's like to actually fall in love with a day.

at about 3, i dropped joanna off at jon's other sister's apartment on campus, stopped at home to grab my hiking boots and a warmer jacket, and raced over to jon's house.

there's no time to waste when you're heading to devil's lake.

man, i love devil's lake. i love warm days and hiking and lakes and conversation while walking. and our "date afternoon" was all of that. so after driving 40 minutes to get out there and buying a wisconsin state park season pass, we were ready for a solid afternoon of outdoor activity.

there were a handful of other hikers at devil's lake (yet another reason i love having mondays off), so we rarely had to stop to let someone pass or move too quickly from a scenic overlook if other hikers approached. the lake made things cool at the bottom of the hill, where patches of snow remained in stubborn obstinence to the early spring heat. but up top, even my long sleeved tee was much too warm of an option. and that's pretty sweet considering it's still march and all (of course, we've recently seen al gore's "an inconvenient truth" so it feels wrong to enjoy the early spring too much now).

after our hike, we drove to prairie du sac for dinner at the blue spoon creamery cafe. as the site says, the blue spoon was named after the traditional blue spoons used at culver's and is a concept developed by the co-founders of, duh, culver's restaurants.

it's a nice little spot in the main drag of town, seated on the wisconsin river - kind of like an upscale culver's. jon had been there before, and says "as a one-hit wonder, i like it." so when the waitress told us they were planning on franchising out to middleton, we questioned how successful they'd really be.

i mean, i liked the lighting upstairs, but i enjoyed the view of the river WAY more. they've got a great outdoor seating area there which is going to be impossible to duplicate out in middleton. and the food was nothing to write home about, but was decent and a tad more adventurous than culver's. my tuscan grilled cheese was a little lacking (and was quickly cold) earning it a C+, but jon's bbq sandwich special deserved a solid B. still, the tiramisu gelato at the end made up for my sad sandwich and i left feeling quite rewarded for my day's hike ...

i'm very curious as to how they'll really do in middleton, so keep your eyes peeled for it and let us know what you think when you hit it up.

an easy stroll down memory lane

my apologies for the tardiness of this blog. so let's just get to it.

february has been crazy for us. we figured out that between the two of us, we had a total of 3 unplanned evenings in a total of 28 days. the middle of the month found us in the twin cities at my best friend's wedding. from friday to sunday, we enjoyed a near-hourly booking of our time. so you can imagine how we felt sunday night when we arrived home to another packed evening of events yet again.

i had to work on monday, which i did with little enthusiasm (traveling to stand up in a wedding should never count as vacation-time. there's very little that screams "relaxation" in that). so monday night, when jon invited me over for stir-fry, i couldn't have been happier.

we don't do meals at home very regularly because 1) we both have roommates who are often at home, leaving us with little privacy and 2) we feel an obligation to get out and try something new for the sake of exploring date night options in our fine city. but tonight, it was exactly what we needed.

afterwards, jon drove us out to campus. first stop? memorial union. and this is how jon knows me so well. i went to russia last year and was able to bring back a few pieces of old russian propaganda. they hang on my bedroom wall, reminding me of my love for that country, their fascinating history, and my desire to go back again.

so what else did my wonderful fiance find than memorial union's exhibition of soviet propaganda posters? incredible. the website notes, "This exhibition presents a glimpse of propaganda art created in the Soviet Union to express and disseminate Communist ideology. The images, which date from 1917-1977, include work by leading artists, such as Dmitrii Moor, Irakhlii Toizde, and Viktor Ivanov, who used visually stimulating techniques in order to convey the goals of the Soviet regime to the masses." the gallery exhibition ends march 6th, so i highly recommend you get down there.

after walking through nearly every nook and crany of memorial union, our night continued as a stroll down memory lane. i know this can't be for everyone, but for uw grads like us, spending an evening walking by our old dorms and apartments, sharing stories of being chased down the sidewalk outside the physics building by a friend's car small enough to maneuver that pedestrian path, illustrating moments of roommates who got nauseus and puked on lakeshore path on their way up to van hise for spanish class, and marveling that boys are actually LIVING in liz waters, made for a great evening. the weather was warm enough to stroll from memorial union down observatory, back behind ag hall and down university.

and any college student knows that if there's one constant along all of those drives it's going to be the pizza delivery guy ... and if seeing that guy everywhere doesn't fuel your hunger for papa john's breadsticks with garlic and cheese sauce, i don't know what will ...

and i still can't believe we finished off ALL those breadsticks between the two of us.

YUM.