thursday 12.31.09

new years eve! playing a drinking game with shannon, fred, and todd. getting ready to head on over to steph & carson’s with nick, brendon, jay to meet erin (fisk!!) and stacy (sorry for inviting all my friends to your party, s&c). then heading off to the barrymore to see shoeless perform, and meet up with my emmy!! in town from nyc!! what a way to ring in 2010.


-bkh

wednesday 12.23.09

i’m home! with my girls! my MG7 (well, MG6 since we are sans sarah this evening). eating a delicious dinner made by ann at her and michelle’s place. shallon telling her ‘best thing of 2009’. we all shared, in turn, our happiest memories of 2009. and this moment was definitely high on the list for me. the pre-christmas eve snow storm cut out evening a bit short, but we certainly packed all our happiness in the brief time together!


-bkh

tuesday 12.22.09

with becky! and lina! in the dells having dinner at the moosejaw of something like that with them and their friend rasa and her two cute-a-roo twin babies. pit stop on my drive back to minneapolis for the holiday weekend. my lovely notebook/journal and herbs seeds gift from the ladies. catching-up in person the first time since my departure from london in august. how lucky am i to have such good friends around these holiday seasons.


-bkh

monday 12.21.09

at the claddagh – with jen! jen middleton back in madison (middleton)! having a drink and appetizers with my dear friend. exchanging christmas gifts (good thing i wrapped hers) and looking at my euro trip pictures. what a good friend to look at picture after picture of my month of fun. we’re only on london right now, so we have a waaaays to go, ms. middleton! lucky for him, ryan monte left before getting stuck in my euro-picture trap.


-bkh

saturday 12.19.09

jackie’s in town! sitting right next to me at sushi happy hour. out with schrvyer and shaina. pre-drinking games and ‘houses in motion show’ at the high noon. clearly starting the night out with a volcano (ryan’s favorite) drink at ginza. thankfully they didn’t try (key word being try) to refuse him service this time.


-bkh

thursday 12.18.09

‘santaland diaries’! at the bartell theater. going to watch the david Sedaris play about a disgruntled mall elf. out with liz, harvey, steph, carson, schryver, kara. little did we know how ‘lucky’ we would be front row with the surly cast members! luckily we were fresh off of happy hour with some additional folks, including perket (!!!!) in town with his landlady from london.


-bkh

sunday 12.13.09

bela fleck holiday show! watching some of the best musicians in the world play some holiday and some non-holiday tunes at the orpheum with brendon, ryan, and shaina. this isn’t what the show looked like. but it’d be a bit rude to take a picture, now wouldn’t it? (and they don’t allow flash cameras.) show good, i bought my dad a cd. brendon and i got dinner pre-show at the afghan restaurant on state street. turns out i like afghan food – who woulda known?


-bkh

monday 12.09.09

snow day, snow day! happy snow day!! madison, wi received a gift of 19 inches of snow tuesday night/wednesday morning. the city (and state) shut down. my office and coffee shop were closed. so, no work for this gal, or ryan, or fred, or shannon. so what did we do? we shoveled. and drank. nothing quite like hot apple bourbon cider and peppermint schnapps hot chocolate on a snow day. headed on over to the willy/atwood area to kara’s and play some circle of death with kara stacy and cody later in the eve. good day. thanks mother nature! snow days should be mandatory.


-bkh

thursday 11.26.09

happy thanksgiving! celebrated the holiday with deniz and her family. her boyfriend ray, and his daughter allison. had a, of course, delicious meal. accented by vino and good company. i was content spending the thanksgiving at my place with a glass of wine and movie, but i was more than grateful to have such a wonderful home welcome me into their celebration.


-bkh

saturday 11.21.09

getting ready to go over to kara pennoyer’s. kara pennoyer! the newest madison friend. moved up from chicago and threw a moving party, which was actually just a clever name for a ‘drinking boxed wine out of a can’ party. grabbed some beers, just in case. the crew of kara, henzie, stacy, liz, ryan, fred, nick, jake, wilkie, shaina, katy had been moving & drinking since 3. so clearly i had little confidence there would be drinks left.


-bkh

friday 11.20.09

barriques downtown. wine tasting night! reading up on local activities in the isthmus. waiting for steph birr to come join me so we can get this cali wine train moving. enjoyed a few hours of good wine and excellent conversation before walking (it was a generous tasting this day...) over to the high noon for the haley bonar show.


-bkh

wednesday 11.18.09

cait! cait! cait and the girls playing at high noon! cait is the manager of the middleton barriques, and an exceptionally talented musician. taking in her happy hour show with tristan - my former fellow la crosse erbs & gerbs sandwich maker - and the old sauk barriques staff (+ kourt).


-bkh

saturday 11.14.09

spanish wine tasting at monroe street barriques with jess & andy. shannon, leah, and liz too. barriques old saukers night on the town. andy getting the nose feel or whatever, trying to find the pencil lead and gooseberries in his wine. enjoyed the eight (plus one times two) wines before heading to meet tracy, travis, cait & others at the frequency for some tunes that sounded like death metal and yoko ono guitars, and looked like a band with my hair and a mess of a dance party through my wine and spotted cow lenses.


-bkh

friday 11.06.09

bjorn! bjorn! bjorn in town from viroqua! sharing stories from his 3,500 mile bike ride to and from the pacific northwest. and reading about the movie festival going on over the weekend in madison. fred ryan and shannon are grilling out our food outside, and getting the bonfire ready for a night of friends, fire, and beer (and jim beam and 99 peaches?)


-bkh

sunday 11.01.09

sushi dinner with some of the barriques staff! i really like my social time with my barriques staff. and it is much too few and far between. jess and i have been trying to have dinner for ages, and we finally (finally!) succeeded and brought a long a bunch of co-workers, too.


-bkh

saturday 10.31.09

happy halloween. hanging around the house, playing trivial pursuit, drinking some hot bourbon cider, ryan playing fred’s bass. ryan nick and i cooked up some homemade pizzas using the wealth of pasta sauce i had from thursday. and hung around the house before getting all dressed up and heading to the big 10 to meet up with the wilkie bros.


-bkh

friday 10.23.09

yonderfest day 3. ryan kara jackie. jeremy, heather, katy, kay, and kay’s roommate, too. oooo – what good people. out to dinner & drinks at jolly bob’s in madison. a little light on the drinks for most of the table given the previous two days for most of ‘em. hearing about jackie’s law school life, and the cases she’s working on in st. paul. good people.


-bkh

thursday 10.22.09

yonderfest day 2. after a day of drinking, ryan and benny decided to shave their heads (whaaaat?) jake doing a bit of one-handed touch-up on ryan’s hair. fred had to intervene so jake could concentrate on more important things (read: his pbr). though, jake couldn’t do much more damage to ryan than benny did during the ryan-benny-kara-katy-fight-for-the-razor scuffle. ryan is now the proud owner of a small bald spot and an inverted rat tail.


-bkh

wednesday 10.21.09

yonderfest! day 1. in my backyard. hanging out having some beers, boxed wine, straight whiskey, getting ready for the avett brothers show. people in town from chicago, rice lake, seattle, appleton, st. paul, stevens point, milwaukee… for the week(end). kara brought some birthday hats in honor of ryan’s recent and stacy’s upcoming birthdays. so many reasons to (over)celebrate.


-bkh

saturday 10.17.09

reading some ‘us weekly’ so i of course must be at marissa & nina’s place in milwaukee. reading about ‘twilight’ in the twilight decorated apartment, hanging out with marissa and her itunes top 25 listened to list that definitely did not contain miley cyrus songs. spent the day with marissa, marques, and chris. seeing good people and the city. now just waiting for the mrs. to get home from work.

-bkh