The perfect gift...

You know how it feels when you've made all your lists, checked them twice, crashed your way through the hoards of shoppers, and managed to get the exact, perfect gift for someone? That happened to me this year.

Last spring, my brother, who is a history buff happened to mention a hat he saw at Kenosha's Civil War Museum gift shop. He liked it a lot but didn't get it for himself because he thought it was too pricey. Fast forward to last Monday, I was out Christmas shopping, wondering what the heck to get my brother, when I somehow remembered him talking about that hat. So I went the museum and there it was.

The look on his face when he opened his gift on Christmas Eve was priceless. He was shocked that it was the exact hat he wanted and even more shocked that I had remembered he wanted it. He put it on his head and wore it for the entire rest of the evening.

At one point, he pulled it down over his ears and made this face.


Yup, that's my bro. He's a bit of a goofball but I love him and it was great getting him the perfect gift that he'll cherish and remember for a long time to come.

Some mornings are better than others...

See what I mean? This is the sunrise I saw this morning on my way to work. How bad can a day be when it starts with something as glorious as this?

A Perfect Day...

We had a near perfect day. We walked around down by the harbor and beach and took a look at the new Civil War Museum. Alex called it a "Truman Show" kind of day.




This is the North Pier at the Kenosha Harbor. That light house is for sale, by the way. Just in case you're in the market for a light house!



This is Simmon's Island Beach taken from the North Pier. This is pretty far to the south end of the beach area so there are barely any people there.



Alexander on the North Pier on the way to light house.



Alex on the terrace of the Civil War Museum.



Here's a view from the terrace of the museum. The museum is new and isn't really finished yet so there aren't many exhibits to see there. But the building is beautiful and the lake view from the terrace is really nice! We ended the day with ice cream. How perfect is that!

At last...

Alex arrived, on time, to a perfect day here. We spent most of the day doing nothing which was perfect. He was rather jet lagged. We eventually rented some flicks so we could just kick back and do more nothing. Again, perfect! I made teriyaki chicken and fried rice for dinner. It turned out perfect. Alex set up his keyboard and hard drive and connected his laptop to my router and it all worked perfectly. Then we just caught up on months of not seeing each other, talking, laughing and feeling that complete sense of "all is once again right with the world".

It was perfect.