Happy, happy birthday!

This past weekend we celebrated Andrew's 27th birthday.  Being that it is the day before St. Patrick's day and it happened to fall on a weekend this year, we decided to celebrate St. Patty's Day style with Andrew's favorite thing: BEER.

He has become quite the beer connoisseur over the past few years (READ: snob, haha).

The week before Groupon had a deal for half price brewery tour at Minhas Brewery in Monroe, WI (just a short drive south of us) and I found a 4-course dinner and beer pairing at his favorite restaurant, GRAZE, on St. Patty's Day.  Of course, we were a day late and a dollar short on the Groupon deal, but we still went down to Monroe and paid full price anyway.

It was quite chilly on Saturday (March 16, his actual birthday), so walking around was kind of out of the question.  We drove down and went immediately to the brewery for the 11am tour.  We were there for probably all of 5 minutes before sampling began.  And not just one sample, but unlimited sampling of whatever they had on tap or in the fridge and they gave you your own glass!  Right there, the $10 admission paid for itself.  We sat down to drink a little and munch on popcorn for about 15-20 minutes before the tour started.  Now when I say "we," I mean Andrew.  We all know that I don't drink beer, so more for the birthday boy!

Unfortunately, no pictures inside the brewery, but it was pretty interesting.  It's one of the oldest breweries in the Midwest.  Fun fact: the brew the beer in a factory on one side of the street and then do the packaging on the other side of the street by sending the beer underneath the street.

After the tour, more tasting!  I decided to try out the Black Cherry pop (I refuse to call it soda!) which was quite tasty and Andrew stuck to beer.

Upon leaving, we got a nice little gift bag with 4 beers and the Black Cherry pop, not to mention a glass.  Sweet deal for $10!  I'm sure we'll be visiting again soon.  Anyone want to come up for a visit?

Andrew's request for lunch was Baumgartner's Cheese Shop so he could get a limburger cheese sandwich.  Now if you've never had limburger cheese or been in the general vicinity of it, it smells like feet, really stinky feet.  Why anyone would want to eat it is beyond me, but he was a happy camper.

stinky limburger cheese

My only request for the day was a stop at Culver's because their flavor of the day was Dark Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  And it was DELICIOUS!

On Sunday we headed to the Capitol to have dinner at Graze.

See those two in the bottom left corner?  Yep, that's us :)

First Course: Chicken Liver Pâté, bread & butter pickles, Cellar Dark mustard,  Jameson compound butter, Irish soda bread
Paired with: House of Brews Bungalow Rye ESB

Surprising, the pate wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  Doesn't look to appetizing, but still not bad.

Second Course: Irish Breakfast -- Cumberland sausage “banger,” black pudding, beans,  mushrooms, grilled tomato, sunny-side-up egg
Paired with: House of Brews Standing Stones Scotch Ale

And black pudding really doesn't taste like much.  Although I wasn't a fan of the texture.

Third Course: Fountain Prairie Farm Corned Beef, boiled cabbage, potatoes, carrots, béchamel sauce
Paired with: House of Brews Cellar Dark Brown Ale

Dessert: Chocolate Irish Whiskey Cake, toffee sauce, Baileys whipped cream
Paired with: House of Brews Bourbon Barrel Aged Snug Oatmeal Stout

 By far my favorite course!

Now for three years I was a vegetarian and just in the past year and a half have introduced meat back into my diet.  But I think this is the most meat I have eaten in a long time!

All in all, it was a perfect birthday for Andrew.  So happy we actually went out and celebrated!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!


Something fun: do you have a monster under the bed?  We do, every morning.

Teachers Pay Teachers

I am obsessed with this website.  Almost as much as I am obsessed with Pinterest.

As a bilingual classroom teacher, there are very little pre-made resources.  I tend making a lot of things on my own.  This year I found teacherspayteachers.com and it is A-MAZING.  It has made my life just a little bit easier.  After the new year, I decided to take the plunge and start posting some things that I have made.  I hope to find more time in the near future to post more things, but teaching on the other side of town takes up a lot of time and by the time I get home I really don't want to do anything school related.

 I made this Color Poster a few years ago.  My mother was kind enough to make it into a nice poster for me :)  It's currently FREE on teacherspayteachers.com.

When I first started teacher kindergarten, I made an ABC line with the other teacher to help the kids learn the letters and the sounds.  Each letter has a coordinating picture and action that goes along with it so the kids can learn the letters and sounds visually, auditorially (sp?), and kinesthetically.  I also created these ABC flashcards to quiz the kids on the sounds and letters out of order.
This document is also FREE on my TPT store.

 This year I have switched school districts and I started working a lot more on handwriting with my kids.  I decided to create a lowercase handwriting workbook loosely based Handwriting Without Tears.  My kids get so excited when they make a letter using "La c magica" or if they write a letter beautifully.  My handwriting notebook is currently available for $5.00 in my TPT store

 This is my latest TPT creation: Tricky Teen Match Up.  Just laminate the cards or put the the dot card in a page protector, and cut the number cards apart.  The kids would then match the numerals to the tens frames.