This winter we traveled to Milwaukee for a weekend of fun!
It was bitterly cold but we made our way to the big city and promptly found our favorite German restaurant, Mader's. I swear to goodness that this place has the best German food in America. We love eating here when we visit Milwaukee.
The food is 10 out of 10 and the ambiance is top notch too.
The boys absolutely love drinking out of boots.
No boot for mama but I did enjoy a beer. ;)
I mean - look at these meals! Delish! Our bellies and hearts were full by the end of this dinner.
After supper Dan and Leo returned to the hotel but the big kids and I had big plans - we had tickets to Hamilton!
These tickets were part of their Christmas present. They were so very excited to see one of their favorite Broadway shows.
What a masterpiece! I still have goosebumps thinking about the performance all of these weeks later.
So grateful that the kids could attend and see this amazing story on stage. Also, after listening to the soundtrack so many times, it was honestly a treat to hear new voices for these characters. No offense to Lin Manuel! Hah!
Such a delight and awesome to hear the crowd just erupt when Hamilton and Lafayette sang, 'Immigrants! We get the job done!'
The Marcus Performing Arts Center was beautiful but it is a very large/open space so, on this extremely cold January night, I am sure the facilities folks worked hard to keep the building warm. They did such a good job that we were literally sweating by the end of the show! It somehow felt good to walk the handful of blocks back to our hotel in -50 degree temps. Eeks! You better believe we sang the whole way back even though it hurt to breathe.
Because of the frigid temperatures, a pipe burst in our hotel and the pool was out of order. Whomp whomp. The Storm children were disappointed but, this concern was offset a bit by the fact that we had a hot tub in our room. The kids defied physics and all fit into the same tub! LOL!
The next morning we got up and went to another one of our beloved MKE spots - the Milwaukee Public Museum.
This museum is moving to a brand new modern building in 2027 so we needed to pay a final visit to the old space. It makes me sad that there is no money to maintain these big historic buildings but I guess that their museum accreditation was being threatened due to deferred maintenance and building issues so they are moving away from the Milwaukee County site. Goodbye, old friend!
We zipped down Old Main Street one last time.
Leo especially loves seeing all of the critters.
It is always a joy to see butterfly habitats, especially in January.
My beautiful girlie with some beautiful butterflies.
Look at these spectacular specimens!
Guess who we were lucky enough to meet up with? The Malcolm family! Leo was thrilled to run around the museum with Alexander.
Leo adores the Night at the Museum movies - being a museum night watchman would be one of his dream jobs for sure.
Here is our whole kiddo crew in front of my favorite Native American diorama.
There are always a couple of children who want to pretend to pick noses. ;)
All in all it was a great day!
We ended our visit with the Malcolm fam with a pizza party.
Oh yeah - the Storm also took another dip in the hotel pool AKA our room's hot tub. ;)
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And, just like that, the weekend was over and we were on the road back to Eau Claire.
Big thanks to Grandma Nola and Grandpa Ken who watched Ranger over the weekend.
In the words of the Schuyler sisters, ''Look around, look around - how lucky we are to be alive right now!" What a weekend to remember!
