MINI VACATION

Seems I have been missing for a few days!
We have had my brother and his wife here since Wednesday - We go up north to their place for a couple days and trade off with them coming down here a month or so later. It's fun being best friends with your brother and SIL.

Ohhhhh it's sooooo very, very cold here today. When we got up and all of us went to breakfast it was minus 14 degrees! And it seemed no matter where we went for meals these past few days it was COLD in the restaurants - I guess it’s just too hard to regulate the temps with minus temps

I haven’t even had time to check in to see what all my friends have been up to so I have lots to catch up on.

On Wednesday it was Doug’s birthday so we went to a dinner/theater with my brother and SIL. We saw Rock’n In The 50’s part 2...oh what fun.

Besides a wonderful dinner we saw such a great musical performance with all the great songs of the 50’s and again I’m dating myself…lol But there’s nothing more catching than the Rock N Roll songs of the 50’s. There were ballads to Rock A Billy!

Then yesterday we took a drive into Milwaukee to visit the Mitchell Domes…it has been many, many years since we visited them and I was still impressed at the flowers and trees and birds - There are three domes each housing a Tropical and a Dessert zone and one with flowers and that one changes with the holiday and season……but it wasn't open because they were changing over from Christmas to Spring/Easter.

We were happiest in the Tropical Dome with a rain forest atmosphere - for Doug and I it reminded us of our trips to the island of St. Kitts to visit our friends, but for now we were content to walk through this tropical splendor. When you entered the dome you got this wonderful scent of spices and flowers and the humidity was so refreshing on that minus 12 degree day! When you closed your eyes you could just imagine being in the island. Lots of ginger and cinnamon scents.

I only posted a couple pictures and one especially of my favorite tree the TRAVELERS TREE and then the MONEY TREE.

A variety of Orchid

I think this was my favorite - although I didn't get a picture of the tree itself...but I had to giggle at the bottom line....what else is money used for...except to buy ornamental things! lol

This is the TRAVELER'S TREE

The bananas start growing from a pod and coming from the center are long chutes and they turn into the banana. After the tree has produced the fruit and is harvested that branch dies and you cut it off.
This particular banana tree is in the yard of our friends in St. Kitts

Then afterward we went downtown Milwaukee to the Museum and took the rest of the day going through the 4 levels of this wonderful museum. The first part of our stay there was to tour the TITANIC exhibit. You can read about it and see movies about it but to see the actual artifacts that were brought up from the deep is astounding.

Hopefully most of you take advantage of the wonderful entertainment/educational offerings in your community….unfortunately we don’t but will try and change that - after yesterday we decided we need to get out there and support all those wonderful institutions offering so much wonderful entertainment.

Karen