Weekend in Denmark

This weekend I did a road trip to Denmark, Wisconsin (a small farming town outside Green Bay) to visit Cherie's family and celebrate her birthday.  HBD, Cherie!

I wanted to share my packing list with you:

• 2 tank tops, 1 t shirt, 2 workout tops with build in bras
• pjs
• 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of capris, 1 pair of comfy pants, 1 skort
• 1 swim suit and cover up (Cherie's sister has a pool at her house)
• 1 sweatshirt
• 1 hiking outfit (we stopped to hike Timm's Hill on they way home
• 5 pairs of shoes, which necessitated their own, separate bag for packing
• flip flops
• chacos (in case I wanted to go for a walk or the hiking trail wasn't too treacherous)
• tennis shoes (in case I wanted to go for a longer walk or workout)
• wedge high heels (because the only jeans I fit into right now are too long to be worn with flats)
• hiking boots (in case the hiking trail was treacherous)
• all 5 tubes and bottles of the Rodan + Fields antiage skin regimen (because wrinkles never take a vacation and the fight must always go on)
• basic make up (tinted moisturizer, eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, blush, bronzer, 2 chap sticks and 2 lip glosses), face wash, toothbrush, and Aveda hair prep spray
• a book, my iPad and my iphone, along with necessary chargers
• a comb and round brush
• not deoderant though (that, apparently, got lost in the shuffle of figuring out how to pack 5 pairs of shoes)

Trust me, I know this is ridiculous.  If anyone were to challenge my packing, I could, in fact, probably live without some of these things.  Alas, no one reigned in the ridiculousness, so it all came along.  I did actually use everything except one shirt, the book, and the hiking boots (hike did not = treacherous).

Friday night we stopped by the farm, where Jeff did some manual labor, and I rode in a combine while poor Robbie drove and was stuck listening to me blather on and pepper him with questions.  In 20 minutes, I found out how much wheat yield came from each acre, the price of wheat right now, where he grew up, how he met his wife (his buddy bet him $5 to ask her out when they were out at a bar), where they got married, his feelings on the new trend of "barn weddings", and that he has 2 sons.  We also talked about health insurance (they were paying $600/month through a private plan before Obamacare and now they get a way better deal from his wife's employer), and the improvement in the Mpls real estate market.  Then we went to a fish fry at Whipps, and I logged into my Tinder account to see if the locals recognized anyone who came up in my search.  Only one hit: a friend of Dusty's who speaks Spanish.  Perfecto!  

On Saturday, Cherie's dad, Jack, took us on a tour of a nearby dairy farm.  Before you get too excited, I did not get to milk a cow by hand.  Much to my disappointment, they haven't milked that way in years (oh, I forgot that I told Robbie I wanted to milk a cow while I was in town and he said I could come do that at their farm if I didn't get a chance on the tour--what a guy).  Everything at the dairy farm is pretty fancy and high tech these days.  It smelled like manure, sure enough, but I was really surprised by how clean and orderly everything was.  Stencil's is a good operation and treats their animals and employees well.  

Please enjoy some of the photos of our excursion (the cute kids are Cherie's niece and nephews).  Not pictured is me fawning all over a teeny, tiny baby kitten.  We did almost get to see a calf being born as well; they were unwrapping the chains from around it's legs when we walked in--they pulled that sucker right out!  

A visit to Lambeau field, a pool party, and an awesome family dinner rounded out the day.  Sunday we enjoyed a big breakfast and hit the road home.  Stopped at Timm's Hill on the way home and am still feeling guilty for adding another 1.5-2 hours to our trip for that landmark.  It was pretty disappointing, and I got like 5 mosquito bites (mosquito bites not pictured).