A Welcome-Home-Surrender-Date!

This is the best week ever!  Keith came home from his review course in Dallas after being gone for 7 weeks.  We were counting down the minutes until we could drive to the airport to pick him up, and he even went to the Dallas airport early to see if he could fly standby on an earlier flight.  Since when does flying standby cost extra???  They told him it would be an extra hundred bucks to fly standby and it is still not gauranteed!  Who in their right mind would do that?  Airlines seriously make me ill.  So he ended up waiting for his original flight for upwards of five hours, only to be told right before it was to take off that the flight was delayed about 2 hours.  He already wasnt' coming into Madison until 11pm, and this would have made it extremely late.  Long story short, he ended up getting one lucky break throughout this whole ordeal and getting on a flight directly to Milwaukee.  This is about 2 hours from where we live.  I hurried and packed up Stryder, his blanket and bottles, and rushed out to door to fill up the car with gas before we ventured out on our little road trip.  I have never driven to Milwaukee airport before, but it actually went great!  I plugged in into the GPS and off we went.  Stryder ended up falling asleep on the way there and I didn't get too lost on the way!  We made sure to bring our "Welcome Home" sign that Stryder made for Keith.  It was great to see him again after so long.

 

 Welcome Home, Daddy!

The next night I planned a special Wisconsin-themed date for Keith and I.  I figured that he needed a real Wisconsin welcome, since he has been in Texas for the last two months.  He is always wanting me to plan a date, so I took his advice and came up with the idea of a "Surrender Date. " 

  The idea is that he would have to surrender to everything I said for the entire night!  I planned what he would wear, how he did his hair, picked out the movie we saw, and ordered his dinner at the restaurant we went to.  (I was nice, don't worry.)  I even drove us around the whole time, too.  We started off the night going to the budget theatre (a frugal touch) to see the movie 'Public Enemies' with Johnny Depp and Christain Bale.  It was about the infamous bankrobbers of the 30's: John Dillinger and BabyFace Nelson.  Interestingly enough, much of the movie took place in Chicago and Wisconsin and was also filmed here in Wisconsin.  In face, BabyFace Nelson was actually shot and killed in by a mormon FBI agent, Samuel P. Cowley, who was also an apostle.  After the movie, we went to the best place ever to eat, a Wisconsin original: CULVER'S, home of the ButterBurger and Frozen Custard!  (For the record, custard is huge here in Wisconsin...anyone who has tried frozen custard knows how hard it is to eat regular ice cream after you've had something so delicious as custard.)  I know Keith absolutely loves Culvers, so I ordered him up a butterburger with the works!  I also got him a delicious pumpkin custard shake for the ride home.

We made it an early night, since the Packers were playing the Vikings for the first time since Brett Favre signed on as QB of the Vikings.  This is a huge rivalry with Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers (think U of U-BYU times 10).  I was interested to see how Favre played and really wanted to see this highly publicized game!  We got home just in time for the 4th quarter, to see the Vikings defeat the Pack 30-23.  I have to admit, it was so strange to see Brett Favre in the purple jersey; actually it reminded me of when Anikin Skywalker joins Darth Vader on the Darkside.  Ever since I was little, I was programmed to be a cheesehead and to love Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers.  Sad that they lost to the evil Vikings!  But it was interesting that Brett Favre is a 40-something old guy with gray hair who's still got game.  He is also the only person to have beat all 32 teams of the NFL.  I hope I haven't lost all you non-sports fans...Anyways, we had a great time and I am so so so glad to have Keith back home!