Brian & Halle (she was distracted by the kids behind me!)
Cousin & Kristin
Catie with daughters Bridget & Tess
Jen’s parents, Terry/Cappy and Nancy/Nana, with the kids in the play room.
Fitz, Cousin, Kristin
Quinn, all set to ring in the new year!
Jen, Kristin, Loden
Ed, Cousin, Trent, Chad, Brian, Dallas
Jill getting in on the fun!
This was the 7th year in a row that we have gone to Jen and Chad’s house for New Years Eve. As has become the tradition the last few years we went to this party early and then went to a second party later. It was fun to see everyone, visit with friends, eat and drink, and play with the kids. I made Irish Car Bomb cupcakes for the parties and Dallas make ahi poke, which reminded everyone of Hawaii.
While I was staying over in Kohler, WI, we went to dinner at Osteria Nonna Maria in Sheboygan, WI. It was just a short drive from Kohler. Jill had somehow heard about this place while looking up restaurants online. It’s a small hole in the wall kind of place. It’s a house in a row of houses in a residential area. When you see the sign pointing to downtown, go the other way, basically! It’s a “hidden gem” according to our hotel concierge when we asked for directions.
SEE YOU IN MY NIGHTMARES!
When you walk in there’s a dining room with booths to the right. It has the feeling of a diner crossed with your grandma’s house. In fact, the owners, Bill and Mary Jo (Nonna Maria), have photos of all of their grand kids on one wall. To the left is the kitchen. We were lead through this area to a room in the back with a bar and some “interesting” wall mountings.
Parmesan Artichoke Crostini – Fresh grated Parmesan cheese and artichoke on toasted Italian bread
Fresh-baked olive bread
Salad with homemade creamy dill dressing
Chicken Cacciatore – Chunked chicken in Nonna’s creamy Sicilian marinara and vegetables served with Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese on imported capellini
Our server for the night was Kim, who is the grand daughter of the owners of Osteria Nonna Maria. Kim was perfectly nice and attentive, giving us recommendations off the menu. We had a super delicious parmesan and artichoke crostini for an appetizer. We all got salads to start and most were obsessed with the creamy dill dressing. It was like putting dill dip on top of your salad. So good. Our bread was hot-out-of-the-oven olive bread. And for my entree I got chicken cacciatore. At some point during dinner, the owner/grandma stopped by our table and chatted with us a bit. I thought that was nice.
I couldn’t finish all of my pasta so they wrapped it up for me to go in this cute duck made of aluminum foil. Actually, mine was more of a duckling, because Jill had a big portobello wrapped in hers which made it a lot bigger duck.
When Jill made the reservation she spoke with Kim and asked her about cake for dessert for Jen’s birthday. Kim said “let me talk to my grandma” and her grandma ended up making a whole entire cake for us! It was the lightest angel food cake, which was perfect since we’d just eaten a somewhat heavy dinner. Kim said this is the cake that her grandma has made for her birthday every year for as long as she could remember, so we made her take a slice to eat as well.
It was Jen’s mom, Nancy’s, birthday just a few days ago, so Jill arranged for her to get a slice of tiramisu with a candle in it, not knowing that we were getting a whole entire cake for Jen! We passed the tiramisu around the table. There was a lot of whipped cream on it, which Kristin loved and took care of. I really liked the part that was soaked in the strong coffee/espresso. So good.
Overall, I’d say that Osteria Nonna Maria is a hidden gem, as our concierge had said. The food was great, the prices were reasonable, and with Kim and her grandparents, and the fact that you were in a house-like building, you almost felt like you were dining in someone’s home.
To further celebrate Jen’s birthday, this past weekend Jill, Kristin, Jen, Jen’s mom Nancy and I all headed up to Kohler, WI for a pampering girls spa weekend. I’d never spent a whole day at the spa and I’d heard a lot of things about Kohler, so I was excited to check it out.
Note: You’re not allowed to take your phone or electronics around the spa. Which makes sense, because you’re there to totally relax. The photos of the spa and our hotel are from their official websites.
On Saturday afternoon we left for our 2.5 hour drive. I did not want to take my Jeep, since the breakdown was a little fresh in my mind, so I borrowed Jen and Chad’s Smart Car and drove that. Jill rode along with me. Kristin drove the others up in another vehicle just in front of us. In Pleasant Prairie we stopped for a late lunch. I’d already eaten, so I just got a small scoop of the flavor of the day: Backyard Smores. YUM.
We arrived in the late afternoon and checked into two connecting rooms in our hotel, the Inn at Woodlake. Ironically, this is no quaint inn by the lake. Well, it is by the lake, but it is a very modern hotel. All the rooms were wired up to the max. At one point we turned the TV on and Jill was in the hallway, she thought someone was in the bathroom, but we quickly realized that there were TV speakers in the bathroom!
Also, I didn’t really think about it beforehand, but every bathroom in Kohler and the surrounding areas is all rigged up with top-of-the line Kohler products. You should have seen how many jets our shower had!
While we were settling in to our rooms we cracked open a bottle of wine that Kristin brought along. Our rooms overlooked a putting green, a bocce court, an outside seating area and a small lake (I’m assuming Wood Lake). Since the seating area was empty, we brought our wine outside and enjoyed the evening before dinner. The photo above is of the seating area/event space in use, but of course, while we were out there, we had it all to ourselves. Nice and relaxing, next to the lake, which is pretty much where that guy in the back, standing up is pointing.
For dinner we took a very short drive over to Sheboygan and ate at Osteria Nonna Maria. This place was great! Delicious, down-home Italian cooking. Our waitress was Kim and her grandparents own the place. And we got to meet them. They went all out to help us celebrate Jen’s birthday. I’ll have more on this in a separate post, because the restaurant is one place I did take photos.
So, the next morning we headed over to the Kohler Waters Spa. Our hotel offered a free shuttle to anywhere in Kohler that we wanted to go. So convenient. And there was no wait either. When we had the concierge call, it took about 3 minutes for the shuttle to arrive. I was not getting a massage until 11:00, but decided to head to the spa early with everyone. If you were getting any services there you were able to hang around the spa all day and take advantage of the relaxation pool with a waterfall, whirlpools, sauna, steam room, rooftop relaxation room with a huge whirlpool and fireplace, and refreshments like fresh fruit and nuts throughout the 4-story building.
We checked in, got our robe and spa slippers, changed into bathing suits, put everything else into our lockers and then headed our separate ways. I spent a couple hours on the rooftop reading a book on a luxurious lounge chair nearby the fireplace. I switched off between reading, napping and taking dips in a whirlpool all morning. The funny thing is that in the hotel the night before I was reading a Kohler magazine and saw a photograph. I held the magazine up and proclaimed, “I want to go to there!” Guess where I was the next day? Yeh, I spent almost the whole day in the room I had seen in the magazine. So awesome.
At 11:00 it was time for my massage. I didn’t know what kind I wanted to get, so I got the massage sampler. This was 50 minutes of several massage techniques in sequence, including warm stones, stretching, ah-shiatsu (barefoot massage), and sinus pressure relief. I loved the stretching and the warm stones. The barefoot massage was .. uh interesting.. The therapist actually stood on the massage table and held onto bars that were attached to the ceiling while she massaged me with her feet! It was interesting. You couldn’t really tell it was feet. I had a hot compress under my neck and a cold compress on my eyes at that point and really you just feel the pressure the same way you do with hands/arms/elbows. And yes, she did wash her feet right before the procedure!
At noon we all met back up for lunch. We’d pre ordered lunches when we checked in. I had a salad and a glass of wine. Actually, I think everyone got salads. After Culver’s, an Italian dinner and birthday cake the night before, we needed to detox with vegetables!
So everyone else was staying up in Kohler until Monday, but my vacation time from work is severely limited for the rest of the year because of all the vacation time I took for our wedding. So, I needed to head back home in the Smart Car on Sunday. I’d originally planned to leave after lunch, but I realized there was nothing I really needed to be home for. Dallas wasn’t even there, he was in North Carolina. Plus, I was having so much fun at the spa, I didn’t want to leave. Everyone else had afternoon spa services scheduled, but I didn’t because I had planned to leave. I decided to just hang out for the afternoon. I laid around and did more napping and swimming and reading and loafing around. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!
When everyone was done with their spa services we all met back up.. for… you guessed it! More laying around! The spa was just so relaxing and beautiful. I never wanted to leave! But, alas, I had to get on the road at some point. I took a shower at the spa and we all left to go back to the hotel. I quickly packed my things and was about to fly out of the room, but oh man! Kristin and Jill were setting up a cheese plate to have pre-dinner snacks and wine. They were eating at the Whistling Straights restaurant. Fancy! I guess my wallet wasn’t going to miss that, but they do have an awesome looking scallop dinner on the menu that I would have loved to try. Oh well.
My drive back to Chicago was pretty uneventful.. until I got close to Chicago. I left Kohler around 6:15 p.m. and expected I’d be back to Jen & Chad’s by 9:15. Around the part where the tollway ends and merges to the Edens I hit some major traffic and was stuck there for something like 70 minutes. More than an hour. Just stopped. Crazy. It did give me time to call my dad for Father’s Day, though! I had seen him a week then and given him a gift (Kona Brewing beer label tshirt of the beer we had at our wedding!), but it was still nice to chat quick on the actual day. Anyway, I didn’t end up getting to Jen and Chad’s to get my car til late, I didn’t get home til after 11 p.m. I was so tired! Monday morning came early!
Despite the drive home, I had a fantastic weekend. I loved hanging out at the spa. Yes, it was way pricey, but I only got one service and then just enjoyed the free amenities. A big thanks to Jill for coordinating every detail of the trip! She was so organized and prepared that I told her she should be applying for event planner jobs! And happy birthday to Jen. Remember, 40 is the new 30!
P.S. Fun fact I just learned while looking up “Kohler, WI” on Wikipedia:
Many people in Wisconsin refer to drinking fountains as “bubblers,” because the first Kohler drinking fountain was known as “The Bubbler.”
Wheneverwe go backto Kauai Dallas’s Aunty Nancy makes Dallas’s favorite meal for him and sends him home to wherever we’re staying with a ton of leftovers for the trip. Aunty Nancy is Portuguese and the dish she makes is like a beef pot roast, but really vinegar-y and served with rice, of course. I don’t know what this is really called, but we have always called it Portuguese Vinegar Meat and Dallas loooves it.
A few months ago Dallas was in Washington DC for work. Aunty Nancy’s oldest daughter Tandy lives there with her husband Chris. They just had their first baby, Kai (photo to the right!!!), and Aunty Nancy has been staying with them to help out. They all spent a couple days together and somehow Dallas got Aunty Nancy to give up the Portuguese meat recipe!
Dallas came home and immediately had to try his hand at it. It turned out good.. maybe a little too much vinegar for my liking, but very good. I think we have a few tweaks to work out before it’s up to Aunty Nancy’s standard. I’m sure we’ll be making this many many times until we get it exactly right! We also thought about trying to adapt it for the slow cooker.
Dallas’s family’s best friends on Kauai are the Matsudas. They live just down the road from where Dallas and his family lived and we try to see them every time we go back to Kauai. This year Aunty Nancy and Uncle Bob invited us over for dinner. When we arrived they were the only ones home and were watching their grandson, Swede, who was just born this year. Isn’t he adorable!?
Dallas, Swede :: Waimea, Kauai
We sat outside at picnic tables and drank some beer while eating edamame. Aunty Nancy was feeding Swede his dinner, poi with milk. No wonder he’s so big! Well, that and the fact that his dad is something like 6’5″.
Dallas, Uncle George, Mr. Hee, Uncle Bob :: Waimea, Kauai
Not much later, Uncle George (Uncle Bob’s brother) and Aunty Linda arrived. And then Mr. Hee came by.
For dinner we had Portuguese Meat. Maybe there is a more descriptive name for this dish, but Portuguese meat is what we call it. It’s kind of like pot roast, but way more vinegar-y. Aunty Nancy is Portuguese and knows that Dallas loves this dish so she makes it every time he visits. We had some other dinner, too, but the parts I remember are the desserts. This was the first time I ever had haupia cake, manju or homemade guri guri (I’d only ever had guri guri for the first time two days before).
And then finally, later on, Marissa and Eric, Swede’s parents, arrived with Swede’s sister, Safina. By that time it was dark and everyone was off in different directions. I wanted to take a photo of Safina because she has grown so much since the last time we saw her, but she was off on her scooter and taking a bath and had her own agenda going on. It was nice to be able to visit with everyone. On of these days we need to visit Tandy, Uncle Bob & Aunty Nancy’s other daughter, who now lives in the DC area. She and her husband Chris just had their first baby a few weeks ago. His name is Kai. We haven’t seen Tandy and Chris since their wedding, which seems like forever ago.
A few months ago Dallas was in Washington DC for work. Aunty Nancy’s oldest daughter
