life highlights Archives • Rose Clearfield

October 2016 Highlights

Family / November 2, 2016

This October was one of those beautiful Octobers where the leaves stay colorful for several weeks and it’s warm enough to enjoy the beautiful colors. I know I complain because I get sick of everyone I know and Pinterest shoving fall in my face every single day. But I actually get it when fall is, you know, kind of perfect.

10/10: Domes Fall Harvest Festival show. I love visiting the Domes for their seasonal shows. You can see my full set of photos from the show over here.

10/13: China Lights. I promise this is the last time I’m talking about China Lights on this blog. I’m so glad I got to see this amazing exhibit during its run in Milwaukee. Check out my full China Lights post here.

10/14: Lindsey Stirling. We saw Lindsey Stirling in Milwaukee as part of her Brave Enough tour for her new album. (Remember how I was talking about her t-shirts? I ended up wearing this one.) Her show was intense, really loud with tons of lighting effects, but amazing. I’ve really never seen anything like it before. I loved learning more about her newest album and how she got where she is today.

10/16: Holy Hill. My in-laws had never been to Holy Hill and wanted to go during fall to see the colors. As previously mentioned, the leaves are on point this year, and the colors didn’t disappoint.

While we were up that way, we also got to see Jim Zamzow’s annual Halloween display. (See last year’s display over here.)

It wouldn’t be a Wisconsin holiday display without something Packers.

10/17: Grant Park. Grant Park is one of the quintessential locations in Milwaukee to visit in the fall. The day I went, it was sunny and warm enough to be outside in a t-shirt and jeans. Again, kind of a perfect fall.

The Grant Park waterfall flow varies quite a bit from month to month, but it’s running full force right now.

10/19-10/23: New Orleans. Obviously, one of the biggest highlights of October was our trip to New Orleans. I put together a separate post about New Orleans over here.

10/28: MAM After Dark: Steampunk.Jake and I have been attending the Milwaukee Art Museum After Dark events regularly ever since we moved to Milwaukee. Steampunk was the perfect theme for Halloween and the current 1920s German cinema exhibit. Our costumes are never exactly the same from one event to the next, but you can see a few more pictures of our steampunk get up in my August 2016 highlights post.

10/29: Book of Mormon. We kicked off the 16-17 Broadway season in Milwaukee with the Book of Mormon. It’s the only show I’ve ever seen three times in three years, and I’d see it again if they brought it back to Milwaukee next year. If you ever get a chance to see it and haven’t already, please get a ticket. For nearly two years, every time someone talked about Salt Lake City, Jake and I would always have to make the joke about how it’s not a real place, it’s a metaphor. Then I kind of forgot about it for a while. Now that we’ve seen the show again, that joke is coming back.

10/30: Neighborhood trick-or-treating. We live in an area where most neighborhoods don’t have trick-or-treating on Halloween, which I find really sad. At least our neighborhood hours ran long enough that kids could trick-or-treat in the dark. This was our first Halloween in this house so I didn’t know what to expect. But we got a good turnout, about 60 kids. I splurged on full-size candy bars. Several kids literally screamed over full-sized Kit-Kat bars. A successful Halloween, right?

What are you up to in November?
Any fun local events I should check out?

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September 2016 Highlights

Family / October 4, 2016

Another month has flown by, as always. Today I’m sharing just a few highlights from September.

9/3: Silverwood Farm Fall Horse Trials. I have a family friend who trains show horses. In the 10+ years we’ve known her, we’d never seen her compete. So we made it a priority and got to the Silverwood fall trials. Many of you know that I’m a city girl. As such, I know next to nothing about horses and am way out of my comfort zone being around and photographing them, but it was so neat.

9/4: Wind Point Lighthouse tour. The lighthouse offers monthly climbs from June through October. It’s awesome to get a brand new perspective of a place you visit frequently. We learned a little bit of its history and admired the sweeping views of the grounds as well as Milwaukee, Racine, and Lake Michigan.

9/16: Lincoln Park. No, I wasn’t visiting Lincoln Park in Chicago, I was visiting the little Lincoln Park in Kenosha. I had to run a quick errand down that way and stopped over at the park for a bit. It’s home to a beautiful sunken garden. It’s also where Jake and I had our engagement pictures taken just over 10 years ago.

9/17-9/18: Doors Open Milwaukee. The long-awaited Doors Open was awesome. I hit 15 sites in all and would have made it to even more but I had another commitment on Sunday. We had absolutely perfect weather for it, high 70s and sunny both days. I took nearly 1,000 images and will still be sorting through them for quite a while. Over the next couple of months, I’ll have several longer posts with more pictures of select sites here on the blog.

9/18: Joey’s baptism. Our good friends Joe and Melitta had their little guy baptized the same weekend as Doors Open. He was the fourth generation to get baptized in that exact church. I was very honored to help create this image of all four generations.

9/24: Milwaukee County Zoo. Jake had a professional event in Milwaukee in the morning and then we were going to straight to PetFest (see below). So I went with him and among other things, went to the zoo for a while. It was cooler and not very crowded, and lots of the animals were really active.

9/24: Fromm PetFest. My littlest sister-in-law is one of the organizers for the Fromm PetFest so we wanted to stop by for a while. It was really neat. They had various events for the dogs (i.e. agility training, lure courses) and tons of vendor booths, and of course, there were dogs everywhere. My mother-in-law came up for it, too, and we went out for pizza afterward.

Finally, this month, I made it to four regular MSO concerts and two neighborhood MSO events. It’s the current director’s last season so they’re pulling out all the stops, and I’m going to as many of the concerts as I can.

What are you up to in October?
Any fun local events I should check out?

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August 2016 Highlights

Family / September 2, 2016

I can’t believe that another summer has flown by, and we’re now moving into September. Personally, I’m so glad that I don’t have to be in back-to-school mode and can enjoy every last bit of warm weather while it’s still here.

8/3: Keith Pulvermacher Band @ Denim Park. Denim Park is a fabulous spot in Milwaukee to hear free music on Wednesday nights in the summer. In 2014, I heard I’m Not a Pilot at Denim Park, and in 2015, I heard Parallel. This year I managed to catch the Keith Pulvermacher Band, featuring among others, Peter Thomas of I’m Not a Pilot. So fabulous. There is nothing like hearing great music outdoors on a beautiful summer night. I have a few video clips from the show over on YouTube.

8/6: Bristol Renaissance Faire. Jake and I have been going to Bristol since our early dating days. We have been at least seven or eight times, and it’s always so much fun. This was our third consecutive Bristol excursion during Steampunk weekend, which offers some of the best people watching you’ll see anywhere in southeast WI. A very nice fellow hobbyist photographer with a 70D wanted to take our picture so we got our first ever shot together at Bristol.

8/7-8/13: Montana. Obviously, one of the biggest things that happened in August was our week long trip to Montana. I have a separate Montana highlights post over here.

8/18: Full moon at North Point Lighthouse. I’ve spent a lot of time this summer watching the moon, especially the days around the full moons. I found out about the full moon lighthouse climbs when I was researching for my August Milwaukee events post and decided I had to make it to the last one of the summer. They had drinks and snacks, and the entire first floor of the house was open so you could browse their exhibits and artifacts when you weren’t making the climb. The lighthouse featured this photo on their Instagram and Facebook pages, which was pretty cool.

Also, before the full moon lighthouse tour, I hadn’t been to Lake Park in months and didn’t realize it was a huge Pokemon Go gathering place. Has anyone else experienced the Pokemon Go phenomenon this summer? There were literally hundreds of people there.

8/19: Church festival. Just about every Catholic church in southeast WI holds an annual festival, typically in the summer, as one of their big fundraisers. As illustrated by this photo, they’re kind of a big deal. In addition to more than half a dozen carnival rides, there were food and drink booths, multiple entertainment stages, casino games, auction prizes, lots of kid games, and more.

8/20: Zoo a la Carte. One of the single best events at the Milwaukee County Zoo is Zoo a la Carte. There are food stations and music, and the zoo is open late. The zoo is so big and the food lines are never very long so it’s easy to grab your food and spread out somewhere. Some of you may have seen a few food snaps in my Instagram story (randomcreativeart). While we were there, we got to meet the baby giraffe who was born this spring.

8/21: Irish Fest. For the past few years, Jake and I have been going to the Irish Fest Sunday mass and then enjoying lunch, Irish dancing, and a few of the exhibits. Milwaukee is home to several Irish dance studios, and they’re all fabulous.

8/26: Game night. Jake and I host a monthly board game night for family and friends to enjoy delicious food and drink, good conversation, and of course, a few games. I am terrible about taking pictures of game night because I’m always working on food prep or doing some sort of house cleaning or prep right up until the last minute. There are certain tasks like putting drinks on ice or getting an appetizer in the oven that just can’t happen until right before the event. Then we have people arriving and I forget all about taking pictures.

Anyway, so once again, I managed one little snap, this time of Penny Arcade late in the evening. Some of you may have also seen some of my food prep snaps. This month I made ham and swiss sliders and chicken parmesan sliders (one pan of each) and chewy coconut cookies (which are basically sugar cookies with coconut) to serve alongside a spread of fresh fruit and veggies.

What are you up to in September?
Any fun local events I should check out?

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July 2016 Highlights

Family / August 3, 2016

I can’t believe another month of summer is over already! *sniff* It’s been a great month, though, and I’m excited to share just a few of the highlights today.

7/3: Jake’s birthday. Jake and I had a low-key birthday celebration at home with his parents. We grilled, ate delicious appetizers and drinks, sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather, and had a backyard bonfire.

I don’t have any pictures from the 4th of July, but we had a nice celebration in town. Jake marched in the local parade in the morning, and we went to a couple parties in the afternoon and evening, one of which included watching the local fireworks.

7/6: Neighborhood pet parade. Yep, my neighborhood has an annual pet parade. Obviously it’s mainly a dog parade, but this year there was a super chill cat, too.

7/7: Day trip to Chicago. My dad and brother’s wife have birthdays the same week as Jake. My brother’s wife’s parents were in town for her birthday. We all attended the open rehearsal for her concert that weekend and had lunch at Pizano’s, where the waiter gave us two free chocolate chip cookie sundaes.

7/8: Hood Smoke at Summerfest. My brother is in the band Hood Smoke , and they played at Summerfest this year. My parents were able to come up for it.

7/9: Ben Folds at Summerfest. Jake and I went back to Summerfest the next day for Ben Folds after my parents headed home to Chicago. We ended up sitting through two other bands to get seventh row seats, which was worth it. The show was so amazing. My life is now complete because I’ve heard Steven’s Last Night in Town live with yMusic.

7/10: Visit with Joe and Melitta. Our friends Joe and Melitta were in town from Minneapolis very briefly, primarily so Joe’s 99 year old grandma could meet their four month old son. We ended up visiting with them at Joe’s parents’ house for a few hours.

7/13: Dinner with old friends. We had some old friends in town visiting family in between their transition to a new city for the Air Force. We hadn’t seen them in three and a half years. It was so great to show them our new place and catch up. They came over with their kiddos for dinner (including this rainbow fruit spread) and to hang at the beach for a bit. It was their three year old’s first time at the beach, and he was in love. He spent almost the entire time throwing all of the biggest rocks he could find into the water.

7/15: Parallel at Bastille Days. Parallel is a fabulous local band featuring keyboards and electric cello (recurring themes in my life, I know). I was really glad to have the opportunity to hear them live for the first time this summer at Bastille Days.

7/15: Emily Giffin book signing. In case the 7th row Ben Folds concert wasn’t enough of a bucket list item to cross off this summer, I also got to attend an Emily Giffin book signing right here in Milwaukee at Boswell Books. I’ve been an Emily Giffin fan for 12 years, and she’s one of my top influences as a writer. She is so grounded and truly amazing to her fans and just generally a really awesome person.

7/18-7/20: Moon watching. The night of the full moon in July and the night right before and right after it offered perfect weather for watching the moon rise in the evening.

7/22: Game night. Jake and I host a monthly board game night in which any and all friends who are free come over to enjoy delicious food and drink (did you see my snaps? follow along: randomcreative), good conversation, and of course a few games. Hobbes decided to get in on the action toward the end of the night.

7/23: Milwaukee in the fog. Jake and I had cleared the afternoon for an event that got postponed. Instead we went downtown and happened to catch this unreal fog.

What are you up to in August?
Any fun local events I should check out?

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