A little trip to Wisconsin

So, last Friday Jon and I packed up the car, got the dog in the backseat and headed to Wisconsin bright and early. We managed to leave pretty much at the time we'd hoped (7am) but the first three hours of the trip were, well, interesting. Fina is usually really quite good in the car but, for whatever reason, was all over the place on Friday morning. Maybe it was because she'd just gotten up. Maybe it was because she needed a pit-stop. Either way, it was rather nightmarish, particularly whenever we hit rumble-strips (construction induced lane shifts) she went nuts and tried to climb in the front seat. Let me tell you, 90 lbs of German Shepherd trying to climb in the front seat is on the distracting side. We finally stopped and let her out for a bit and then when we got back on the road, she was fine and slept a good portion of the rest of the way there. The time at the cottage was a lot of fun. We went tubing almost as soon as we got there on Friday and did a lot of hanging out with Jon's family. After dinner, numerous rounds of Blokus (very fun, kinda like the board game version of tetris) were played and I did decently until I tried developing a strategy and then got my butt kicked. Huge thunderstorm on Friday night but by morning the sun was out and the weather beautiful. That's sort of how much of the weekend went, dips in the lake, rides in the boat, boardgames, chatting, reading and being lazy. Jon and I cooked Moroccan Braised Beef for everyone on Saturday (it seemed to go over well) and two more of his brothers arrived on Saturday to add to the fun. I still think the highlight of the weekend was watching Jon and Josh do "sweet flips" off the dock. It was ridiculous. The ride home was much less eventful Fina-wise than the way out. Unfortunately we hit rush hour traffic coming through Chicago, but it didn't slow us down too much. It was a great trip though, nice and relaxing and just what I'd needed. I hope we get to go again next year:)