2008 MEIER FAMILY YEAR IN PICTURES. 

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                                   ~You can CLICK on any picture for a larger view!~

 

  

In April Bruce, Lisa, Kaitlin and Megan (Kaitlin's friend) flew to Miami (above),boarded the Carmival ship Valor & headed for

                                                                Central America and the western Caribbean. 

 

  

 

  

                         Kaitlin and her new friend                                               Lisa with the biggest stingray we've ever seen

In the GRAND CAYMANS we swam in the sky-blue ocean with the stingrays...the girls were a bit squeamish at first but look at

Kaitlin's face...sheer joy!  The stingrays feel like giant mushrooms and because of fishermen feeding them for years, as soon

                 as the boat comes to this sandbar in the ocean, literally hundreds of them swarm around.

 

 

            

HONDURAS was pristine & mainly untouched by tourism..for now.  The ocean is so clear in the port you can see to the

                                                                                     bottom

 

 

                       BELIZE was beautiful & blue.  We took a tour of the capital city to learn a bit of its people and history.

 

   

We were docked at Cozumel when this other ship came and docked along side of us...about 10' away!  It was amazing to watch

                                                                                         from the deck.

 

    

                            On the dock at COZUMEL                                                   On a carriage ride through Cozumel

                         Seeing the city 5 years ago, it was quite different...it is now a thriving tourist city..no longer the quaint,

ocean-side town with indiginous people, it was now very fast paced and commercial.  We had to travel the back streets to see

                                                                                   any of its "real" people.

 

 

One of the best things in Cozumel is Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville and Carlos & Charlies.  We visited Jimmy Buffets, preferring to 

ease the girls into the wild life of Cozumel...HA.  We ended up at staying until the ship left and having the time of our lives.  Ok, so

               Kaitlin wasn't learning of a different culture or lifestyle...but WAS IT FUN.   "Wasted away in Margaritaville..."

 

 

                                                                            Formal night on board the ship

 

 

                               ..................and I'm thinking THIS was Kailtin's favorite part of the whole cruise.....................................

 

   

After the cruise, we toured Miami and spent the day at the Miami Seaquarium.  They had a manatee rescue there and had some

                                                                manatees in their program for 20 years. 

 

           

                        

                                                            In June, Kaitlin graduated high school. 

 

                                                 

                                She also attended a dental assistant program and graduated in spring.  Now

                                             she's attending UW Milwaukee majoring in pre-dentristry. 

 

                                                     

 In July, Bruce and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.  The time has gone by so quickly.   Good, bad, ups & downs, births,

                          deaths, weddings and leavings...we've been through it all...and I can't wait for the next 25!!!  

 

                                                       

 

                                       This year will also mark our son Jason's and his new wife,Angie's, 1st anniversary. 

 

               came along and we spent 3 days at a bed and breakfast overlooking the Mississippi River. My sister Beth, her

                 husband Paul and their kids Erin and Brian also joined us and stayed next to us in Sadie's log cabin. It was

                   nice being able to see my Dad & Ellen, aunt, cousin and other far-away family members in my childhood

               town again.  We picniced up at Pikes Peak outside of McGregor.  The Mississippi overlook there is gorgeous.

 

          

                        

                                                                            Bruce taking it easy in CANCUN MEXICO                                           

 

 

                

                                                                        Peace, Love and Joy to you in the coming 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've decided to start working again on this blog after much debate.  I was going to shut it down completely but started looking at all the entries of the past couple of years and I just couldn't do it.  So, I'm going to start my 1st entry in over a year with my a few of my son's wedding pictures.  You'll find all my pictures below in the albums section. 

 

Its been 2 months since I've updated this site.  I've been busy, as I'm sure everyone is. 

 

We've been through sad times such as Kaat making her return to her home in Belgium, happy times like when we had Kris and Ariel from Spain stay with us for 3 weeks, worked alot and played even more. 

 

Our little puppy is now a strapping 75 pound "teenager" and is just as naughty as his age would suggest.  Our gardens are starving for rain but Bruce has the tomatoes watered so well they are over my head in height. 

 

Family affairs are starting to get themselves back in order.  I've reconsiled with my Mother and we are back on track to having a good Mother/daughter relationship.   

 

Last but not least, August 3rd, Kaat will be returning to us for a month and a half visit before she starts college.  We are excited beyond words and plan on savoring every moment with her.  Unfortunately, she will have to leave before Jason's wedding to start school.

It took us 8 hours of driving to get him, but here he is...our new Pyrenees puppy.  He's 4 months old and 40 pounds of floppy, sweet fluff.  We are trying to see if he's best suited as a house dog or an outside dog.  So far he's made himself at home in our livingroom.  I hope he sleeps through the night.  UPDATE:  He did NOT sleep through the night.  We had to get up early to move my son into his new apartment so the added pressure of my sad little guy whining and barking made sleep impossible.    I have a 4:00 am wake up call to go to a horse show so I'm really hoping he is happier tonight.

 

   

Yesterday at 1:00 in the afternoon, me, the hubby, my son Jesse and a bunch of friends spent the day at Wisconsin's 16th annual Micro-brewery Beerfest.  Since I'm more of a wine drinker and have never acquired a taste for beer, I was deemed designated driver early on.  I might have been one out of 2500 that saw the ground clearly by 3:00 in the afternoon that day!

 

It was quite an experience though.  The vendors were swamped early on and the lines were sometimes 20-30 people thick.  Samples were doled out into a mug which you pre-paid for.  I thought the "samples" would be small amouts to start with, but they were almost full glasses.   Homemade soda was provided to designated drivers like myself.  2 bands played in each of the 2 buildings that the 25 beer vendors were in and there were about 50 different types of beer to sample such as Mustache Ride Pale Ale, Headless Man, Oscars Chocolate Oatmeal Stout & Bitter Woman to name a few of the original ones.  Our local brewery, Calumet Brewery, had the most people trying to sample their beers.   

 

Around 5:00 the fun really began.  Everyone knew there was only 1 hour left to try the beer so it became a rush to get their mugs filled one last time.  The long day of drinking took its tole on most everyone and people were either singing, hugging total strangers as they passed or sitting in their chairs watching the grass grow.  There were no unhappy people there that day! 

 

 

Today we had the loveliest sprintime snow.  Huge snowflakes were falling and I grabbed my camera and a very willing Kaat to record the day.

 

 

This past weekend was my husband's birthday, and since he gets pretty much anything he wants on that day, the kids and I spent the day trying to make it special for him.  We started off by driving down to Menomonie Falls to spend the day with our oldest son, Jason.  After making the short drive to Milwaukee and eating at our favorite restaurant, we took the whole family to the PBR at the Bradley Center.  PBR, or Professional Bull Riders, is one of our favorite shows to watch together and at a recent hockey game we saw that they were coming to Milwaukee!  And on the same weekend that my hubby's birthday is.  The kids are NOT big fans of bullriding but because its Dad's birthday, they reluctantly agreed to go with us.  It ended up being alot of fun and the kids (who won't admit it if you ask) had a great time too.  We saw some cowboys such as Cory Rasch and Corey Navarre & some awesome bulls such as Shallow Hal and Cat Daddy. 

      

I'm sitting here battlling the flu so I thought "what a great time to update my blog with all the stuff I've neglected"

 

So, without further ado...

 

February 4th, my sister Beth and I made the 6 hour trek to Minnesota to visit my dad.  His wife was going on a week-long trip to the Grand Caymans and we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do a little daughter/father bonding.  The trip out was long but Beth and I had a good time talking about everything under and sun and the trip actually went quicker because of it.  We had nothing planned once we got to Dad's house but just spending time with each other was all we needed.  Unfortunately, Beth came down with a nasty bug 2 days into the trip and we decided to head home a day early. 

This is the 3 of us in about 1975...                                             And today....

 

                  

 

 

Mid Febrary, Kaat & Kaitlin went to their highschool Sweetheart Hop.  My daughter had to crown the new Sweetheart Hop Queen because she had won the title last year.  Both girls looked beautiful.

 

    

  

Last summer I talked a bit about my cat Margurite, who got hit by a car.  I talked about her long strunggle to get healthy and her loving personality.  Just last week I was out feeding the horses and I noticed blood all over the stall doors.  I went searched for the source for quite awhile before my little cat came out meowing to me.  She acted just a little off but had the same loud purr she always greeted me with.  After giving her a quick pat on the head I continued looking for the injured animal that left all the blood.  Margurite continued to meow, but it just didn't sound like her normal voice.  I turned back to give Margurite a better look.  After picking her up, I was horrified to see that the back end of my beloved kitty was just covered in blood.  I won't go into detail but we ended up having to put my cat down.  It was so hard knowing how long & hard she had struggled last summer to live but I know it was the right thing to do.  I have no idea what happened to cause her trauma but she never travelled far from home since her car accident so it had to have happened close to the barn.  From where the blood was, my guess is she couldn't get out of the way of a horse laying down and got caught.   RIP kitty.

 

This past weekend my son Jason graduated from Milwaukee School of Engineering with a bachelors in Industrial Engineering.  Thank you to all our family and friends who battled the snow to attend his commencement!!!  It meant so much to Jason and our family that you were there. 

 

I've made an album below with some pictures from the day for all those who couldn't make the trip.

 

CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN, JASON...WE'RE ALL SO PROUD OF YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENT!

                                         

This is the cake Kaat made and decorated in her advanced foods class.  Good thing I took a picture of it so quickly because she was so excited to eat it that within minutes of bringing it home she cut it all into pieces. 

 

UPDATE...

 

Hey there!

Thanks so much for applying to get tattooed at the
Green Bay tattoo
convention this year, and please excuse the delay in
getting back to
you as soon as i would have liked to... its been so
crazy busy lately!

None the less, all the appointment slots have been
taken, and i just
wanted to say thanks for the response.  And hopefully
Ill get to
tattoo you in the future...

I would still love to get a chance to meet you, so
please feel free to
come by and say hi to me at my booth!  Ill be there
Saturday and
Sunday..

My husband Oliver is still taking appointments for
Fri, Sat, and Sunday.  If you are interested in
setting up an appointment with him, you can call his
assistant, Aaron at 214-274-8178


Thanks again for all your support!

Love,
Kat Von D

 

 

For the week since I saw the commercial advertising the fact that one of my favorite artists would be in Green Bay, I've been trying to get an appointment with KAT VON D.  I've dreamed of someday travelling to Florida or California to have the honor of getting a tattoo by her but always thought it was just that, a dream. 

 

Now that she's going to be so close, I've been trying to set something up but haven't even gotten a response yet.  I'm not holding my breath, though.  I've read that even at her permanent site, she's booked 2 years in advance. 

 

 

 

I'm still going to go to the show even if I don't get an appointment.  At the very least I'll get to see her inking other lucky person and maybe get a picture or two. 

 

 

This is a tattoo done by Kat.  Look at the detail.  You can see some of her other work at www.katvond.net

 

 

 

 

We took Kaat to a new Mongolian restaurant, Hu Hot, for her 18th birthday.  The food was great and they brought out a miniature smores making unit when they found out it was her birthday.  It was alot of fun...that is until we got home.  The dog had jumped up onto the table and eaten a side off her birthday cake.  It actually was kind of funny and I knew there wasn't enough chocolate in it to make the dog sick (although it would have been payback).   The rest of the night was spent opening presents, taking pictures and eating what was left of the cake. 

 

 

 

 

My good cyber friend, Tom (or King Tom to everyone who knew him) passed away suddenly in his sleep.  Now, the fact that he died was shock enough, but the fact that it happened 3 MONTHS ago hit me like a brick to the stomach.  I guess we had this "stop in and see me sometime" friendship.  He would pop in to my site about once a week and I'd do the same.  But in the last couple of months it became less and less popping in on my end and if I didn't hear from him first I just "didn't have time" to go visiting.  I'm so sad I didn't take the time to just say HI and how are you on more of a regular basis.  

 

 

 

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ONE AND ALL

 

 

 

Good or bad, my "Kates" got her license today.  I'm happy because it means the end of non-stop driving her around to her work and activities, but sad because it means the end to non-stop driving her around.  What I mean is, we sometimes have our best talks in the car with no one else around and the music on our favorite songs.  I'm happy for she's gaining a whole new freedom but also send her out with a Mother's trepidation.  Be careful my love...

 

Fall in Wisconsin...

 

 

1 week later....

 

This past Thursday, Friday and Saturday our host daughter, Kaat, was in the play Annie Get Your Gun.  The kids did a very good job and we were very proud of Kaat.  She played a couple of parts including a cowgirl and a ballroom dancer. 

 

Here is Kaat and her ballroom dance partner, Ziggy.