Nerdy parent alert- car full of family to celebrate Lauren

Lunch on the lake in Lake Delton- beautiful day. John ACTUALLY allowed us to go OFF the beaten path more than 1 mi off the freeway- which is the usual protocol on road trips. But luckily we had some time to spare and John had a conference call for work he needed to take. We win!

Lake House Dock and Grill

Ellsworth Cheese curds- sooo gooey and fried and good. They were literally all stuck and clumped together.

Julia’s strawberry 🍓 crush

Pretty painful drive but we finally make it by 5 pm

Drop girls at Lauren’s apt and Dad and Jen head to hotel. Need to get to Lauren’s exhibit!

Arts for All campaign- completely thought up designed and curated by Lauren. This was a semester long project and her final grade. Also did a website and video.

Throwback to a journal / vacation where Lauren’s invention was a “car wash” where you could experience all the seasons, but this would be inside a dealership before purchasing a new car. Again- my stellar artwork in action.

Everyone made fun of my poor art skills

Interesting building w gargoyles and what looks like chimneys- but likely architecture - but I have a bad pic of it.

Rotary ROTC The Armory Building building built in 1886

Sunset besties and beauties

Finish night at Taco Loco- fast good Mexican in Dinkytown. Drop girls at the apt - where we all share a mystery Box beer from top 10 liquors- $10 for 24 assorted beers and seltzers- college bargain!

Outdoor part and then inside was a fireplace with a seating area- and a sauna and changing shower rooms. Coffee and tea too. It was a little nice relaxation before the big day.

Lauren and Tess hired Lauren’s colleague- who does professional photos to take photos of them the week earlier.

Experienced three seasons of weather over the 4days/3 nights we spent in Minnieapple.

Wed was almost 90 and humid

Thurs was tornado warning and SUPER windy and rainy.

Fri was showers all day and mid 50s and cloudy

Sat was cloudy at 51

2:26 pm- Tornado warning issued- literally as we were waiting to be allowed to enter theater at 2:30 for a 3:30 ceremony. But wait! Now we were told to evacuate to the basement parking garage!!

Video of evacuation to garage

Goldy is everywhere!

WELL- now we don’t need to do pics post ceremony! 😂

We are released at 2:55 pm from the garage to begin entering the auditorium. In our seats at 3:15 pm- but we’ll see what time this gig actually starts now…miraculously amid the chaos- graduation is only delayed 15 minutes. I’m impressed! Oh what fun all of the peeps running graduation must have been having….i feel their stress as a planner AND former evacuation warden at H-D- 😂although we only ever had drills we never had a real life incident.

Despite the chaos- they managed to start only 15 minutes off schedule!

\240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 Video! And she did it!

2600 capacity full

Northrup Hall window

Where’s Waldo?

Wooohoooooo

The wind was NO joke post ceremony

More wind

The big chair

Sparkling champagne toast before dinner

Goldy!

Dinner at Zelo was amazing !

Italian food- place was packed to the brim !

Trio of yumminess

Halibut Risotto w cauliflower

Rigatoni with house made sauce - all pasta is made in-house

Pizza! Girls also had lasagna.

Sleep tight little grad

Girls got breakfast at Tony’s in Dinkytown

John and Jen go to Mill City Museum- actually pretty cool and a great building. Girls veg at apartment - will regroup together at 3:30 pm

I designed a cereal box!

Views from 8th floor of the old mill

You could draw pictures and then hang it in museum.

Dough Boy!!

Beautiful art glass

I just think this is funny

Tower of Terror!! OK not really but it was a big ASS elevator that we rode in and it went up and down to various floors to show what the mill used to look like. It was pretty cool- but I couldn’t take pictures once we were inside of anything we saw, which was lame because it was pretty cool.

Flour Tower history

Walking back from the Mill City Museum- John had to stop and watch this truck make a right turn where he shouldn’t be turning - we literally had to watch for like 3 minutes…

Headflyer Brewing

\240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 \240 Time for Whirlygig!

Art and Music festival in the arts district

What a great event! It’s just too bad the weather was not ideal, but we made it work.

The studio spaces were never ending and I could have spent soo much money! So many great artists and formats.

Beer and food trucks outside

A score from Vampire Vintage shop

Nice purse….NOT the one I bought 😂

Jen and Lauren found things in the same shop- clothes for Lauren and a purse for me

We parted ways once again - the girls were off to a party bus Lauren’s friend rented.

Jen and Dad went off in search of pizza that I would just not shut up about- I wanted pizza!

Pizza Place

Our first impressions of the restaurant were not favorable. The staff looked really put off by us for some reason and not hospitable. Sooooo

Like the local magazine says- Pivot! We did! To the restaurant next door. We are sure glad we did because it was excellent!!

Turns out he was on our fave show- WI Foodie! And we remember watching the episode. And the owner/chef HIMSELF was in the flesh at the restaurant. We were awestruck lol

Girls just wanna have fun!

Lunch at Red Cow- amazing burgers and fries

Check this out! It was put putt putting along

Drive home was NOT painful for once! Apparently leaving on a Saturday at 3 pm is the way to go. Sun finally comes out again after being cloudy for three days in Minniapple.