The Great Wisconsin Cheese Graduation

We took a little vacation for a few days in my hometown of Little Chute, Wi. Instead of documenting one day we squeezed all 5 into 2 posts.

I have an unhealthy devotion to Kwik Trip donuts. As long as we stop by our favorite gas station (the gas is hardly the reason) I need to get a long john. It's just un-American not to.


Other than gas station food, one of my other road trip obsessions is drive-by photography. I usually open my window, stick my head out like a dog and take a quick image. This was my favorite moment from the ride down.

We didn't have time to eat before Blake's graduation. Scott grabbed a can of (imitation) SpaghettiO's and ate it on the way.

There's just something off about generic SpagettiO's.  But I thought it would be funny to walk into a graduation with the can.

Blake's graduation was quite exciting...wait, scratch that. It was interesting. One of the salutatorians stood in front of the projector during their speech, projecting his noggin onto the screen. I would post that pic, but I kind of felt bad for the kid.


Brooke's mom love's fixing her children's clothing.




And Brooke likes to stay more still than the rest of her siblings. Did someone say beauty shot?

We went home afterwards for some pizza and beer.

Blake is very excited to be done with high school.

Very excited.

We brought Peanut along so he could play with his..ugh..uncle (I think we call them cousins) Jaspurr? He's the only cat I have ever seen him get along with and not hiss at.  I still don't understand why cats get along with some and not others.

We headed out to Cheesefest Friday night for some cheap beer and music.

I was miffed by the fact that they were serving Budweiser at the Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival. Do they have no loyalty? 

Apparently I like to point at rides after a few drinks.

For $20 you could get nine drinks. We planned on splitting it up between Friday and Saturday, but for some reason we decided to drink them all (except one) in one night.

We really got into the cover band that played the main stage. You should have seen us. I think we're both getting to point in life where we're not trying to act cool, but just having fun with life. A few shitty beers always helps the cause.

Afterwards we headed to George Webb's for some cheesy goodness.

I had pancakes. I really don't think they needed two cheese sauces. When we got our bill that goop cost as much as my "blueberry" cakes. 

Saturday morning I dragged Scott to the Cheesefest parade. I love parades, especially small town ones. You know the ones that are basically community bands and Knights of Columbus/Lions floats.

That's Cevonne's house. Apparently Brooke always sits in front of her house during the many parades of Little Chute. (Apparently Scott thinks we went to another LC parade in the past. That never happened.) This time we couldn't drag our preggers BFF out of the house. So we enjoyed the parade as a twosome.

Blake met up with us later.

Brooke and I passed my Nikon back and forth, so we got a nice variety of shots. I'll let you guess which ones are mine and which are hers.

 

I ran into really good friends of mine from high school. It's kind of crazy how you see people everyday and then you drift apart and go 7 years without seeing them again.  

 We went and hung with Cevonne after the parade. I snapped this shot of her younger brother.

 We chatted with Cevonne while Blake played with their dogs.

Brooke's family on her dad's side is quite large. They all come over to her grandma's house and clean the house the weekend of Cheesefest. I came for the pizza. At some point I dropped my camera nicking my new lens, but not damaging it. That was scary. 

After lunch we headed over to Cheesefest again to check out the cheese carving contest going on. 

The guy above is supposedly the king of cheese carving. I also think he may be the king of cheese eating. (I kid.)

I handed Brooke my camera as we crossed the canal. I wish I had taken that photo!

After we meandered through the park we ended up at a cheese tasting. Blake made a crack about Wisconsin being the only place in the world where there are cheese lines instead of bread lines. I'd have to add that in Milwaukee the cheese lines turn into beer lines.

  At this point (I never thought I would say this) I was getting sick of cheese.

The heat and humidity definitely did not mix with dairy products.

To be continued...