Life is crazy, dynamic, and oh so busy!
Although most of our lives revolve around spending time outdoors and heading out on adventures – we’re actually pretty normal people with a lot going on.
We hold regular jobs, live in one location, and juggle everything from meal prep to paying bills and struggling to find that ever-elusive balance between work and play and preparing for our future while still enjoying the present.
Here’s some of the exciting things that we’re up to that you might not see reflected on social media or the blog!
Wedding Planning
By now we’re sure you’ve heard about all the woes and stress of the “covid-bride” and couples trying to plan a wedding in the midst of the pandemic. Although we naively thought that we’d be able to have a “normal” wedding by now when we initially booked our venue 9 months ago, alas, the pandemic and it’s restrictions are still very much enforced. We’re working very hard with our venue and vendors to evaluate our options to still have our day (mostly) as planned.
Our wedding is scheduled for May 2021 and we’re still allllll sorts of up in the air on if we’ll be able to have it as we want or if we’ll have to postpone until 2022. We’re making peace with both scenarios – but are definitely doing everything we can to host our wedding celebration this year! Cross your fingers for us – it’s going to be a crazy and stressful few months!
Cottage Renovations
This past October we purchased our very first house – a tiny two bedroom, 700 square foot cottage located on the river in our hometown. It was a very exciting and unexpected purchase and we joke that we bought our second home before we bought our first since we’re still living in our apartment three hours away.
The cottage is kind of a fixer-upper and the interior has not been updated for 20+ years, so most of our weekends and free time are spent up at the cottage completing a plethora of home improvement projects. Our largest undertaking was completely replacing a rotten section of the roof in addition to a ridiculous amount of yardwork to earn our river-view and maintain the old oak trees on our property.
Now that the exterior is in order, we’re focusing most of our attention on the interior – painting wood paneling, selecting new flooring, a complete bathroom remodel, and refurbishing the kitchen.
Like most first-time homeowners, we’re quickly discovering that everything takes A LOT longer than anticipated and is A LOT more work!
Training
In order to stay fit and motivated (and force ourselves to go outside in brutal Wisconsin winter) we both signed up for races in the Milwaukee Marathon in April.
Travis will be running his first ever full marathon and Stephanie will be running her second half marathon. Although the Milwaukee Marathon was officially postponed until October, we’ve decided to run it as scheduled anyway since we’d already dedicated months to our training. TBD on if we’ll run the actual race in October or not – if it’s able to be executed as an in-person event.. we’ll probably end up running again just for the party and free beer afterwards! 🙂
After Travis wraps the marathon, he’ll quickly transition to cycling shape as bike season begins and he prepares for the Lake Superior Gravity Series and two high-profile 100 mile mountain bike races this summer – the Lutsen Ninety-Niner and the Leadville 100. It’s safe to say, there’s going to be many, many miles put on our bikes this summer!
Fun Stuff
It’s not all work around here – we’re really looking forward to the upcoming summer months in Wisconsin. For those of you not from the Midwest, a Wisconsin summer is the most coveted time of year. From swimming to bonfires, grilling out and spending time drinking on patios not much can beat a solid Wisconsin summer (which is why we think most of the population muscles through the tough winter).
We’re looking forward to spending our weeknights cycling along the lakefront in Milwaukee, enjoying takeout picnics from local restaurants, and drinking a few cold pints with friends at our favorite beer gardens. On the weekends we’ll travel across the state and country attending weddings of close friends and family (we’re definitely at that age!), camping along the beautiful shores of Lake Superior, and spending time relaxing and boating at friends’ cabins.
And that’s all for now!
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