New & Exciting !!!

ALL THINGS ITALIAN
ART WALK
FAIRFIELD,IOWA
JUNE, 6 2009

Rick’s on a hunting trip in Colorado so I thought why not hang out with some friends after work. I was so excited to be going to my first ever Art Walk in Fairfield. A little background info on Art Walk -

Fairfield 1st Fridays Art Walk started five years ago as a way for people to discover local artists’ hidden “treasures”. Since then, area residents have gathered on the first Friday evening of each month to learn, appreciate, enjoy, socialize and shop together on the Fairfield Square. As the word has spread, the crowds have grown. During each summer month this year, over 2,500 people sampled new foods, listened and danced to new sounds and participated in a variety of activities. With culturally diverse themes ranging from “All Things Italian” to the “Bark in the Park”, Fairfield put together three summer festivals which also gave visitors an opportunity to interact with Fairfield’s growing artistic community.
To make sure this monthly signature event remains an important part Fairfield’s economic community throughout the entire year, the newly revitalized Board of Directors is finding new ways to contribute to the success of the art galleries, vendors and downtown shops while attracting participation from the entire Fairfield community and surrounding areas.
With their continued growth has come a desire from the Fairfield business community to get involved and help make the Fairfield 1st Fridays Art Walk an even greater success. With advice from top business leaders, a new Art Walk corporate sponsorship program has become available. Now the opportunity exists for a company to financially sponsor a specific Art Walk, but also its employees to volunteer to help coordinate the implementation for that event as part of their service and civic engagement.
“We are so thrilled so many businesses want to be a part of this wonderful monthly Fairfield celebration.” says Janet Joyce, the new President of the Fairfield 1st Fridays Art Walk Board.
If you have questions about how you can be a part of what’s happening at the Fairfield 1st Fridays Art Walk, contact us at our new offices at 109 E Burlington (just off the East side of the square) or call us at 641-233-8883.
This article was taken from http://fairfieldartwalk.org/ please read more.

SO last night was All Things Italian – WOW, first I need to say oops to Weight Watchers. I love Italian food and it was everywhere !!! The lasagna was sooooo good ! I did try a canoli and anise cookies but wasn't crazy about either. Entertainment everywhere as well as tons of camera shooting the event. They have a photography contest that pays over $200 in cash prizes. I have to say if you have never been to Art Walk in Fairfield and live close enough to go, take the time and do it !!! You will not be disappointed.

Busy weekend

What a weekend this was.

Gina & Louie and Rick & I went to Madison, Wisconsin for a deer/turkey expo at the Alliant Energy Center. This is the guys trip so they made all the arrangements, well except for reserving the rooms !

We took off Thursday evening after work with a "go with the flow" plan for Thursday night since we only made reservations for Saturday & Sunday. We got to Dubuque and decided to eat. So we grab the GPS'S yes that's correct we had ours and Gina brought theirs ( to see which one was more accurate ) really now, they are going to be the same or at least pretty darn close. So back to the journey, we typed in restaurants, wanting steak we typed in steak. Now we are riding around the not so safe streets of Dubuque looking for all we found on the GPS. We were going further & further away from town and it was looking a little creepy, were their drug runners there, a street of convicts, who know, let's get the heck back on the road. We drove on to Platteville before finally pulling over. Now we have sat in the car for a little over 3 hours and I have to stretch and am really getting hungry. By this time it is about 9, time to look for a room and get some rest. Yeah , right rest with the guys ! Are you nuts !! We ate supper, got a room to split for the night ( save more, spend more shopping ) and I was out. By the way this is the first night since surgery that I slept in a bed ! Oh my did I do a lot of tossing & turning.

Got up Friday morning, with the phone ringing, it was Trent, Gina & Louie future son-in-law. Calling to see where to put the key, OMG he was coming up later tonight why not wait. This phone call already had Louie & Rick planning how to get him back for this. He's in trouble !

Back to the story- we were leaving the hotel when we noticed a swan nesting so here I go, out with the camera to get some pictures. I looked back , the guys were saying go closer ( while they were laughing and holding Gina's camera) so I thought I was close enough. I snapped a few shots and turned around before I got attacked by a hiding male swan ! On to breakfast ( which I chose healthy ) then hit the road. It is Madison or bust. We got there, went to the room, then headed out to get some snacks and beer. We went to Sam's Club and that is when the Weight Watchers thing slipped right out of my mind. Have you ever been to a Sam's ? They are cooking up something in every corner and they had the BEST cheesecake ever ! Seriously now it was tasty ! We went back to the room, put away groceries then headed down to the show. They guys were in awe, this was a lot bigger than the Des Moines show that we always go to. We walked around for about 4 hours looking at everything and I mean everything. Oh yeah I forgot to mention they have snacks there to. Another strike on the weight watchers plan. Have you ever seen the commercial about WW - the little orange monster looking thing, well I think that creature was with me all weekend. Ok, back on track, are you bored yet ? Well it gets better so stick around. Take a bathroom break and hurry back……..ok here we go. We go back to the hotel for happy hour. Yep, from 5:30-7 it's free beer, wine and snacks. MORE things I shouldn't have !! Oh well, this is a special occasion right ? After that the guys took off to go back to the show and Gina and I made a beeline for the room. We are staying across from each other so it was pretty neat to just cross the hall for a visit. I made about 5 trips over to her room as we were trying to figure out what we were doing for supper. Remember we had snacked all day and bought lunch meat but that didn't even sound good so we ordered pizza ! Man am I going to pay on Thursday when I have to weigh in ! The guys came back we ate then we went across the hall to play LCR

I bought it on Ebay for 6 bucks. ( had to throw in the word bucks, since we are at a deer show for this ) Needless to say I lost several bucks ! And so did Rick as he was using my bucks too !! Bedtime - nite see ya in the morning!

Saturday - time to get up and go down for breakfast. Trent & Megan had got there around 11 or 12 so they were still a little pooped, not to mention that they were woke up by the alarm going off at 4:30 AM. Remember me telling you that Trent had called our room at 6:30, this was his payback. Rick & Louie set the alarm !! We ate, they the guys went to the show and us gals went shopping. But first I wanted to go to the zoo although Gina wasn't that interested in going there, she ended up having a pretty good time. I think that she snapped as many (if not more) pictures than I did ! We hit the mall and was wore out by the time we got back to the room. ( yes I'm getting tired of typing so here's were it gets shorter ) Got back, got ready for happy hour, met up with my Aunt Sue & cousins with their girlfriends and drank some more. We all went to eat supper, minus Aunt Sue she was not feeling well so she headed home. We took 2 cars to meet up at the Avenue Bar & Grill for supper. We are finally going to get that steak that we wanted in Dubuque. Supper was great but the service, not so much ! I think the waitress felt the tension :) she apologized about 4 times for the confusion. Oh well , we won't be back anyway. Trent was chased down in the parking lot for leaving the wrong end of the receipt on the table, he accidently picked up the signed copy. Now back to the hotel for some more LCR playing. I want to try to win back my bucks ! On the way back we drove around Madison with our tour guide Tina ( Jeff's GF) we were actually looking for somewhere to buy beer. In Madison they don't sell it after (:00 and it was almost 10. We found a place and was back on track. Got back to the hotel played LCR and yes I won some of my bucks back ! Whew, I'm really tired. Nite, it's off to bed.

Got up Sunday, ate breakfast, drove towards home, stopped at Dick's Sporting Good and Harbor Freight ( it was the guys weekend ya know ) then off to moms to drop off Gina & Louie. I'm exhausted and had to get home to do laundry and get my pictures uploaded to Flickr.

That was a good weekend and a nice trip out of town. Next weekend it's a family thing with Easter, egg hunt and more eating. This time I will do much better !!



I bet I walked 50 miles.



My Ebay purchase came so I will get that picture frame done soon and post a picture if it. I will leave you with a nice little quote that hits home since I did just eat all weekend.

Focus - Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.

Happy Monday everyone !!