Krystal~ A workin momma

I totally forgot my camera last night when i went to work so I just pulled some pics off the good ole Internet of my work.  Which really do this place no justice, especially now when its all decked out for Christmas.
The building I work in was built in 1908 by a fellah named BJ Wentker and is located in the heart of Burlington, WI. He had a business here called BJ Wentkers Triangle Buffet back in the 1900's.
The Bar is AMAZING! It was bought in Chicago at the World Trade Fair in 1896 and stored until built in here. The building is restored to its original beauty by a previous owner that my boss used to work for. The bar, floors, walls and tin ceiling are all original and the previous owner won awards because of his work. We even have a cigar lighter from the 1900's screwed into the bar. Great conversational piece! My current boss took over the place 12 years ago.
We have a full bar and 3 dining rooms. One in the bar area with high top tables and another 2 in the back with the lower dining tables. We have a total of 19 tables for serving and our most popular night is Friday, for our fish frys! We have everything from Steak to Lobster on the menu and prices range from $16-34 a plate. Fish frys are AYCE and are only $10/12 Cod or Perch.
I love the ambiance here. Many think its haunted and I would agree. I have had my fair share of sightings. I have a little different out look on "ghosts" or spirits, if you must. There is definitely some energy here and I get a glimpse of some of it late at night, when I am all alone closing this place. Sounds exciting aeh?
I have been bar tending since I was about 19. I can everything from a sidecar, or vesper martini to a twisted funky monkey and every martini in the books and TONS of old fashioned drinks. I make lots of Manhattans here. I am a professional at wine and craft beers as well.  Total wine and beer snob!
 BJ's is one of the higher scaled dining establishments  in the area (aside from the Grand where Korin is, that is where i used to work until they screwed me over! or any other place in Lake Geneva.)
I have been here since March 2011 and am not sure how much longer I will be staying. My boss has an alcohol issue and hides his drinking from us, but not very well might I add. He lost his wife, kid, home and I imagine eventually this business. He is a phenomenal chef however and pretty laid back kinda hippie dude.
I usually work Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. 4/5pm-11/2am depending on the business. Its been slow this week, which is not helping my Christmas shopping! We are hosting a free dinner this Sunday for the needy of the area. We all volunteer our time and serve people all day. We have 408 people signed up for this years dinner!!!! I am bringing Brinan and having her help out with dishes and bussing. It is a non-alcohol event (besides the employees really) so I will be serving all day as well.
Here are some pics of the place.  (I may have to take more tonight if i remember, the Christmas decorations are just stunning.)

The Building

A Cool Painting some one did of the place, We have this hanging in one of the dining rooms.

Here is the bar i get to work behind and clean everyday. That is Josh on the phone over there. lol!

We have some of the BEST tappers in the area which we change out with seasons. We have 12 taps going at all times and not one is a domestic crap beer!

This is one of the strangest table in the whole building, I always seat it last unless I have a rude mean crappy 2 top that deserves nothing better, muahahahaha! I have the POWER!

Well I am off to finish my laundry and cleaning so I can head here for the night!

Krystal~ My Humble Abode

Welcome to our humble abode. Nestled on a lovely culdesac in the centre of Rochester WI just steps from the Burlington bike trail you will find the Kayes. We scored this place in September of 2009 for only $950 a month. ( I so hate throwing that much away on rent!!!) We planned on buying but DH has found it difficult to keep a job. So here we have what we throw about 11grand a year away on! Hey....at least we have some cool neighbours!

Please excuse the laundry baskets and messy house....I am not lazy...just highly motivated to do nothing lately..or just do it so slow, it only looks as though nothing was done cause the mess just caught up to me.

 The Man cave part 1. I love having this added space. We even have a space heater for the long drawn out winter months. Most will gather here to smoke, so it stinks like donkey a$$.

 Where I make all the magic! ;) This kitchen is cool, we have a pass through breakfast bar into the living room. I love the open concept of this place! DH is there helpin DS brush his teeth.....that is right man...WORK! ha ha ha, just kiddin'.....kinda. : P

 My dining area.

 Our living room and DHs flat screen TV. If it wasnt for black Friday sales last year I would never have bought such nannypoo. But DH now can not live with out it!

 The other half of the living area. This is where I am sitting now! And spend many hours chatting it up on FB with all you lovely mommas!

 This is where I wish the magic happened! ;) J/K It sure does! We bought this bed set when we first moved in and broke it New Years Eve last year......cheap stuff I tell ya! You can see the frame cracked on the lower right of the pic. Don't shop at Colders, they have those "deals" that will lure you in, but really they just sell cheap stuff and mark it up so it LOOKS expensive then tell you that you get 1/2 off or the same amount back to buy other cheap crap! We totally fell for it and bought new bedroom sets AND a whole new living room when we moved here.

 DD's room. TOTAL pig stye! Just by looking at it you can smell the stench of teenage angst billowing out! PeeeeeeeeWeeeeee!

 Here is DS's Room. It is GINORMOUS!!! We have a full couch and over sized chair in here, a bed, a TV, a basketball hooop, train table and a rocking chair. This is where I lock all the children who dare enter my house.

 The other side of the ginormous play room/DS's room. Love the ledge, its where all the kids jump off of into piles of blankets on the floor. Hours and hours of fun! No broken bones as of yet.... FX!

 Here is DHs pride and joy. His Man cave pt 2. This is where he makes all the racket that leaves the neighbours banging on the walls and overdosing on ambien every night.

 And my drums just shoved into the corner...... we keep the music and fun all in the utility room! genius!

Here is our back yard off our deck. I wish I had stairs down from this deck. If a kid was to fall in the canal Id totally break my leg jumping off of this and could never save anyone. sigh....still trying to talk the land lords into letting us build one. Even that explanation didn't work! @_@ I love having the canal though. We have a canoe under this lovely deck that we spend many days in the summer drifting up and down this stinky green canal! Ahhhh the life!
We spent the last 2 years landscaping this back yard. It used to be so dense with weeds and crap you couldnt even see the canal. The garden in the center there used to be a glob of raspberry bushes with a pile of rocks in the middle. We cleared that out last year and added mulch. there is a Mulberry and Lilac bush in there too. WE also added 2 peonys and 2 ferns. It looks SO MUCH nicer in the spring and summer!
Well we are off to spend money we don't have on Christmas gifts in hopes I'll make at least a 1/4 of that back tonight in tips! Ill also be taking pics of work to share with you all tomorrow!! Chow for now~ <3

Krystal Kaye~ Little Bio

I totally forgot till today that its my go on the "Day In The Life" Blog! WOW time FLEW!
I will give you a little run down on my history and through out this week Ill also give you the grand tour of my humble abode and maybe even a video peek into my daily life later this week! YAY! Oh so exciting, I know! ;)

ME

Well, It started a long long time ago when two horny rabbit like hippies with 4 kids already popped a wee little one out in Jan 14th, 1983 at a whopping 5lbs 6ozs. Both my twin siblings weighed more than me at birth! I was and still am the runt of the litter of the 9 kids my parents raised. We grew up in a town called Waterford. We were infamous really. The trouble makers of the area and the slew of children, always in some kind of group with smoke billowing out of the centre of it. We grew up on a desolate peninsula off of the Fox River. It was a vacation type of area where 75% of the home owners were summer only residents and resided in Illinois. We had quite a hay day rummaging the homes during the winter months. :blush:

I still live in the same little ole town, well one over. An extension of the one I grew up in really. I now live in Rochester WI. A mere 5 miles from where I grew up and only a block from the home my husband grew up in.

My husband and I met in 1997 and have been together since. We did split however for a few years after HS while he experimented with drugs and I experimented with ...well, other men......
Here is a great vintage shot of my husband and I the summer of 99 with our 5 month old daughter Briana.

   Family in 1999

We got back together and had our little Eli in 2007 and decided to marry just a few weeks before we were due. Here is a couple shots of what looks like a whale and crack head getting married. ( I was severely preggo and DH was in the height of his graves disease and I WEIGHED MORE THEN HIM!)



We have came a long way since then..... Here is us now!

I met you lovely ladies not long after Eli was born when we conceived Stella, the first conceived with in our marriage. I spent that whole year and pregnancy getting to know you all and made some concrete strong friends.
Here is the last belly pic of my pregnancy with Stella and her, my darling little angel.

I now work at a fine dining establishment in Burlington, WI. Just a town over (our address is under Burlington because our town is that small we don't have a mail delivery out of our P.O.)

I will fill you in tomorrow on the work stuff. I have off tonight!!! WooT WooT!

I am planning on spending the evening helping my neighbor make cupcakes for her darling little boys 3rd B-day!

And for the last pic a wonderful shot of my family!



Lucas' Birth Day and First Birthday

Today my baby boy is 1. I'm a bit sad about that. How did that happen? How did this year fly by so fast?

So what went down one year ago????

I was due November 12, 2010. That was a Friday. I worked all day like I usually do. I got home a little after 5 pm. Eric and Taylor had to run out somewhere to a store. I was going to start fixing dinner. At 6, I started feeling sick to my stomach. Great! Just what I need. A stomach bug. The thought of throwing up while 9 months pregnant made me want to cry. So I called Eric and told him to pick them up something on their way home since I was feeling too awful to cook. I couldn't believe how fast it came on. On my way to lay down for a bit, my midwife Rosie texted me and asked if I felt like anything could be going on. She was going out to dinner with some friends and was going to have a glass of wine if it didn't feel like I was doing anything. I told her I was sick to my stomach but that was it. Other than that I didn't feel like anything was going to happen so I told her she might as well drink an entire bottle of wine.

By 9 pm my stomach wasn't bothering me too much and I never did end up getting sick but I had a raging sinus headache thanks to my lovely allergies. Eric did too. We both took a couple Benadryl (he chased his with a couple beers) and hoped for a good nights sleep.

By 10 pm Eric was sound asleep in bed. I was finishing up some laundry and started having mild contractions. So, I started some light cleaning and another load of laundry thinking they may just fade away and I could go to bed. By 10:30 they were 3 minutes apart. 15 minutes later they were spacing out. I texted Rosie to let her know and told her to rest and I would let her know when things picked up. I also called my sister Sarah who was driving 2 hours for the birth so she would be ready to go if this was it. After many trips to the bathroom ( I have to pee every 10 mins when in labor) at 11:30 there was some bloody show. Ok, this is it! The real deal!!!!!

I called my sister and told her since it was late already, she should come down now and could sleep when she gets here vs driving down at 3 am. I woke up Eric and told him but he was so messed up from the Benadryl and beer that I let him sleep a bit longer because he was out of it. I in true Kellie fashion, can not sit still and rest while in labor. So I continued to clean and do laundry. Up and down the basement stairs a few times and things really go going. I had made and froze a batch of beef stew for after I had the baby. For some reason, that sounded like something good and hearty to eat after giving birth. So I got it out of the freezer and into the crock pot.

Eric got up around 12:30 and started setting up the birth pool. My labors aren't usually that long and we wanted to be ready. I called Rosie at that time to let her know I was moving along and that she should come in a couple hours.

Sarah arrived around 2 am and Rosie around 2:30. Once Rosie got here and got set up things cruised right along. Lucas' head was cocked wrong in my pelvis and had been for a while. I had SPD and had been seeing a chiro for it. During contracitons I was doing side lunges on the bottom step of my stair case to get his head shifted. That was fun... Rosie is a licensed massage therapist and she is very handy to have around during labor. I sat and bounced on the ball while she put pressure in the right spots on my hips.

We sat around laughing and joking a lot. By 6:30 I had to pee again for the 100th time before getting in the birth tub and I had a bulging sack. When I stood up from the toilet, my water broke. This entire time, Ethan was sleeping in our room which is off the living room where we were. He never moved even when we went in there twice so I could be checked. Right after my water broke, I was stepping into the tub when my bedroom door flies open and Ethan is standing there and says, "What are you doing?" We all laughed at the expression on his face. My sister took him in the kitchen and fed him breakfast. After he ate he came to hang out with me. He would go from the tv where his cartoons were on back to the tub to talk to me or rub my arms during a contraction. He went back and forth like that for a while. Then he realized he could stand on the couch and look at the tv then turn his head to see me and remained that way looking back and forth.

After some moving around trying to get comfortable (who can really get comfy while having a baby?) and really struggling to get Lucas' head out I finally found that I felt best perched on the edge of the seat in the tub. With both my other kids I only pushed a total of 4 or 5 times max and they were out. I really struggled with Lucas' big noggin. Then finally.... There he was! According to my sister, it was a full 3 to 4 minutes before I even looked to see if he was a boy or girl. lol...

My beautiful boy was born at 7:11am on November 13, 2010. He weighed 9 lbs 8 oz and was 22 inches long. It was my hardest birth but the best one too. I almost, almost wish I could do it again.

See my post on the board for the link to the album of his birth pictures along with the password to access it.

****************************************************************

Now, one year later....

We love turtles so we did a turtle themed birthday part for little man. It was loosely themed because we did not go all out.

I made cupcakes and had Ethan, my nephew and my friend's son decorate them. As you can see from the pics, they were heavy handed with the sprinkles.

I through together a hastily made turtle cupcake cake. I'm actually really crafty but it was a last minute thing and I did it as guests were arriving. hehe.... I was just going to have only the cupcakes the kids did.

I was going to just give Lucas a cupcake to smash but made a small cake for him and Ethan picked out what color frosting to put on it and he decorated it. He was so proud of himself! He even said it had to be on his Yo Gabba Gabba plate to match the frosting.





Lucas was all over the place! He runs everywhere with his walker.





We had a massively full house and he got a lot of gifts. He was a big fan of the cards too.





He got a new and improved walker! No more old cheap hand me down from his big brother. This one has all kinds of fun on it. I can't tell you how many toes he killed pushing that thing all over the house.





Cake time!









Family pic...



That's my boy!





Happy Birthday baby boy!




Thanks for taking the time to read the blogs I posted. I didn't have time to do one each day and my life is dull anyway. There's not much to write about other than my job and housework.

I really enjoy reading about each of you can can't wait for more blogs to be posted!

You all mean the world to me and I'm so glad I found you!

History lesson

I'm a bit of a history buff so get ready for a history lesson. Some of the info I post will be copied and pasted from the web since I am too lazy to type it out myself. I am also posting lots of links to check out since there are such neat places around here that are interesting.

Norwalk, Ohio has a population of around 16,000 people. It's got a small town feel without feeling too small.

http://www.norwalkoh.com/default.html

This is where my town is located.

This area I live in is called The Fire Lands.

History of Norwalk, OH
	On July 11, 1779, Norwalk, Connecticut was burned by the British Tories under Governor Tryon. A committee of the General Assembly estimated the losses to the inhabitants at $116,238.66. Later, our federal government gave an area in the Western Reserve of Ohio as compensation for those established losses.
	On May 30, 1800, the United States ceded the land titles to the "fire sufferers" and the representatives of the Reserve transferred the political jurisdiction to the general government. The Indian title was extinguished by treaty on July 4, 1805, on payment of $18,916.67; and in 1806, 13 men arrived to make the first survey of the Firelands.
	On November 9, 1808, a group of prominent citizens from Ridgefield, Norwalk, New Haven, Greenwich, and Fairfield met at the courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut, as the Board of Directors of the Proprietors of the half-million acres of land lying south of Lake Erie, called the "Sufferers Land." They passed a resolution naming many of the townships in this area known as the "Firelands of Ohio."
	Between 1806 and 1810, many families made the trip to look over land they had purchased in the "Firelands." During the War of 1812, because of the fear of British and Indian raids, settlement of the Huron County area came almost to a standstill. However, in 1815, Platt Benedict of Danbury, Connecticut visited and examined the present site of Norwalk. He returned to Danbury and purchased 1,300 acres of land with an eye toward establishing a town.
	In July of 1817, Benedict returned to Norwalk with his family and immediately built a house. This was the first permanent residence established within the limits of Norwalk Village. In May of 1818, the county seat was successfully removed from Avery, Ohio to Norwalk, and by 1819 a census showed a population of 109 residents. Platt Benedict, the founder of Norwalk, died in 1866 at the age of 91. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.
	Among the earliest settlers of Norwalk were other men of wealth and education. They brought with them not only the customs, but also the architecture of New England. Many of their homes are still standing today.
	In 1881, Norwalk's population reached the required minimum entitling her to incorporate as a city and the City of Norwalk dates from April 12, 1881.
	The characteristic New England spirit of energy, perseverance, and frugality, imbued by its settlers who so successfully met untold hardships, still remains in their descendants. We credit this for Norwalk's continued growth. It has not matured by spasmodic impulses, but has developed at a measured and steady pace to its present size and importance among the cities of Northern Ohio.

As the heart of the "Firelands" and the county seat for Huron County, Norwalk is known for the graceful maple trees lining its boulevards, thus earning its nickname "The Maple City."

The corporate home of Norwalk Furniture, the city has enjoyed a history of successful entrepreneurs. Body by Fisher was started by the Fisher Brothers, who grew up in Norwalk in the late 1800's. Norwalk Truck Lines, owned by John Ernsthausen, was once the largest independently owned trucking company in America.

Historical, sports, scientific and entertainment figures have been an important part of the Norwalk area's heritage. Norwalk inventors from the turn of the century collaborated with Thomas Edison, born in neighboring Milan. Major League Baseball pitcher Lefty Grove was a long-time resident of Norwalk. NFL Hall of Fame football coach Paul Brown was born in the city, as was the emerging young actor Graham Phillips.

Hence most of the towns around here have the same names as ones in Connecticut.

There is so much to see and do around here without traveling too far.

Norwalk has a bunch of parks

http://www.norwalkoh.com/Park_Rec/parks/parks.htm

and a pretty nice Rec center which is a good place to go as long as you do not try to breast feed your baby while you are at the pool with your family. Some of us are still smarting over that discrimination from this past summer.

http://www.norwalkoh.com/Park_Rec/default.html

We also have 3 large reservoirs where our water comes from and where Veteran's Memorial Park is. There is a bunch of beautiful walking trails there, playgrounds, pavilions and great places to fish.

We are also the home of Summit Motorsports Park formerly known as Norwalk Raceway Park. If you are into drag racing and NHRA then you know what I am talking about.

http://www.summitmotorsportspark.com/

Just 15 minutes north of here is Cedar Point Amusement Park.

http://www.cedarpoint.com/

Cedar Point is considered the Roller Coaster Capital of the World! We have spend many days there over the years and a lot of money too!

Here are pics from our last trip there. Lame from an adult fun standpoint since the coasters are out of the question when you have the little ones along for the day. But we all had a blast!

Ok, Lucas apparently was not all that impressed.



















He finally showed some enthusiasm!



And after a long day, they both passed out on the way out of the park so mommy and daddy stopped at Pinks to grub some dogs before heading home.



We also love jumping on the ferry and heading over to the islands. Put In Bay is a favorite around here. Family fun during the day and wild and wacky (ok, drunk and X rated) at night! We are usually off the island and on our way home after dinner. We are too old for the wild nights over there anymore.

http://www.putinbay.com/

When on the island this is how we roll.



No trip is complete without a stop at the Boardwalk and a big bowl of lobster bisque! It's one of the best foods ever!

Family photo op....



Cruising in the golf cart was fun for Lucas.




But not as fun as it was for Ethan since he was without a car seat and just in a seat belt for the first time. He thought he was big stuff.



We always have to stop off for a race at the go cart track that Eric and Ethan always win!



We also have a bunch of great wineries around here and are exactly one hour East of Toledo and one hour West of Cleveland so when we want to hit the big city for some fun and shopping it's not that far. We are also 15 minutes from Lake Erie and it's beaches. As locations go, this is a pretty good place to live.