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guitarnan
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The purpose of this "fun" thread is to list everything we like about All Things Cheesehead (I mean, the great Badger State of Wisconsin). You need not have been there to participate - all are welcome to celebrate Wisconsin's heritage!
My Alsatian ancestors settled in Wisconsin in 1853. The land they bought was near a river (OK, some of the land is under water today - hope it wasn't when they bought it), in Manitowoc County. My German ancestors (from the Saarland) settled there a little earlier. Throw in one feisty great-grandmother from Luxembourg and the rest is history. Mine, anyway! 
I grew up in California, but I was raised on bratwurst and pies and cheese and other Wisconsin goodies. My father even worked in a cheese factory in Wisconsin (I've toured it!). I LOVE German food and so does the rest of my family.
In a bizarre twist of events, when my dd was 3 she invented an imaginary friend. Her name? "Cheesehead."
I kid you not.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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CAgirl4God
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| Posted: April 07 2008 at 11:22am | IP Logged
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well I LOVE cheese.. does that count? LOL
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guitarnan
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You betcha!
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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Paula in MN
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guitarnan wrote:
| My Alsatian ancestors settled in Wisconsin in 1853. The land they bought was near a river (OK, some of the land is under water today - hope it wasn't when they bought it), in Manitowoc County. My German ancestors (from the Saarland) settled there a little earlier. Throw in one feisty great-grandmother from Luxembourg and the rest is history. Mine, anyway! |
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My Polish ancestors settled in Glenwood City, Wisconsin around 1890! In fact, distant cousins are still living on the same farm!
(My Alsatian ancestors settled in Missouri!)
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 Paula
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: April 07 2008 at 11:35am | IP Logged
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CAgirl4God wrote:
| well I LOVE cheese.. does that count? LOL |
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What she said!
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Theresa
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CAgirl4God
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oh and I have traveled through WI before. on our way back to CA for MI. we crove across the top of the country to MT and then to the coast.
I told dh the I wouldn't mind being stationed there one tour...
he was NOT interested. he said no surf!
but then I showed him pictures of Lake S and how large the waves get. lol. but I did NOT tell him how cold the water is. LOL
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CrunchyMom
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Well, my husband isn't from Wisconsin, but he is from a nearby neighbor (Michigan), he has Alsatian ancestry on both sides, and
1) we LOVE German food.
2) we had a polka band at our wedding
3) we went to this little schnitzel house we found on our honeymoon probably 3 times!
4) My husband and sons will eat sauer kraut plain for a snack.
5)We live on the East coast and dh misses fresh water and the great lakes horribly!
If anyone can point me to a really good schnitzel tutorial, I'd be grateful. I'm a good and adventurous cook, but schnitzel seems like something that requires a technique best taught in person.
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Lara Sauer
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I grew up in the Fox River Valley in Northeastern Wisconsin. One of my favorite parts about the geography of WI is that I can use my the back of my right hand to show people exactly where I live in WI! (at the base of the thumb!) Kaukauna, my hometown, is only 25 minutes from Lambeau Field, so I was raised to love the Packers, but also the Brewers and the Badgers. I am also only a 1 hour drive from Door County, which is truly one of the prettiest places around. Plus they have really yummy sour cherries and great white fish boils in the summer!
My ethnic heritage is 1/2 Irish and 1/2 German. My husband has the same ethnic make-up, only coming down opposite sides of the family (My mom was Irish, his was German and vice versa with our dads.) This makes our kids still 50/50! Hence I love bratwurst and corned beef, all types of potatoes and beer!!
I love Friday night Fish fries and supper clubs!
I love Wisconsin summers and all the wonderful ice cream that you can get there. I am not sure there is anything more wonderful than a really good frozen custard twist cone dipped in chocolate and nuts on a warm Wisconsin summer day!
I love that during the summer there is almost always a gentle breeze blowing!
I think my signature says it all!
I am looking forward to reading more! Thanks for starting the post, guitarnan!
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You can take the girl out of Wisconsin, but you can't take the Wisconsin out of the girl!
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gwendyt
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Yea - a Wisconsin thread! Since its where we live and we love it, we aren't biased at all about it being great! Here's the list of favorites from the family on Wisconsin:
*we have 4 seasons
*the Packers and the Badgers sports teams - oh, and the Milwaukee Brewers get a nod too
*lots of countryside, birds, butterflies and animals
*Rudolph Grotto and Rudolph Cheese Factory
*The "Northwoods", especially our camper we have permanently parked up in Presque Isle, also all there is to do in the Minocqua area
*Krolls restaurant - Green Bay
*there's ice cream and cheese everywhere! (and beer for those who like that too  )
*ANYTHING Door County - I personally have very fond memories of the picking Asparagus, apples, and cherries, and morels; wine tours; antique shopping; camping and all the wonderful State Parks and beaches.
*My kids all give the Kalahari Waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells a thumbs up!
*we can pick wild raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries - and there's orchards for other fruits - and we have a huge garden on grandma/grandpa's farm.
*its family friendly virtually everywhere!
*great children's museum in Appleton, WI and Milwaukee Public Museum is really nice too
*very nice homeschooling laws
*people know how to play sheephead and euchre
*church picinics
-and so much more that I'll probably think of after I post this!
One thing we aren't real fond of: polkas 
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stefoodie
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Does it count that I love your toilets?
Hubby spent a week in Sheboygan/Kohler 8 years ago and we got to tag along. The hotel we stayed at was furnished with all Kohler fixtures and tubs and shower thingies -- they were awesome... and we got to tour the Kohler design center.... and the houses in that neighborhood were just too pretty for words... it's like "artisanal housing" if there's such a thing.
Yeah, I love your cheese and sausages too.
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So Blessed
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Well, I was born and raised in Green Bay (10 years) and lived right across the street from Lambeau Field. We used to park cars in our driveway during the Packer games and I could hear the game and see the lights from my front yard! Love Krolls, hate supper clubs. One grandma lived in DePere, right next to St. Norberts College, and my other grandparents lived way up north in Phelps on Spectacle Lake, near Rhinelander and Eagle River. I LOVED visiting them in the summer. They would take us out for quiet rides in the boat after dinner to hear the loons. We would come back to warm rhubarb crisp and lots of lotion for mosquito bites!
My parents divorced  and we moved to MN when I was 10 so my mom could remarry. Have lived in the Twin Cities area until about 3 years ago when we moved to . . . . . yep, you guessed it, Wisconsin! Actually, we're right across the MN/WI border so I still consider myself a Twin Cities girl even though I'm out in the middle of WI farmfields. I really have the best of both worlds. What fun to read this thread. Brings back some wonderful memories.
ETA: How many of you who are from WI have relatives with 'Van' in their last name?
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SusanJ
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My dh is from Wisconsin and I give him a hard time about the religious devotion Wisconsinites have to their own state. Most of his extended family is still there. He comes from a long line of UW-Madison grads and teachers--though he didn't go there himself. I've come to love a lot about Wisconsin. My fil has a house in Sturgeon Bay right on Lake Michigan and that side of the family all still live in Door County. Everyone else is in Madison, pretty much. I can sing "On, Wisconsin!" and "If You Want to Be a Badger." My ds (3yo) often requests these songs. We had beer brats and other appropriate fixings for our wedding rehearsal dinner because we got married in New England where I'm from. Since then I think I can claim to make fantastic brats, coleslaw, and fried haddock (just pmed you the recipe, Lara Sauer!)
We're headed to Wisconsin in a few weeks en route to the Twin Cities where dh's mom has moved.
Susan
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gwendyt
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So Blessed - my maiden name was Vander Kelen!
And I second that fish fries and Kohler are great
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Wendy
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stacykay
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I like Wisconsin, because my sisters were born in Fond du Lac.
I also have very fond memories of a summer spent with my mom's aunt (who was 4 years younger than my mom!) and uncle, boating on Lake Geneva. Very precious family memories!
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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JennGM
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I've only been to Wisconsin once, and that was for a wedding. I was surprised by a few things. First of all, it was summer and it was HOT and HUMID. Not much different than where I've lived. But I also remember thinking how green and lush, and just beautiful!
I didn't get to really taste WI food. I thought it was humorous that the place we ate was a TX bbq place. But the bbq was really WI style, not TX style.
Is this only a WI thing? We went to a Catholic wedding. There was a Mass, then a long lapse until the reception. Many people said that many wedding parties go to bars in between the wedding and reception.
But it was also the first reception I've attended where the bride and groom sat down and opened the gifts right there.
One final thing. I attended this wedding when I was engaged to dh, and he was from Altoona, PA. Now I haven't heard much of Altoona, PA, but what a coincidence to find out that the wedding was in Altoona, WI!
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JennGM
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Oh, I have to add...I like Wisconsin because it's part of the Big Ten and we like it when they play PSU in football. I LOVE the badger mascot. His shirt is so classic!
"On Wisconsin" is one of the best fight songs. Here's a bit of trivia for you. If you've ever seen Walt Disney's version of "Robin Hood" there's a little sequence where the chicken runs the "ball" and the background music is "On Wisconsin" and USC's fight song.
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Paula in MN
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JennGM wrote:
Is this only a WI thing? We went to a Catholic wedding. There was a Mass, then a long lapse until the reception. Many people said that many wedding parties go to bars in between the wedding and reception.
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This is definitely not only a WI thing. It happens in MN, too!
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guitarnan
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Maybe it's a German thing - when we went to our friends' wedding in Heidelberg, they picked a reception place where we could go hiking before the reception meal (you should have seen me panic about hiking in dressy shoes!).
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Barbara C.
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Even though we live in a city that has two Major League baseball teams, if you ask my daughter what her favorite baseball team is she will tell you that it's the Brewers. Miller Park is the nicest and most family friendly ballpark we've ever been to. They have the wonderful playground outside the park. They have kids meals with pbj sandwiches. The bathrooms are really nice and clean. After Sunday games kids get to run the bases. Bernie Brewer goes down the slide after every Brewer's homerun. They've apparently added a new kids fun area inside the park. And I have two more words for you: Sausage Race.
It actually doesn't take us any longer usually to get to Miller Park than it does for us to get into Wrigley or the Cell. Miller Park also has a family section in the 200 level under the press box where no alcohol is allowed. I think the tickets are slightly cheaper in that section, too. I've also managed to find quiet corners to sit and nurse a baby or feed baby food.
We've lucked into first row tickets the past few summers, so the kids have had their pictures made with Bernie Brewer and the Sausages. My daughter even sleeps every night with her Churrizo doll (the new Mexican Sausage mascot).
I'm not a baseball fan really, so it's nice to go somewhere that isn't going to stress me out with little ones. Plus, I like that I can get sauerkraut (my favorite food) on my hot dogs there.
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SusanJ
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Paula in MN wrote:
JennGM wrote:
Is this only a WI thing? We went to a Catholic wedding. There was a Mass, then a long lapse until the reception. Many people said that many wedding parties go to bars in between the wedding and reception.
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This is definitely not only a WI thing. It happens in MN, too! |
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As I said above, my dh is from WI but his mom has lived in the Twin Cities for years, now. We had to talk her out of the gift opening thing. I had never heard of that on the East Coast.
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: On, Wisconsin! (Another Fun Thread)
