Happy Summer Days

This summer I went to a couple of the 2018 NEWaukee Night Market events. These events include live music, food trucks, local vendors, and family activities. My favorite feature of the Night Market is the free s'mores. An organization sponsors the creation of thousands of s'mores each event. People dance around with marshmallows on skewers to draw your attention the the fire pits scattered along the street. Once your marshmallow is nice and toasty, a lovely volunteer has the sandwich materials at the ready and captures the blob of sugar between the crackers and chocolate. 

At the June Market, my roommates and I checked out a local bookshop and were pleasantly surprised to see the owner had a cat wandering the store. In the photo the cat is sitting by the door. It just peered outside, never trying to leave. Whenever I go to a bookstore, I take photos of the covers of books I want to read. I have a huge photo collection on my computer of books to ambiguously read "someday." Back at the Market, we saw a cool steampunk man on stilts wearing a bubble blowing backpack. Wicked!

More Night Market explorations. I spotted a Superman crossing the street and then we paid a visit to the Milwaukee River. Before leaving, we had to stop at a sushi food truck. I hadn't had sushi in a long time and it was calling my name! Overall, the Night Market is a nice event. It was a little overcrowded both times I went, but the atmosphere is nice. There is a wide variety of stock in the vendors from pins to paintings to bath bombs, along with local produce. 

I became a fan of Stone Creek Coffee this summer. I stopped there a lot on my way to work or stayed at the shop to telecommute. My favorite drink order there is a rosemary-honey latte with almond milk. On the note of consumables, Ryan and I made a June trip to Belair for tacos. Life is great with a trip to the taco restaurant at least once a month. Later on, I was surprised one morning to wake up and find a little bird outside my window! It was resting and didn't take off when I got my phone to take its picture.

June went by in such a blur. It's the month I took the least photos during because it was mostly filled with work. Ryan and a couple of his friends moved into our apartment complex, so I made some muffins to share. I couldn't decide which Pinterest recipe to follow, so I combined three of them! Below are banana and chocolate chip muffins with brown sugar streusel. They were sugary enough to be dessert muffins- so yummy! Essentially, add a streusel topping to chocolate chip banana muffins and you have these.

The cityscape across from the island park at the Summerfest grounds. There is something magical about walking at the water's edge at night. We met a couple on this outing who had the cutest puppy I've ever seen! It was a miniature dachshund puppy!

The last week of June arrived, bringing the summer solstice with it. My roommate and I spent some time enjoying the Summer Solstice Festival on North Avenue. We discovered a powerful band called Tigernite. Powerful may sound like an odd descriptor, but that's the vibe I got from listening to them! You can sample their music here. After listening to music, we paid a visit to Black Cat Alley. There were artists on North Avenue working on pieces for a temporary installation in the alley, and one adding a more permanent piece to a building in the alley.

This is one of my favorite pieces in the alley. I take a picture of this scene every time I visit even though I already have photos of it. A cool thing about the alley is that after time, the art changes and artists replace older murals with new ones. I think I'm savoring this one while it lasts. There is a local artist who paints koi fish all over the city, and he has gone to town in the alley. Every time I've gone the number of fish has grown. I love finding his fish on the sidewalks while exploring the city!

During the last weekend of June, Ryan and I went stand up paddle boarding with one of his roommates. This was such a fun morning! Ryan can borrow them for free from his workplace and I wish we had a car so we could go more often. The view on the water was surreal. I annoyed my companions by managing to stay dry for most of the trip. I only went into the water after we started trying to do yoga on the boards. I attempted the standing version of supta padangusthasana and that's when I went down. 

And there was the month of June. This whole summer has gone by so fast! I'm working to catch up on my summer recaps before we get too far into September. I count the seasons using whole calendar months, so on my watch we've now entered fall. I'm contemplating mixing the old with the new to help stay current. I enjoyed taking a break from blogging for the summer, but want to share all the photos I took. For those of you returning to college this week, good luck!