Summer Highlights - Concerts, Lunch with Friends, and a Birthday Celebration

Well, September 22 was the first day of fall, so summer is officially over. 😢 I love summer, so I always hate to see it end.  I like fall too, but in Wisconsin the fall season is pretty short, so I always get depressed when fall arrives because I know the long, cold winter lies ahead.  

The past few weeks I have been showing the highlights of my summer for my weekly travel posts.  Week One I shared "Hiking in the Driftless Region",  Week Two I wrote about "Celebrating the 4th, Going to the Beach, and Playing on the Porch",  Week Three we were "Exploring Pepin, Wisconsin and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum",  and Week Four we went to "The Northern Wisconsin State Fair."

This is my fifth and final post of my summer highlights and I will share a hodgepodge of activities.  First up a Christian concert called "Onefest" where I got to see Danny Gokey!

Danny Gokey Concert

For those of you who may not know who Danny Gokey is, he is a Christian singer who was a third place finalist in the eighth season of "American Idol".  I absolutely love him as a performer but I really respect him for being a truth-speaker and not your typical celebrity who says whatever is popular with the culture at the moment.  It was a thrill to be able to see him in person.  I got right into the pit to take this picture:

Lunch & Shopping at Stockholm with a Friend

I always try to get together with every girlfriend I have at least once during the summer (Don't worry, I don't have that many girlfriends, so it isn't that difficult).  On this day, I got together with my friend Ann who I had not seen since last winter.  We went to a cute little town called "Stockholm" which is only about  37 minutes from my house.  The building above is called "Stockholm Pie and General Store".  They are famous for their pies.  We enjoyed a nice lunch here then we went shopping at some of their cute shops.

I love the big red doors of this shop.  All the shops are located in historic homes and buildings, it makes shopping so much more interesting for me because checking out the architecture is just as fun as checking out the merchandise.  That is my friend Ann in the photo below.

They had an old wood stove inside this shop, isn't she a beauty?

This store sold all things Swedish.  Yes, Stockholm was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1854 who named the town after their nation's capitol.

I just loved the quirkiness of this building!

The inside was a quirky as the outside, they had a throne for a photo opportunity...ya'll know I had to take advantage of that!

A Birthday Celebration at The Stone Barn

Some of you may remember THIS FASHION POST,  where I shared some pictures of this unique outside restaurant in the country.  I said then I would do a future travel post on it, and now's the time!

The Stone Barn is only about seven miles from my house, located in the beautiful rolling hills of Buffalo County.  It used to really be a barn, but now only the brick foundation walls remain which they made into a restaurant.

This is how the front entrance of the restaurant looks like.  You go through the door on the right, and place your order at the counter inside.

This is the inside of the restaurant where you order your food and the pizza is made.

The pizza is made in stone ovens....my favorite way to make a pizza!

The restaurant portion is entirely outside, you can eat under the trellis like we did, or out on picnic tables in the open fields.

We chose a table right next to a beautiful stone fountain.

Some pictures of my husband and I with the birthday boy.

The restaurant grows all their own spices and vegetables for their pizzas.  Their herb garden is right in the middle of the outside dining area...isn't that cool?

Just look at all this yummy basil!

The restaurant was super crowded, which really surprised us as it is literally in the middle of nowhere!  I have no idea how most people even find this place.  There is no Internet service, so GPS is helpless, and there are no road signs directing you there.  But somehow everyone finds it because it is super popular.  We had to wait a very long time for our food, but that was ok as the environment was so pleasing.

While waiting for our food, I walked over to the other side of the brick wall to take some pictures.

I peeked through the window to capture this shot.  You can also get a better idea of the herb garden and trellis in this photo.

Then I walked up the hill a bit to capture this view of the one side of the dining area.

And here is the other side, families like to dine on this side because then their kids can play games in the grass while they wait for their food.

And this is a view of the back end of the outdoor dining area.

Well I can't forget to show you a picture of their pizza.  You can only order one size, and this is it.  We ended up getting two pizzas because I like what we call "Chick Pizzas"...white sauce, or just olive oil with lots of veggies.  Hubby and son like traditional pizzas with lots of meat.  Needless to say, we had leftovers for days!

After we ate we decided to explore the grounds a bit.  The barn on the left is used for weddings or other private events, the building on the right is a cute little gift shop.

You can buy feed at the gift shop to feed the goats.  They were very anxious and ready to be fed when we arrived.

The Stone Barn is such a great place to take families or guests who live in cities.  Eating in a beautiful outdoor place is a real treat for city people.  They don't get to see views like this!

My hubby was so shocked at how tall their corn was that he had me take a picture so ya'll could get some perspective.  He is 5'10 so that corn is pretty tall!

It was a wonderful, beautiful evening to celebrate the 30th birthday of our son!

And finally, one of my biggest thrills o the summer, attending 

                     A "Let Us Worship" Event

The past eighteen months everyone has had different feelings and thoughts about what was going on in the world.  I'm going to try to speak in code here so I'm going to avoid words that start with "C".  Sides have been taken, and I don't see one side giving in to another.  We have all dug our heels in and are staying put it seems.  I've been very disappointed by many politicians, celebrities, and Christian leaders the past eighteen months, but I've also had my hero's...one of them being Sean Feucht.  

If you don't know who Sean Feucht is, there are thousands of YouTube videos of his "Let Us Worship" events.  I would highly suggest watching a few as they are very powerful.

When "C" and the subsequent lockdowns happened, Sean missed attending his home church and felt led by God to go into America's Cities and take church outdoors to the hurting people.  His movement is called "Let Us Worship" and is a protest of sorts to church lockdowns.  His catch phrase is "The Church has Left Building".  At his events, people mostly sing and praise God.  Sean's signature song that is sung at every "Let Us Worship" event is "Raise a Hallelujah".  I think the lyrics of this song really sum up his ministry:

I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies
I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief
I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody
I raise a hallelujah, heaven comes to fight for me

I'm gonna sing, in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you're gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes, hope will arise

Death is defeated, the King is alive!

Even though praising God "in the middle of the storm" is what is mostly done at these events, they also pray for the sick, and people are saved, delivered from bondages, and baptized.  

Ever since I saw the very first "Let Us Worship" event on TV, I LONGED to be able to attend one.  I never thought it would be possible for me as the nearest city is two hours away and frankly, we don't go into cities too much anyway because they are too dangerous.  But to my surprise, I opened Facebook one day and saw that Sean would be in Marshfield, Wisconsin which is a small town not far from me.  I was so excited!  I could finally attend a "Let Us Worship" event.  It turned out that Sean was supposed to be in Phoenix that day, but they cancelled on him, so he came to Marshfield instead!  Yes!  Lucky Me!  So many people were thrilled that Sean came Wisconsin.  We had over 2000 people in attendance, from all over the state!  

And in honor of us cheeseheads, Sean even wore a Green Bay Packer hat to the event.  

I was so grateful that God answered my prayer to be a part of the "Let Us Worship" movement.  Everyone that attended was so moved, and many souls were saved and lives were rescued.  The best part is that on the drive home, we all saw the most beautiful sunset and sky that we have seen in years.  On Sean's Facebook post the next day, everyone talked about the beautiful sunset they saw driving home and shared pictures of it (sorry, I didn't take any pictures, but I'm sure you can see some of them on FB).  It was as if God was giving us all one more blessing at the end of an already beautiful day.

Well that's it.  Summer is officially over!  I ended our summer with a bang with a vacation out west.  I will start that new travel series next week Wednesday.  Until then, 

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Summer Highlights - The Northern Wisconsin State Fair

Hello and welcome back to another "Summer Highlights" travel post.  I have been spending the last few weeks highlighting some fun things I did this summer in my own neck of the woods.  Week one I shared "Hiking in the Driftless Region",   week two I wrote about "Celebrating the 4th, Going to the Beach, and Playing on the Porch.", and week three was all about the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder.   I took last week off because I was on vacation, and now I am back with our visit to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.

Before I continue with the post, I wanted to announce that grand baby #3 was born!  In the picture at the fair  below, my daughter Ashley was full term with "Elisha John".  My hubby had the idea to put all three of the grand babies in the picture.  It was so funny and coincidental that her belly was at the perfect spot to fit in the cow's head.  

My grand babies are "city kids" so they have never been to a county or state fair before.  They really had a great time!  

The first thing we did when we arrived was find a picnic table to eat some lunch.  We left late in the morning, and it was an hour drive, so by the time we got there it was lunch time.  We brought our own food and we were grateful we were allowed to take it in.  I know it seems weird to go to the fair and not eat the fair food (that's part of the fun of going to the fair), but it is very expensive and not very healthy.

After lunch we headed towards all the indoor exhibits to see the handmade food items, quilts, art work, etc.  But then I saw that the little animal races were just about to begin, so we ran over to the bleachers to get a good seat....but first...a selfie!

The animal races were so fun and cute!  They raced three different types of animals:  goats, pigs, and ducks.

Before each race they picked a child from the audience to cheer an animal on.  If her animal won, she would win a prize.  Alethea was so excited to be chosen!  She did a great job cheering on her duck.

After the animal show we stopped briefly to check out a show choir that didn't sing but played instruments instead.  They were very entertaining.

Every fair has professional exhibits where they show their newest gadgets and wares, but our favorite was the oldest invention:  products made from lama hair.  It was both educational and fun because they had lamas right in their exhibit and lots of information on how their products are made.

On the table behind my husband and granddaughter is some lama hair.  We were encouraged to touch it and we found out that if we left our hand there for a few minutes, and then removed it, the spot still stayed warm for the hair held heat.

What would a fair be without rides?  The kids had never been on an amusement park ride before so they were so thrilled.

When we pushed Atticus' stroller up to the car ride, I asked him "Atticus, do you want to go on the car ride?".  He IMMEDIATELY started to crawl out of his stroller and ran to the ride, he was so excited!  He was so happy to just sit in the car, he had no idea it even moved.  But when it finally did move, he got so surprised and excited and was over joyed.

Animals are the highlight of every fair, so that is where we headed next.

The kids were certainly fascinated with all the animals and loved how close they could to them.

And finally, we reached the petting zoo where we were able to buy some food to feed the baby animals.

Boy, did the grand babies love this experience!  Just look at that face!

They sure had fun feeding these goats.

But the day didn't end at the fair.  We have been trying the last few years to show our daughter the new River Walk and Confluence Center in downtown Eau Claire since she spent so much time there as a teenager performing.  But every time we tried something hindered us like weather or a protest.  Finally, it seemed like it was going to work out, so we headed over there...but first we stopped at our favorite ice cream store:  Ramones!

We walked a long the river and pointed out all the new buildings and how things have changed.  Then we sat at a bench to rest and eat our ice cream and Alethea says "This was the best day ever!".  Awww!  Did my heart melt when she said that.  Nothing makes a grandparent happier than her grand babies happy.

I will leave you with this cute picture of Alethea looking through this art sculpture along the river walk.  It was a super cool sculpture where one person could look back at another person on the other end, or you could just look through with no one on the end to get a unique perspective of what's on the other side.

I hope you enjoyed our day at the fair, I will be back next week with one more staycation post then I will begin a new travel series.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!