Vikings Training Camp

M and I went to Vikings training camp on Saturday, July 27th.  This time we took a very special guest...my nephew Keith.  He's pretty much always been into baseball but within the last year has gotten into football, which of course excites his auntie Dana.

We picked up Keith at 8 am and headed down to Mankato for training camp.  Camp just started the day before so practice would be limited with just a little over an hour in the morning and almost 3 hours in the afternoon.  It was actually kind of chilly out in the morning and the high wasn't even going to get to 73 degrees.  I'm not sure we've ever experienced weather like that at training camp as it's usually burning hot.

We waited in line as we arrived before camp opened and stopped at all the areas that we normally bypass, the kids area.

Morning practice was at Blakeslee Stadium and we watched some of the players walk their way to the field.

Keith enjoyed watching practice and kept talking about and wondering where Adrian Peterson is on the field, while I was seeing my first glimpse of Greg Jennings and Cordarelle Patterson.

After morning practice, we headed to the gym/locker area to see if Keith could snag a few autographs.  I bought him a football that had white panels on it for autographs. He was pretty successful.  

We went to lunch at Pizza Ranch, where we saw Toby Gerhart.  We said hi to him as we were walking in but didn't want to bother him for a picture or autograph for Keith.

We went to the mall and went shopping for Vikings stuff for Keith and then went to the store at camp.  I bought him a small Adrian Peterson plaque.  M found an Adrian mask.

Afternoon practice was at the other fields and it was way busier than the morning practice.  It was hard to find a seat so walked around a lot looking for the best vantage points.  We didn't see anything too impressive from anyone other than two 75+ yard field goals from Blair Walsh. 

We headed back over to the area where Keith got his autographs in the morning.  Again, he was successful.  He got Toby Gerhart's autograph and when Toby was signing his ball, Keith asked him, "How was Pizza Ranch?", which Toby laughed and said it was his first time there and it was alright. :)

We walked to the back of the building so see if Keith could get some more autographs.  Joe Webb was on Kare 11 news.  

Keith got several more autographs in the back and ended up with 13 autographs on his football and 1 card signed by Cordarrelle Patterson.  Autographs on his ball ranged from players that are trying to make the team like Adam Theilen, Bobby Felder and Desmond Bishop to guys already on the team like Jarius Wright, Charlie Johnson, Cordarrelle Patterson, Kyle Rudolph, Brandon Fusco and Toby Gerhart.  

We left Mankato around 6:30 pm and headed to Jordan, MN to the Yellow Barn.  We picked up some candy and dropped Keith off after 8 pm.  He had an incredible day and so did I.  It was so fun to live through the eyes of a kid for a day.

Sushi with Bestie

I met Tanya on Thursday, July 25th for sushi at Saji Ya.  I took Tanya out for her birthday, which was earlier in the week.  We had yummy cocktails and sushi and even better conversation.  We could talk for hours and hours and hours non-stop and never run out of things to say.

When we both lived blocks from each other in Uptown, we met at a coffee shop and sat at the picnic table outside off Lyndale.  We talked for 8 hours and then went back to my apartment and talked for a couple more hours.  We've been talking like this since we were 14 years old.  Happy Birthday Tanya! 

Alpha Gang

The Alphabet Gang meets all over the Twin Cities but rarely do we meet in the area of where I work.  Since Carrie and I work together (we've both worked together at the same 3 jobs in the last 11 years) and Aaron started working about a mile from where we work in Bloomington, we decided to have our happy hour at Cowboy Jack's just blocks from our work.

The whole gang was there except for the other D, Deanna.  Since finding a place to sit on the patio is a hot commodity, we put our names in for the patio and sat inside until then.  It was about an hour later before the patio was ready but at that point, Aaron and Tiffany were leaving so the remaining girls went to the patio. We didn't stay for too much longer, enough for another drink or two and called it a night.  The weather was so beautiful that night and it makes you appreciate the warm MN evenings you can be on the patio because there aren't too many of them we get during the year.

If you've never been to a Cowboy Jack's, they're extremely busy but have super great happy hour drink and food specials and their patios are incredible.

Conscious Box- July

July's Conscious Box wasn't the best for me but there was more exposure to some new products rather than some duplicates I've received.  I still really like getting this box but when my subscription is over next March, I won't be renewing, despite having bought multiple products I've been introduced to each month.

  

Cherry Ride 2013

The 6th Annual Cherry Ride was held Saturday, July 20th.  We started at Woody's in Bayport, MN.  Each paying rider received a 2013 Cherry Ride pin and a breakfast buffet.  Check-in was supposed to start at 10 am but by 9:40 am, we already had over 50 bikes there.

The weather was perfect, considering we had just finished a hot streak of weather.  Not only we were celebrating Cherrie, we were also celebrating Ray, Cherrie's brother, since it was his birthday.

We had Dee and Holly, both representing the American Liver Foundation with us to talk and support our ride as this is the foundation where the money we raise goes to.

Johnny said The Lord's Prayer and we hopped on our bikes shortly after 11 am.

We had multiple stops in both Wisconsin and Minnesota throughout the day and at the best count, we had 92 bikes, but depending on who you asked, it was anywhere from 92-98 bikes. Wow.  We really broke last year's record of 55 bikes and compared to the first year, we had 17 bikes.  We're really growing!

We raised over $2,200 to go towards liver cancer research and awareness. We didn't have any accidents during the ride despite our biggest group yet and the fact that we were spread out over a mile in length.  

The day was incredibly successful thanks to so many people and this couldn't have been done without all of you.  This was my favorite Cherry Ride yet.  

Here are some photos of the day but please look at the slideshow of all the pictures I took throughout the day as well as the video that our friend Joe made of the ride so you can get the full day experience.  The link to the photo album is also below in case you don't want to view the slideshow further below.

Cherry Ride 2013 Photos