I'm caught up!

I should be in bed right now but besides my Florida blog(s), I am caught up on my posts!  I wrote several tonight so make sure you read all them below.  Tonight I went out with my sister to Yarusso's for dinner.  We love that place.  It's been a tradition in multiple generations on my mom's side to go there.   Jamie talked and talked and talked and talked and then I got to talk a little bit and then she talked again.  It's a good thing I'm a good listener, right Jamie?  I plan writing at least Chapter 1 in my Florida blog this weekend and hopefully I'll be a little more consistent with it.  It's Friday tomorrow so everyone have a good weekend!  Take a look at Jamie's piece of lasagna she ordered.  We put a fork on the plate to give you reference of how big it is.

Ryan Adams/Oasis

We went to Minneapolis last night and ate at 508 Restaurant.  It used to be Old Chicago on 1st Avenue.  I had BBQ salmon with mashed potatoes and green beans.  It was so good.  We then went over to Target Center and saw Ryan Adams and Oasis.  Ryan Adams opened up for Oasis.  This was the third time I have seen him in concert.  He played at First Ave. back in 2004 and it was the first time that 1st Ave. ever ran out of beer. Ryan Adams is not be confused with Bryan Adams, who's music is much more lame than Ryan Adams.  (I'm a music snob sometimes)  Ryan and Bryan do both share the same birthday, coincidentally. Back to the show...we 10th row floor tickets and I don't know think I have ever been to a concert on the main floor that wasn't general admission.  I've seen hundreds of bands so you would think I have been on the main floor in a seat, but I don't think I had.  Ryan Adams was good but I wish he would have played longer.  You may know one of his songs called "When Stars Go Blue".  No, The Corrs featuring Bono from U2 did not originally do this song, nor did Tim McGraw.  Ryan Adams wrote it and it's his song but I think the other artists have received more credit than he.  I'm not a huge fan of Oasis but they did seemed ok.  I actually have not owned one of their CD's since 1993 or 1994.  The crowd was small for the Target Center, consisting of only 5,000 people.  Some would say it's due to the economy, others would say it's because Oasis sucks. Both could be right.  Here are some pictures from the show.  They actually allowed cameras instead of me having to be all sneaky and take pictures.  P.S. On the way into the concert in the Skyway, we saw a guy that looked like Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes.  We disregarded him.  Then I found out that The Black Crowes played at First Ave. across the street so it was him.  I rarely get star struck and it's funny because this is the 2nd time Michael and I have seen him on the streets.  We walked right past him on the street in Seattle in 2005.  Again, we recognized him and thought he looked a lot like Chris Robinson but it's Seattle, so there are many people that sport that hippie/homeless look.  We found out that they were in town playing that night so it was confirmed.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals

Oasis

Here's Michael imitating Mike Miller from the Timberwolves.  Don't you think Mike Miller looks like a cat?  If you see him on TV, he looks like a cat.  MEOW!

Great Waters

Michael and I went out on a date last Saturday night.  I love it when we go on dates.  We went to Great Waters Brewing Company in downtown St. Paul.   I ordered Jambalaya and it was good but I was expecting it to be made with rice instead of penne pasta.  I've never had it before so maybe that is the way it's supposed to come.  Michael had a burger but more importantly, he tried their 10 beer sampler.  You get 10 4-oz sized beers with a cheat sheet of what the name of the beer is and it's description.  Michael loves all beer so he really liked this.  I had a taste of a few of them and there was nothing I liked.  I'll stick to the generic American beers.  I sipped a hot drink that had hot chocolate, raspberrry liquer, vokda and creme de cacao in it.   It was good but kinda strong.  We left and wanted to go take pictures of Rice Park, as it was so beautiful with all the trees lit up and the big Christmas tree but it was very cold that we didn't.  I'm still hoping to get out there and take some pictures.

Jon Lajoie

Last Thursday, Michael and I went to Loon Cafe for dinner in Minneapolis and then went to see Jon Lajoie at the 7th St. Entry, um, I mean The Entry.  I'm old school and still call it 7th St. Entry. It's attached to First Avenue and guess what side the entry is on?  7th Street! If you have ever been in the room the size of a large closet, that's how big The Entry is.  It's so small and they really pack 'em in there.  If a fire broke out, the site would not be pretty.   Anyways, if you don't know who Jon Lajoie is, he is a Canadian "comedian" who has become an internet sensation with his videos on YouTube.  His humor is more often than not off-color, raw and crude and could offend many.  I obviously think he is funny and I'm not offended by much.

New Banner

Like my new winter banner? Thank you to Kristi for making it for me.  She had a banner giveaway on her 1000th post!  

Blood, you have plenty of it

Have you ever donated blood before? If you haven’t, it’s pretty easy, especially if you have one of the Memorial Blood Center Buses come to your place of employment. I just gave a pint of my blood 30 minutes ago. You can donate right there and be back to work in less than an hour. I try to give blood whenever I am eligible. You can donate blood every 59 days. There are blood shortages quite frequently, especially for certain types so if you have the time, give blood. You may not know who the recipient is but I guarantee they appreciate their efforts. You are helping someone continue to LIVE. There are multiple places to donate, but here’s Memorial’s website if you are interested. If you need any other incentives, they are donating a pound of food for every pint of blood they take and you can even win a cruise. If you have a Dr. named Dr. Acula, I would be leary to giving him your blood. If you don't get it, then you might need more help than I would be able to give you. :)

Florida: Prologue

Here I am finally ready and able to sit down and write about my Florida vacation.  I am going to try to do the best I can to remember what we all did.  I do write a vacation journal when I am on vacation so I can remember what we did from day to day but this time I didn't.  I kept thinking that I need to start the journal and by Day 4, I couldn't even remember all that we did.  So based on the pictures we took, I am going to reconstruct the vacation.  

We arrived at the HHH Airport in the 6 am hour on Saturday, November 15th.  Thanks Dad for picking us up at home at 5:45 am. The flight was fine but left a little late due to the de-icing of the plane.  This made me a little nervous since we had connecting flight in Atlanta that only had a 31 minute layover.  We'd be cutting it close.  We got off the plane and the AirTran employee told us what gate we needed to go to for the connecting flight, which was a monorail ride away in another area of the airport.  Did you know that Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the busiest airport in the world?  I always thought it was Chicago O'Hare but not the case.  Anyway, we get to the gate that the person told us to go to and it's not the right gate.  So we are somewhat panicky because we are running out of time before our flight leaves.  We find an AirTran employee and we find out what gate we are really supposed to be at and we do a power walk to the gate only to be greeted by people who are waiting to fly standby and an employee who says, "Are you Dana and Michael? You have 2 minutes to board."  Whew.  Just made it.  Cutting it close but hopefully nothing else goes wrong.  Ok, something else went wrong.  We land in Tampa, go to baggage claim and watch the baggage carousel go round and round and round and round waiting for my purple (for the Vikings of course) suitcase.  We find our way to the AirTran office and speak to the "friendly" employee who tells me that my suitcase most likely did not make the connecting flight and that there are many more flights from Atlanta today and that it should be here in 2 hours.  She asked if I wanted to come and pick it up when it comes in or if they should deliver it to the hotel.   I opt for delivering it to the hotel since I have already been inconvenienced and they can bring it to me.  She told me someone would be calling me shortly after the 2:30 pm flight comes in.   Now would be a good time to tell you that I am trying my best to not be mad and just hope the bag comes in on the next flight.  For once, I think I handled the situation better than Michael did.  He is usually trying to calm me down when situations such as this arise.  But still, there I was in the middle of an airport with no luggage.  I woke up very early that day and didn't take a shower and I have no make up on.  I have dirty hair with a hat on.  I am a mess and now I have to introduce myself to Tampa like this.  Aauugghh.  {Mini Moral: Take a shower before a flight no matter how early it is.}  In the meantime, we pick up our rental car, a 2009 Dodge Caliber.  At first I am in love with the car and how it drives.  I would get sick of it by the end of the trip and want my own 2003 yellow car.  We hook up the GPS (an awesome gift from Michael last Christmas) and we are on our way to find a place to eat. Here's our car.  This picture is taken later in the trip on a beach that you could drive on.  Isn't it cute how all the birds are in the shade of the car?

After driving around awhile, we find a place called Lee Roy Selmon's.  It was about 2:30 pm but we had only eaten plane snacks all day.  I ordered the Soul-Good Pulled Pork with smashed potatoes and homestyle baked beans.  When I am on vacation, I try to eat and try some different things I wouldn't normally order when in MN.  It was very different.  The pulled pork, potatoes and beans are regular foods but the way they tasted and were cooked were slightly different.  They say they put soul into the food and you could tell...whatever that means.  We checked into our hotel shortly after the check in time of 3 pm.  I still hadn't received a call yet from AirTran as of yet.  We hang out for a little while and then decide to call the airline. Of course no one answers so we leave a message.  They call me back at 4:25 pm to tell me that they found my luggage and it will be delivered in 2 hours.  I don't want to wait any longer but that's ok, at least it's here in Florida and not lost in luggage space.  After waiting and waiting, the bag is finally delivered at 8:45 pm.  Remember, I am dirty and sitting there waiting to take a shower because I have nothing.  Finally, at 8:45:01 pm, I jump in the shower so I can get ready and see Tampa.  It's dark and we aren't sure what to do so of course we eat.  When we go on vacation, eating is a HUGE part of what we do.  We always want to try new places and do our best to avoid any chains or restaurants we have in MN.  We ended up a place called Grillsmith.  They had some of the best food we have ever had.  I had an Amberjack Fish sandwich.  I had never even heard of a fish called amberjack until that day.  So yummy.  I should say before I even thought about food, I thought about a drink.  I relaxed with a pomegranate martini.  Again, so yummy.  Here's is my proof of yumminess and Michael's proof of yumminess with a Mojito.  No, Michael is no less of a man because he likes Mojitos. 

We started and ended our night here as the whole luggage fiasco changed the course of our day. We went to bed only to wake up to see a Vikings game.  Until then...

 

Back to Reality

I thought I would recap the last few days since I haven't started my Florida blogs yet. I will go backwards from today to Friday.

Tuesday: Today I went back to work for the first time since going on vacation. I hadn't been to work since November 14th! I am so thankful I was able to go on a long vacation but it doesn't matter how long they are, they never seem long enough. Work was ok today. I thought I would have been busier today and had more to catch up but I didn't. I am going to be swamped for the next couple of weeks so it's hard to get right back in the swing of things.

Monday: Spent the day wrapping all my Christmas presents. I wrapped everything and only have a couple little things to buy. I got my tabs for my car. The cost of tabs come at the worst time of year. I'm broke as a joke from vacation and an extra $101.25 hurts me right now. It's better than the cost of getting pulled over with expired tabs. I also finished most of the laundry I needed to wash. I like doing laundry but hate hanging things up and putting them away.

Sunday: I did not feel good all day. I had such a bad headache and debated whether or not I was even going to go to the game. I slept a good part of the day and then decided I was going to the game. How could I miss it? I did feel better while I was at the game. It was a nationally televised game on Sunday night against Chicago...and we won. It was a very exciting, fun game to watch. One of the best all year. John Randle was inducted into the Vikings Ring of Honor at halftime. John Randle was very fun to watch as a player and he has a great personality, even more than crazy at times.


Saturday: I put up the Christmas tree and some decorations. This is the earliest I have put up the tree in a long time. I always have good intentions of doing it early but I never make the time. I just have a little white prelit fake tree but it's perfect for me/us. Here's a picture taken obviously after Monday, as the presents weren't wrapped until then. I also went over to my parent's for Thanksgiving leftovers. I love Thanksgiving and was glad that I could enjoy a little with my parents. I stayed over there visiting them for a few hours. I was so nice to visit them and spend time with them because I never have the chance to be with them by myself. We are either all together or I am with Michael so Mom and Dad, I appreciated hanging out with you guys!

Friday: Got back from Florida and took it easy. We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which is actually a good movie. I really enjoyed it and thought it was funny. We also watched What Happens in Vegas. That one was not so good. But I didn't expect much either.

I'm working my way up blogging about Florida. I have decided I will do 3 phases of the trip. Part 1 will be Tampa area, Part 2 will be Jacksonville area and Part 3 will be Fort Myers. The whole trip is a blur so I have to refer to all my pictures to remember what we did and in what order. Coming soon! Bloggers: I have yet to read any of your blogs. I'm getting to it!

Hello Again

Hi Everyone,

I'm back!  I got back to Minnesota yesterday around 4:30 pm.  I have lots of catching up to do...emails, Facebook, reading your blogs, updating my blog, etc.  I hope to have some new posts with pictures from the trip soon!  Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving!

Goodbye for now

This is going to be my last post for awhile.  Our flight leaves for Florida at 7 am Saturday morning and will return early evening the day after Thanksgiving.  It will be very different to spend Thanksgiving in Florida and not be with my family but we will be with Michael's parents, and a mix of his family and friends. We will be traveling all over the state and have a lot of fun things planned so I will blog all about it when I get back.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Give thanks for everything you have and eat good!  It's my favorite holiday!  

Sunset on Fort Myers Beach, February 2008

Happy 100!

This is my 100th post!  It seems like I got to 100 pretty quickly.  I'm surprised I have that much to talk about.  Tell me how you like the blog so far!  I LOVE comments and I feel like I don't get enough and I never get sick of reading them.  Thank you to all of you who continue to read my blog. I first started off with blogging for my intentions only but I definitely blog for an audience now.  I wish more of my real life friends would read my blog on a more consistent basis but I am happy to have my small core group of consistent readers, which hopefully includes you!

 

Another New Banner

With Florida only days away, I thought I would change my banner again.  Simple, I know.  I'm still getting used to playing with Photoshop.  Thanks to those who gave me tips!

Weekend Recap

Friday: I was a deer hunter's widow for part of the weekend.  I wish I could say the first half of my weekend was exciting, but it really wasn't.  I ended up having to stay at work until almost 7 pm on Friday, which made me not be able to meet Michael's sister, Kim and cousin Lorrie for happy hour. I got home, ate, watched a Grey's Anatomy marathon online (I haven't watched a single episode this season) and went to bed at 1 am.  

Saturday: Woke up too early, before 8 am, only to have a really bad headache.  I dropped off car to get my oil changed and windshield wipers replaced.  My sister came and picked me up and we went to Toys 'R Us and I bought my nephews Christmas gifts.  Yes, I am pretty much done with my Christmas shopping.  We ate at TGI Friday's and then went to the mall.  Came back here later in the day, went grocery shopping and came home to find Michael back from hunting.  He had to come back early because of the Vikings game on Sunday.  I don't think Michael would consider himself a real hunter, but he has started to go hunting again in the last couple of years.  (I think it might be a reason to get away from us girls and drink)  Last year, all the guys he went with each got a deer on Sunday.  Michael didn't get one because he had to leave early again for the Vikings game.  But that was last year.  This year, Michael was the first to get a deer....a buck! Michael had said that he will not shoot at a deer unless it was a buck.  He's had deer before but never a buck.  Congrats to Michael for getting a 6 point buck!  Lots of venison for us.  Here's a couple of pictures of my honey from last year.  I'm sure he looked the same out there this year. :)

Sunday: Today is the most important Vikings game of the year....Vikings vs. Packers.  Part of the big day is the tailgating for this game.  There are so many Packers fans everywhere, including in our group.  We had 3 Packer's fans with us today... If it makes you feel any better, they were all born in Wisconsin.  That makes me feel a little better.  My friend Money (her real name is Manilath, pronounced-Money-lut) and her husband Chad and their friends, Ang and her husband Chris. Chris is a Vikings fan so we had 3 people rooting for each of their teams.  It was sooooooo cold out there!  Our paws and tootsies were freezing!  I ran into a couple of guys I went to high school with and in their group was a guy that Michael graduated with.  And then Chris from our group also knew a friend in their group.  So despite the fact that Michael and I never knew each other growing up and we didn't even meet Chris until today, we all ended up having friends in the same group.  I love discovering stuff like that.  

Our tailgating group: Chris, Ang, Money, Chad, Me, Michael

Proud Roseville Class of 1992 graduates, Todd and Michael

Proud WBL class of 1995 graduates, Scott Leth, me and Chris Price

On to the game...we have not beat the Packers in the last 5 games and today was our day.  I prayed to the footballs gods for a win and it happened.  The Vikings won 28-27.   Thanks to the 2 safety's (and no thanks to the missed field goal), we squeaked out a win.  Skol Vikings, Let's Go! 

Thought I would take a picture of the score when it was tied with 2:22 left.  I wasn't sure we would win with that little time left (If you're a Vikings fan, you know what I mean) so I took a picture while we weren't losing. 

   

My First Real Banner

I made my first real banner today!  I know it's simple and basic and elementary, but I like it!  I downloaded a trial of Photoshop Elements 7 to try for 30 days and man, I need help learning how to navigate through it.  It's fun to play around but can be frustrating too when you want something to work and you're not quite sure how to do it.  Does anyone who uses Photoshop have any tips for using it?  How did you learn how to use it?

Thoughts for Thursday-Vacations

With an upcoming vacation for Michael and I, I thought that will be my topic for today. Michael and I take at least one vacation a year, where we get on an airplane and go somewhere. We started this in January 2005, when we went to Philadelphia to see the Vikings play the Eagles in a playoff game. It was my idea to take the trip to see the Vikings. We have now planned a vacation each year around the Vikings, which has included trips to Seattle, San Francisco and Dallas. We have also been to Florida a couple of times together, which is also the destination of our upcoming trip. We will see the Vikings play Tampa Bay on November 16th and drive across the state to see them play Jacksonville the following week. We also have taken a road trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota and numerous trips up to the North Shore. I have been to 17 states and have been to Canada a few times. I would love to take a vacation to a tropical location, outside of the United States. I've always wanted to go to Mexico and I can't believe that I still haven't been there. I really want to go to Turks and Caicos after seeing pictures from Michael's friends' vacation but I from what I understand the islands suffered major damage from one of the hurricanes this year. I would also like to go to Tahiti, again after seeing pictures from another person's vacation.

Do you go on vacation? How often? Where do you go? By car or plane? Do you travel outside of the United States? Who do you go with? Where is your dream destination?

I will link other TFT's as they get posted.

Kristi- Online shopping

1 Year ago

Today is my one year anniversary at my job.  I unfortunately work in the mortgage industry so you know how volatile it has been the past couple of years.  I was laid off from my past job on October 19, 2007.  I was on vacation in Dallas when I got the call from my supervisor.   I was let go, along with at least 1,900 others and it was effective immediately.  I never really got the chance to have an actual goodbye with my coworkers.  I was compensated very well for my departure at least.  So that's the story of why I am where I'm at now.  I have since had to switch from residential mortgage to commercial mortgage.  My company is a commercial real estate banking firm.  It is one of the largest commercial banking firms in the world, with 30 offices around the country.  I work solely with one lender, Freddie Mac, to assure that the insurance on all multifamily housing is compliant according to Freddie Mac's requirements for loan closing and subsequently each year after.  I also handle insurance losses, which today I was informed of a fire at an apartment building that killed two cats.  I wish the borrower hadn't told me that!  It made me sad and I keep thinking about it.  It is kind of interesting though to see what kind of damage takes place.  I am currently working on a loss that is well into the millions from Hurricane Ike.  The commercial mortgage business has taken some what of a hit due to the economy but not like residential.  I'm going to cross my fingers that I can keep this job for awhile.  

The Country Has Spoken

Today's the Day!

Not that you need any reminders, get out and... 

Weekend Recap

Friday: Michael and I went over to my sister's house for Halloween.  We just hung out, passed out candy to the kids and ate some of her food, which included bloody body bits (meatballs and cocktail weiners in BBQ sauce), halloween themed jello shapes, eyeballs (deviled eggs) and spider sandwiches (ham and cheese spider shaped sandwiches with poppyseeds all over them).  My nephew, Keith was very cute dressed as the Joker from Batman.  He got lots of candy from the neighborhood.  Michael and I then left to meet at a bar in St. Paul for his birthday, which is on Halloween.  We had a drink and went home to watch Children of the Corn.  I hadn't seen it in so many years and I was actually scared at a couple of parts.  I have been so densenitized to horror movies because I started watching them at a young age and watched them often.  Now it's been so many years since I've seen one that it affected me again.  It's fun to be scared sometimes.

The entryway of my sister's house

Keith and Jamie

Candy!

Saturday: We woke up Saturday and went to Denny's for breakfast.  It was Michael and I's 4 year anniversary.  We didn't have much planned as we are still updating the kitchen.  I ran a couple of errands in the morning and we painted the majority of the day.  I was kind of upset about this as I told Michael that today was supposed to be about us, not the kitchen.  Then I started crying.  Hey, I can't help it.  I cry too much.  He then pulled out a card and a vase of flowers that included 4 roses, one for each year we have been together.  That helped my attitude a lot and then I felt like a jerk afterwards.  We cleaned ourselves up shortly after and went out to dinner at one of our favorite places, Pepitos.   We ended the night watching Saturday Night Live. Happy Anniversary, Michael.  I enjoyed every minute of the day with you.

Sunday: We got up early for the Vikings game.  We went tailgating with a handful of Michael's family members including his sister Kim, brother in law, Greg, niece Kayla and her boyfriend, Brandon, cousins Jim and Lorrie and their friends Andrea and Brian along with their whole crew. It was a blast tailgating.  Michael and I haven't done too much of the REAL tailgating this year because the majority of the time it's been just us and we haven't feel the want to spend an arm and a leg for parking in a Vikings tailgating designated lot.  I started off drinking Mimosa's and I ended up drinking Mimosa's for the whole time.  With the exception of a drink or two from others, I drank the whole bottle of champagne.  Can you say headache?  I'm too old for this stuff but every great once in awhile, it happens.  I spent the rest of the day (and Monday) nursing myself back to health.  You just don't recover like you used to.  The game itself was fun too. Again, I don't like to drink too much when tailgating because I can't concentrate on the game, and I actually like to concentrate on the game.  I am just glad the Vikings won.  It always makes the 2nd half of the day good.  Good company, great weather and a Vikings win makes for a good Sunday!  Lots of pictures to share! 

The Girls

The Guys

Michael wants You!

This would be the empty bottle

The elk burgers we ate.  Jimmy shot an elk in Colorado last week

Our famous cook, Jimmy

The girls with Victor

Ta Da!

Skol Vikings!

The Skol Line

Tailgating on a beautiful day

The happy couple

Where's Dana?