Independence Day Celebration

Kristi, if you think that writing about the 4th of July was bad for you, how about almost 2 weeks after the fact? :)  On the Sunday before Independence Day, most of my family on my mom's side went up to my uncle John's place on Bone Lake in Wisconsin which is about 75 miles from my house.  Since M was on an all day motorcycle ride, I went rode up with my sister's family in the back seat with one well-behaved eight year old and one no-so-happy 9 month old.  My Marine cousin David was back home in the United States and back in Minnesota for about 10 days before having to go back to California again where he lives so it was good to see him.  We all hung out playing lawn games, on the hammock, talking, eating, drinking and taking a ride on the pontoon on the lake.  My nephew drove the boat back all the way across the lake until it was time to dock.  He loved it!  As for the 4th, we didn't do much.  We basically hung out and cleaned all day and there were many times we had to remind ourselves that it was July 4th.  No fireworks at night which bummed me a little because I love fireworks but we'll go next year.  Hope you had a great 4th celebration!

I had to get a pic of those long eyelashes

Colton's first time seeing a lake

My cousin Jake and nephew Keith

Uncle John

The sandbar in the middle of the lake

A bald eagle--Pretty fitting on 4th of July weekend

Saturday Night Company

M and I went over to Tanya and Chris' house to hang out with them on Saturday, July 2nd.  We had tickets to the Twins game but ended up selling them.  We watched part of the Twins game at their house and watched the Twins go from a 7-3 lead to losing 8-7 in a period of about 20 minutes.  We just hung out talking, drinking and eating a little and listening to music or watching TV.  We got to see Asher's nursery for the first time and while Tanya and I were looking at all of Asher's cute new clothes, Chris and Michael were drinking and talking on the other side of the nursery.  We spent about 30 minutes all talking about different baby items and hanging out in the nursery before realizing that hey, we're all still hanging and drinking beer in the nursery.  :)  Maybe you had to be there but it was one of those moments where you realize that your friends are now definitely parents! 

Cosmo is still their little girl! 

Burgers, No Government and Rain

M and I went out to dinner on Friday, July 1st.  We wanted to go to Red Robin but when we got there it was beyond packed with a 30 minute wait so we took off and headed to downtown St. Paul.  We settled on Burger Moe's.  This was the second time we had been there and we didn't have the best experience the first time.  The service was really slow and food was just ok but we decided to have another try and again, the same bad experience.  The service was very slow again and M ordered a Kobe beef burger, which he's had many times before but never from here.  When he bit into it, it tasted nasty.  He took a couple more little bites and realized he just needed to send this back.  The server was apologetic and took his food away and M decided not to order anything more.  The server came back a couple of minutes later and told us that they had several complaints about the Kobe burger that same night!  They said they had just changed suppliers so she said that might have been part of the issue.  She probably shouldn't have offered that information about having multiple complaints that same evening but it did make M feel a little bit better that it wasn't just him with the issue.  After two terrible experiences, we will not be going back to Burger Moe's again!

When we left the restaurant, the sky was very dark.  We drove up by the Cathedral and just admired the ominous sky.  The rain started in huge drops right as we made our way back to our car and we experienced a down pour but no severe weather.  It was very fun to see the sky like that.  The pictures do not do justice to how black, exciting and scary the sky was. 

At the time of this writing, the government is still shut down!

Pizza Baby

M and I went over to Tanya and Chris' house on June 29th to hang out and eat dinner.  We brought pizza and bread sticks from Little Caesar's.  This was also our second time seeing little Asher since he was born.  We realized that day was also Tanya's original due date but he was already three weeks old.  He's still tiny and skinny but wow, do they grow up fast!

Target Field: Twins vs. Dodgers

On June 28th, my mom and I went to Target Field to see the Twins play the Dodgers. There was a bird on the field just sitting there and walking all over the outfield and it did not care if anyone went by it or a ball came close to it.  I followed this little bird so closely through the whole game because I thought he was going to get hurt.  Despite the ump looking a few times at him wondering if he was hurt or even dead, he just hung out there and walked throughout the field and warning track the whole game. The Dodgers spanked the Twins the night before 15-0 but this night we got to see the Twins win, 6-4.  This series also marked the first time the Twins have played the Dodgers in MN since the 1960's.  

Blue Door

On Sunday the 26th, M and I met our friends Greg and Anna for lunch at the Blue Door in St. Paul.  If you haven't been there and you love different kinds of interesting burgers, you need to go there.  It's a tiny place and luckily we didn't have to wait, which is odd as we met right at noon.  They even have a burger that has peanut butter on it and from the people that have actually tried it, they love it.  I had a build your own burger.  M had a burger with a fried egg on top.  Greg had a Bangkok burger which the mozzarella cheese is marinated in coconut milk and the stuffed in the burger and topped with different pickled veggies and a side of curry to dip your burger into.  If you're a vegetarian or vegan like Anna, she says they have the best black bean burger.  

We took a walk around the neighborhood after lunch and discovered a burned house.  It was good getting together with these guys again as both of us couples are always so busy.

Kaposia Days

After Valleyfair from my last post, M and I drove to South St. Paul and surprised my sister, her MIL and my parents.  They were lined up along Southview Blvd where the annual Kaposia Days parade comes through.  We were unsure if we would be able to make it with Valleyfair scheduled the same day but we made it with plenty of time.  Both my nephews Keith and Hunter were in the parade for Cub Scouts and my BIL was also in the parade for city council.  The parade was just as exciting as the pictures below but I'm posting them here for my sister.  P.S. I don't like parades.

    

Company Picnic

It just so happens that both M and I had our company picnics on the same day this year.  My company was going to Valleyfair and his company was going to a Saints game.  We decided on Valleyfair.  We got to Valleyfair around 1 pm and started slowly with the rides and went on the Monster.  We worked our way up to the white roller coaster and then Renegade and finally the Extreme Swings.  That's all we could do.  We decided we're too old to be on the rides.  We like being on them but once we got off, it took a while to recover. We met the others from my company at the picnic area around 4:30 pm for all you can drink beer and a buffet of food.  We left after the picnic and went to South St. Paul for a parade. 

Random Schmandom

Hello my peeps!  It's been so very long since I've been here.  As always I'm behind on my blog but when I actually looked into my photos to see what else I need to write about, my unwritten journeys go back to June 24th!  I've been busy as always but I've had some time to relax too and relaxing this time did not include blogging.  

So what's been going on lately?  Let me tell you....bullet-style.

• One major thing that happened to me was my computer completely died on me.  My computer was 6.5 years old and it has been on its last leg for probably a year and a half.  I've been trying to hold out as long as possible to buy a new computer because I don't want to whip out that much money.  I was dinking around on my computer on Thursday night and trying to clean it and make it run faster.  On Friday morning, I decided to shut down my computer and when I came home from work, it wouldn't turn on.  I know something got screwed up and instead of bringing it somewhere to be fixed, I thought I would just get a new one and that's what I did Saturday morning.  Brand new computer with a quad core processor makes me very happy!  
• Being that I no longer had access to my old computer, I did lose some documents, of which none are that important.  I have an external hard drive so most of my stuff was backed up but there has been some activity of things I've downloaded recently that I could not recover but I didn't lose any of my 38,000 pictures I have taken!  That's the most important thing!
• I changed my hours at work.  I no longer work 9-5:30 but instead 7:30-4.  This has been a great improvement for me and I now feel like I have a much longer day which is what I wanted, especially in the summer!
• I need a blog makeover so very badly!  Besides changing the whole layout, I want to add tabs to the top but not sure how.  For those that have tabs, it is just using HTML?  Is it difficult?  
• Today is my cats' birthday.  Fuzzer is 11 and Powder is 8.  I forgot all day until about 30 minutes ago.  I love my fuzzy babies!
• My foot hurts.  It's hurt since our Florida trip in May.  From what I've decided, I either sprained the ligament in my foot or I have plantar fasciitis.  Poor me.  If it doesn't get better in the next month, I'm going to the doctor. 
• I've been inspired by one of my blogging friends Sara to make cards.  She makes beautiful greeting cards and I thought, why can't I do that?  So that's what I did.  I've been making cards since the beginning of May but plan on opening an Etsy shop at some point.  I've registered my store name and one of these days when I have ample time to get it up and running, I'll do so.  
• I'm very behind on reading all of your blogs.  My Google reader is full of lots of reading material so I might not comment on all of your posts but be assured I'll be reading them!
• How about that government shutdown?  For those who don't live in MN, the politicians who can't get along and act like children in this state failed to balance the budget and on the first day of the new fiscal year, July 1st, some parts of the government has shut down like all state parks, the MN lottery, traffic cameras, Canterbury Park and Running Aces (horse racing and card rooms) and many other things that are deemed non-essential as well as about 23,000 state workers who are unemployed now.  We have a governor who is a Democrat with a Republican controlled legislature who are trying to find ways to balance the budget with a $5 billion deficit.  Work together, compromise and figure it out!  NOW!

I hope you all had a great Independence Day!  While the fireworks will be starting in just about two hours or so, I'll be in bed.  I'm a little sad about not seeing fireworks tonight because I truly love them but it just doesn't work on a Monday for me.

I'll be back very soon to catch you up with the rest of my life!  Until then...

Tres Años

Tres años en Español = Three years in English.  That is how old my blog is today.  I went live on July 1st, 2008 and I some days I can't believe that I kept up with it this long.  Blogs can be a lot of work but I'm glad I've stuck with it over the years.  Thanks to all of you that read my blog on a frequent or not-so-frequent basis.  I write for me but I write almost as much for you too. Thank you everyone!

Have a great Independence Day weekend!

Father's Day

For Father's Day, I went to my parent's house to hang outdoors and have a BBQ on the deck.  The weather was warm but the sun didn't start shining strong until later in the day and it really got hot.  My grandpa and Aunt Donna also came over along with my sister and her family and then M joined us later after him visiting his dad. I made my grandpa and BIL Tom a coffee cake and gave my dad a radio and shirt.  Lots of good food and company!

BIL Tom, Grandpa and my Dad

I love my Dad!!