Special Access

As an appreciation to Vikings season ticket holders, we were able to visit the Metrodome the evening of Saturday, December 28th, the day before the last game in the dome, ever.  We were allowed to walk on the field, have our pictures taken next to the goal posts and on the 50 yard line.  You could sit on the Vikings bench and tour the locker room.  Besides having our photos taken, we did all of the above.  The locker room was the big attraction with the longest line.  They did not allow you to take any pictures in the locker room and there security people all over the room.  The room was very small and I can only imagine they will have a state-of-the-art new locker room in the new stadium.  Even the locker room in TCF Stadium will be a huge upgrade. Everyone's uniforms and gear were already in place for tomorrow's game.  Most players had two to three pairs of shoes in their locker space but Adrian Peterson had 12-13 pairs of shoes.  

After the open house portion, there was an interview with Vikings alumni including Matt Blair, Bob Lurtsema, Randall McDaniel and Robert Smith, hosted by Paul Allen.  

At the end of the night, we each walked out with a commemorative poster of the All-Metrodome Team.   

Christmas Time

Considering that I started shopping for Christmas here and there in September, had most of my shopping done by the end of October and had the majority of my presents wrapped the week before Thanksgiving, I have to say it was one of the most stressful holiday seasons I've had.  Why?  I'm not sure.  Maybe it was that Thanksgiving came so late this year and I feel like I lost a week.  One thing I know is that I didn't get to do any Christmas cookie baking or send out Christmas cards.  Hopefully next year.

Before I packed up all the presents to go to other people's houses, I took a picture of our tree.  We have a skinny tree and have so many ornaments on it now that I think I need a bigger one.

The sparkly motion is compliments of Google.

We held our immediate family Christmas on Saturday, December 21st.  We got together in the afternoon at my mom's house.  Her house was decorated beautifully and her tree is always spectacular.

My dad in the ornament

My mom, sister and I all planned to dress the same like dorks.  We found these awesome snowflake sweatshirts on clearance for $3 last January at Sears and thought we need to rock these for Christmas.  Not only did we dress the same, we also had the guys wear goofy/ugly Christmas themed shirts and to top it off, we all wore Santa or elf headbands.  I love being cheesy.

We decided to not do a sit-down meal and did appetizers instead.  We each brought a couple of appetizers.  I made a couple of dips and these bacon wrapped lil smokies with dark brown sugar.  Everyone loves them. 

We opened presents afterwards and it took us over 4 hours.  We open up each individually so we can see what everyone got.  I love doing it that way with my family but it did get a little long. We all received very nice gifts and while that isn't what Christmas is about, you could feel all the love in the room. 

Someone may have had chocolate on his face

During our present opening, we all went around the room and said a memory about my dad that they have that was nice or funny.  I was sobbing uncontrollably for most of it but I was able to get a laugh in there when I told them of my memory.

For Christmas Eve, we went to my aunt Terri and uncle Ken's house in Wisconsin.  It would have been my Gramma's 76th birthday.  She always loved cardinals and earlier that morning, I saw nine cardinals in the yard.  I'm thinking in some way it had to do with her.

I made the bacon wrapped lil smokies again and I made a bunch of festive little donuts for both my family's gathering and M's family.

My mom's side of the family is not really the picture-taking type of family but somehow we kind of coordinated pictures of groups of people with my grandpa.  We had so many people lined up with cameras that not everyone is looking at the camera nor are they necessarily clear, but the point is we made the time to do it.

Grandpa and his kids (my mom, aunts and uncle)

Grandpa and his grandkids (my cousins minus two)

Grandpa and his grandkids and great-grandkids

Grandpa, my mom, me and my sister

My aunt's real flocked tree

The cat I almost took home years ago, Bobbi.

Christmas Day was quiet.  M and I opened presents from each other in the morning. This was the 10th Christmas M and I have spent together.  Santa is a little wacky in our household as you can see by some of the items I got in my stocking.  I got some fantastic gifts from M but my favorite gift that I gave him was pizza from Giordano's in Chicago.  I had two pizzas shipped here since he/we haven't stopped talking about how good it was since our Chicago trip last August.  

That's supposed to be Adrian Peterson.  He's called a Bleacher Creature. 

M gets me a goofy t-shirt each year

We ended up lazing around for the rest of the day on Christmas and didn't do anything.  I think this has become our new tradition as we didn't do anything last year for Christmas and I'm ok with that.  I wanted to go to the cemetery but with fresh snow and me just being outright lazy, I didn't go.  

I hope all of you had a fantastic Christmas spent with your loved ones.

Vikings vs. Eagles

Sunday, December 16th was very cold.  Like minus 2 degrees cold.  Despite the weather, we tailgated in our usual lot one more time before our big tailgate party, The Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party which is tomorrow and will be even colder.

We spent a lot of time in the car warming up but we still spent time outside and cooked our food on the grill which took a long time.  Our menu was BBQ pulled beef and mashed potatoes.  Yum.

Construction taking place where the new stadium will be, just east of Gate B and C

It was much warmer inside the dome.  Adrian Peterson didn't play.  Toby Gerhart didn't play.  A barely known running back named Matt Asiata scored 3 touchdowns throughout the game.  Cassel also passed a nice 57 yarder for a  touchdown to Greg Jennings in the first quarter and would pass another Cordarrelle Patterson for a touchdown and Cassel would run another in himself.  I did not think this game was winnable for us going into the game but we ended up winning, in fact, destroying the Eagles 48-30.  

Like my impressions of the cartoon Viking and Viktor?

                         

At halftime, they had a ceremony for the All-Metrodome Team.  This was a team comprised of players throughout the entire 32 seasons of football in the Metrodome, as voted by the fans.  Many of the players voted on this team were in attendance and announced in front of us including Jared Allen, Joey Browner, Anthony Carter, Daunte Culpepper, Chris Doleman, Chad Greenway, Robert Griffith, Steve Hutchinson, Steve Jordan, Chris Kluwe, Ryan Longwell, Randall McDaniel, Adrian Peterson, John Randle, Robert Smith, Scott Studwell, Chris Walsh and Kevin Williams.  Others that were voted to the team but could not attend was Matt Birk, Cris Carter, Dennis Green, Percy Harvin, Tim Irwin, Carl Lee, Ed McDaniel, Randy Moss, Antoine Winfield and Gary Zimmerman. That's to the best of my knowledge...there may have been one or two that I named in attendance that wasn't there or vice versa.   

Conscious Box

December's Conscious Box came late as they said it would but it was still delivered by Christmas.  This month's box was pretty decent and I liked multiple things in there.  I only have 3 month boxes left to be delivered, maybe 2 so I won't be boring you with these posts much longer.  Hang in there.

Holiday Party

My employer's holiday party was on Friday, December 13th.  It was held at the Crown Plaza in downtown St. Paul.  This was my 7th year attending this annual party and for the first time, it was held in St. Paul.  Since I work in Bloomington, it's always on the west side of the cities or Minneapolis.  

We had cocktail hour up on the 22nd floor called Windows on the River.  You might have remembered it as the Carousel restaurant when it was a Radisson.  My mom just recently told me that her first date with my dad was at that restaurant.  

After cocktails, we went down to the main floor into the Great River Ballroom for dinner and the rest of the evening.  We both had steak for dinner and it was pretty good.  There was an illusionist/magician that performed after dinner and then a DJ and dancing after that.  M and I closed down the place with a small group of my coworkers before leaving around 12:15 am to head the 10 minutes home into the snow.