Preseason Vikes

Since we were out at the fair earlier in the day, we didn't tailgate for this preseason game last Friday, August 24th.  The Vikes played the San Diego Chargers and pretty much looked horrible.  The Chargers had so many of their starters sitting and the Vikes still weren't able to keep up.  It did look they would win at the end when they got a touchdown to make it 10-9 but the Chargers came back enough to kick the winning field goal with no time left on the clock, winning 12-10.  At least it doesn't count.  We haven't seen much of anything great from the Vikings this preseason so we'll see what happens for real on 9/9!

Our friend Loren and his lady friend joined us at our seats for the 2nd half of the game so the game wasn't the only thing we had to focus on.  This is the only picture I took that night which is from my phone but I can tell the difference in the photos how much lower our seats are this year.  We're about about the 35 yard line but the seats are really great and I love them!

MN State Fair

M and I went to the State Fair last Friday, the day after it opened.  This is our 4th consecutive year that we've gone together mostly due to the fact that his company chooses a day and pays for the employee and their guest(s) to go during the afternoon.  The temperature last Friday was 88 degrees and humid so I had a hard time with the heat as we both did last year.  

If I had to pay to go to the fair each year, I probably wouldn't go, even though I do want to go back again yet this year because I didn't eat that much and I didn't look at that much either.  Maybe I'll go sometime this weekend.  

I ate the exact same stuff as last year (boring!) and I really wished I ate more.  I think most people think the opposite.  Here's what I ate and drank:  a small root beer, a fish taco, potato buffalo chips and corn on the cob and a lemonade.  I always look forward to the fish taco and it does not fall into my plant based diet but it didn't taste as good this year.  My taste buds have changed and the things that used to be really good to me, aren't that great anymore.

We were only out at the fair for about 3 hours as we had a Vikings game to go to afterwards so I feel unfilled.  I do need to go back.  We'll see. 

Watching Common Man

I had to take a picture of this guy's outfit.  Does that make me a bad person?

18 inch corndog!

Back at M's work, they have book on the table for clients and people to look at.  Look who's on the cover!

Back to School

It's back to school time!  I had the opportunity to spend a $25 gift card for The Children's Place and go buy anything I wanted to review so I bought stuff that would be good for going back to school.

If you've never been to The Children's Place, it's a cute store for kids.  I'm not a fan of Old Navy but it reminds me of an Old Navy in the way the store is laid out. The inside of the location I went to was not huge like an Old Navy but laid out nicely where you can easily determine where to go for each age group as well as boys and girls are split and each have their own side of the store. I think the quality of the products are better than Old Navy but the prices are very comparable. That's the part that surprised me most.  I thought this was going to be a specialty store where I wouldn't be able to get much with just $25.  What did I know?  I don't even have kids!

For $25, I feel like I got quite of bit and now some of the items I bought are even cheaper. I was able to purchase a backpack, a lunchbox, a hat, sunglasses and a headband.  Isn't this perfect for a young girl?  I had a little bit left on the gift card so I was able to buy my nephew Colton a pair of sandals that had skulls and crossbones on it as well.  All this stuff for $24.97!

The backpack and lunchbox are both durable and are of good quality materials.  I was given the gift card for review purposes but I would definitely go back to this store and shop for my nephew.  There are 7 The Children's Place locations in the Twin Cities as well as at Albertville Premium Outlet.

This young girl's package will be donated as a basket for my dad's cancer benefit on September 29th.

If you're interested in getting the backpack, it's currently on sale for $9.99!  Check out The Children's Place website for all their sales.  

Here's the description of the backpack from their website.  

• An all-season style in water-resistant polyester with polyester canvas piecing
• Easy-to-grip handle and locker loop
• Padded polyester canvas back panel and adjustable, fully padded shoulder straps
• Two zipper compartments, and lots of pockets for all her stuff
• Front pocket is sized to fit our coordinating lunchbox inside
• Heavy-duty polyester oxford bottom and easy-pull zippers hold it all together
• Do-it-yourself ID label
• Measures 16.5"H X 11.5"L X 6"D
• Imported

Overall Rating

4.9

Quality

4.9

Styling

4.7

Durability

4.6

Fit/Comfort

4.7

Value

5

6 of 7(86%)customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Creepy TV

I've been meaning to share this story with you but I keep forgetting to write it.  I finally remembered while I was at the computer so here it goes:

Michael and I were watching the Olympics a few weeks back on a late Friday night and all of a sudden, a spider crawls across the TV screen.  I ask M to go get it and he grabs a piece of toilet paper from the bathroom and comes back and hits the screen but it just stays there and then starts crawling again.  He tries to get it again and then realizes...the spider is on the inside of the TV screen.  This just completely grosses me out but there's nothing we can do to get him.  Instead we continue to watch TV and he comes out and crawls across the screen a few more times throughout the night.  It's gross to see an illuminated spider which seems big crawling across the 50" TV.  

Fast forward to just this past weekend and watching TV again and now there are spider webs that are across the TV in the upper part of the screen on the inside.  There's no way to clean them out I would assume without taking apart the TV.  

Does anyone want to buy us a new TV?  I'll give you this one for free.  

A Special Breakfast

Last Sunday it was time to go out with my grandpa for breakfast but I also asked my parents if they could join us.  We met at the Woodbury Cafe in Woodbury.  I have been to all of the sister restaurants (Grandview Grill, Louisiana Cafe, Uptown Diner) so I am familiar with their menu.  Everyone loved their food so it was a great success.  My dad had the chicken fried steak breakfast, the walleye breakfast for my mom and my grandpa had a classic egg breakfast.  I had the cajun breakfast and tried my best to make it as veganized and healthy as possible but pretty much failed.

Have you ever used Groupon Now?  I've used Groupon many times before but Groupon Now is when a business is offering a deal for that day.  I decided to look and see if Woodbury Cafe was on there and it was so before I left, I bought a $15 voucher for $7 which could only have been used for that day.  If it expires without being used, you get the promotional value (the price you paid), back. It was a great way to save $8 before heading out the door.

Here's a picture of us. My dad probably doesn't like this picture because his cheeks puffy.  He's gained some weight lately but his cheeks are from the steroids he's been taking to control his pain.  My mom's eyes are closed. (WHICH THEY ARE IN EVERY.SINGLE.PHOTO.WE EVER TAKE!)

For those that have never seen my parents stand next to each other, my dad is 6'3" and my mom is 4'11"

Happy Friday

My coworker sent these to me this week and I think some of are neat.  You've probably already seen some of these but the one thing I'm not going to do is eat Oreo's with a fork!  But then again, I'm not dipping them in milk either.  Yuck!

Enjoy!

1.

Via: flickr.com

2.

Via: reddit.com

3.

Via: melissasloveoffood.com

4.

Via: i.imgur.com

5.

Via: reddit.com

6.

Via: justapinch.com

7.

Via: catchmyparty.com

8.

Via: realsimple.com

9.

Via: reddit.com

10.

Via: realsimple.com

11. Cut hot dogs in spirals to improve the wiener-eating experience

Source: youtube.com

12.

Via: reddit.com

13.

Via: emilybites.com

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Via: reddit.com

15.

Via: thediaperdiaries.net

16.

Via: reddit.com

17.

Via: imgur.com

18.

Via: alittletipsy.com

19.

It's Starting

Last Friday, August 17th was the first preseason home game for the Vikings.  While we don't really go all out for preseason, we still like to celebrate a bit.  M and I have to get used to tailgating again (and all the work it involves dragging stuff out week after week) and we haven't even begun to organize our purple gear yet.  What we can do easily is get together and meet with friends at least.  

Instead of parking in a lot and paying an arm and a leg, we parked at a meter new Gold Medal Park.  The 8 hour meters used to be $1 an hour but now during events, they are $3 an hour and are now electronic so they can set the price as they want and it's probably easier to get ticketed as well.  

Hanging in the park with Tanya, Chris, Asher, Joe and Andrew, having a couple of beers (illegally I'm sure) and good weather was a perfect way to spend a Friday evening.   

Asher is so adorable!

M and I have new seats this year.  We are still in the same section, which we love but we moved down at least 3 rows.  We're in row 6 now.  We moved a little further down the row away from the 50 yard line but only a few seats.  They are great seats and I can't wait to watch regular season in them.  Since no one takes preseason seriously, there are lots of empty seats so while Tanya and Chris and Andrew and Joe all had different seats, we told them to come up and sit with us hoping there would be seats in our section nearby.  Turns out that there were 4 seats open next to us so they were able to sit with us the whole time.  

Warning: Asher overload ahead.

Asher kept making fish faces so I decided to do one too

There's the fish face

And again

My friend Kristin was also at the game so she and her husband met us for a while in the row below us.

Picture this...everyone starts doing the wave.  After a couple of rounds, people start throwing their programs in the air as the wave makes its way to them.  This happens for many rounds around the dome until finally people start pulling pages from their programs and throwing them up and then people rip each page to shreds and start ripping them up as the wave goes around.  This happened for about 20 minutes to the point where the announcer had to tell people to stop otherwise they will get kicked out as there was trash on the sides of the field and paper airplanes making their way to the field.  It was entertaining for a second but then it got annoying and the whole thing was so childish.  Tanya and I talked about how bad we felt for the workers that had to clean up that mess at the end of the game.

The Vikings won 36-14 after having 2 interceptions for touchdowns by the same rookie within 17 seconds of each other. It was the highlight of the game. Actually, I take that back.  The highlight of the game was getting to see my boyfriend, Ben Leber again in person, looking incredibly dapper on the sidelines as he retired from football after one season with the Rams after his career with the Vikings and is now getting into a media/sideline reporter/broadcasting career.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of him and investing in a telephoto lens.  Remember my letter to Ben?  Tanya also loves Ben Leber and I've decided that we can both consider him our boyfriend since it is very fun to have a partner to talk about how sexy he is, but Tanya, remember, I've loved him longer.

My baby still wears purple.