March 2014 - Random

My mom's debut at The Nook.  Soooooo good.  

Powder and his proper pose

Please, go ahead and make yourself comfortable

M and his decision to join the St. Patrick's Day Parade.  You can do whatever you want when you're unemployed.

Stuck in rush hour traffic while black smoke billows across the freeway

I Love This Day

M surprised me on Valentine's Day by meeting me at work and taking me out to lunch. We went to Cowboy Jack's near my work and had a wonderful mid-day intermission from the rest of life and he completely brightened my work day.

We went out to dinner that night for our traditional Valentine's night at White Castle. We went to the Columbia Heights location this time. We've gone to a different location each year and it's always a different experience as you can imagine.

 

 

After we ate, we stopped at my mom's house so I could give her a bag of goodies for V-Day. We went home and watched TV and M and exchanged some cards and gifts. This is why I love Valentine's Day....what one person gets would be completely horrible and a nightmare for someone but is perfect for another. If my Conscious Box looked like this every month, I would be in heaven. M picked out a combination of all local/organic/vegan food products and a chapstick. I also got a cookie recipe book and a wooden salad bowl, something I've always wanted. He knows me perfectly!

 

 

While we were at White Castle, M surprised me and told me that we were going out to dinner again the next night and so on Saturday, M took me to Murray's in downtown Minneapolis. M had been there once before but I had not. The dinner was very nice but some parts of the dinner were salty. The steaks are wet-aged so maybe that is part of the reason. That was not enough to wreck anything and it was really a perfect night!

 

 

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FRI HH

One thing that the Alphabet Gang has never done is have a happy hour on a Friday night, until February 7th. We met at Mac's Industrial in Northeast Minneapolis after work. One of our members got lost and didn't make it and one of our members completely forgot so she had to venture out from home. We got to meet the newest addition to Catha's family, Dahlia, who was just about 10 weeks at the time, skinny and long. Despite being a Friday night, I think we all enjoy our weekend time and we only met for as long as we normally would on a week night. A few in this group don't like getting their pictures taken so it can be a chore getting one of these guys but somehow we get all of us in there for an "ussie".

 

 

 

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Winterfest

We went to Winterfest on Friday, January 31st and met our friend John there. It was held at a new venue this year, the Union Depot in St. Paul. Winterfest is the coveted beer fest for the serious beer peeps and the first of three for the year put on by the Minnesota Craft Brewer's Guild. This was the third one we've been to and I preferred this venue but M liked it better when it was at the Minnesota History Center. The beer booths were a lot closer to each other and that was what I liked however it did get crowded in the area it was held. I don't partake much but I had some fun ingredients in my beer like coconut, raspberry, blueberry and blackberry. The food was pretty decent as well serving roast beef, cold roasted veggies and potatoes. I would have liked to have seen HammerHeart Brewing there but there's not enough room for all the good brewers. Of the three of us, each of us ran into someone that we went to school with. I guess everyone does like beer.

 

Jeremy and I--We haven't seen each other since we were 19

M and Dangerous Man Brewing's found Rob Miller

Photobombed!

 

 

 

 

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My Birthday

My birthday Tuesday, January 21st, was already over two weeks ago and I turned 37. Thirty-seven. The number didn't even phase me. That's refreshing.
Just like we went to brunch at Pinstripes for M's birthday, we also did the same thing for my birthday on the Sunday before. We love that place and isn't going to brunch what you do when you are a full-blown adult?
The weather on that Sunday was perfect for a January winter birthday celebration. It was 34 degrees and after brunch, we walked around Centennial Lakes enjoying the actually warm sun. The rest of the day we spent at home watching football.
On Monday, January 20th, my mom and sister and me went to dinner at TGI Friday's. I opened presents at the table like I was 10 years old and then we went to the mall to shop a little.
On my actual birthday, I took the day off from work and did...nothing. M and I spent the day together and we were going to see a movie but never did. I got some stuff done around the house and enjoyed my day off.

This is what 37 looks like. Taken on my birthday. No makeup, just lazy and natural.

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Cold Italian Birthday

Monday, January 6th was supposed to be the day that my mom's side of the family would celebrate my grandpa's birthday at Yarusso's for dinner. Instead, it was unbearably cold and we decided to do it that Wednesday.

Yarusso's has a deal where you get a free birthday entree on the first Monday of your birthday month with a paid entree. Yarusso's was nice enough to honor the birthday deal for our party on Wednesday. Even though we got together for my grandpa's 79th birthday, M and I both got to take advantage for our birthdays too.
We had a good turnout but we can never get everyone together at once with everyone's schedule and location and a family member having the flu didn't help either.
I forgot to take pictures but fortunately, M took some of us while we were all chatting away. Can't wait until next month when we get to go there with the other side of the family!

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The Big 4-0

M's birthday was Sunday, January 5th. He turned 40 years young. M didn't want anything big for his birthday. In fact, the only thing he really wanted to do was to have a meal and watch football. Sounded perfect to me.

The morning of M's birthday was super cold.

We went to Pinstripes in Edina for brunch. M had never been there for brunch before but he enjoyed it. I don't know know why it but it felt very adult to be celebrating a birthday over brunch. We had a great table right next to the window overlooking some of the trees that are a part of Centennial Lakes. In the tree, there was a cardinal right next to us and he looked so beautiful with the green and white background.

There's the birthday boy!

Afterwards, we went home, got back into our cozies and watched football all day long. A low-key birthday but exactly what he wanted. Happpy Birthday, Michael. You were 30 when we started dating and look, you're 10 years older and we're still dating. Just kidding, Nietzsche. Love you!

 

 

 

 

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NYE

New Year's Eve was very low-key and they way it probably should be for people our age. Our friends Chris and Tanya came over with their son Asher and we had food and some drinks while listening to music and watching some TV. Despite being low-key, we all stayed up late with them leaving at 2:40 am. How'd you spend your New Year's Eve?

 

 

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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.