July 2014 - Fourth of July

M and I decided to do go on a somewhat impromptu trip for the Fourth of July.  Thankfully, I have a sister in the hotel business that was able to set us up nicely.  We stayed in Canal Park in Duluth on Thursday, July 3rd and then in Two Harbors on Friday, July 5th.


Once we got there, we went directly to see if there were any ships coming in.  We got lucky and saw one departing right away.  There were so many people there.

We then went up to Enger Tower.  I don't know if I had ever been up there before.  If I had, it was when I was a kid and I don't remember.  It's a beautiful park with a zen garden and a path to Enger Tower where you can climb up it for a gorgeous view of Duluth and beyond.  We walked around the park a bit and explored, taking a narrow wooded path where we were eaten alive by mosquitoes.  It was so bad we had to make our trip quick and turn around of the woods.  

M ringing the gong

Can you see the bridge in between the two trees?

We woke up on Friday, July 4th somewhat early, ate breakfast and got ready for the day.  Both M and I thought it would be funny, yet still patriotic to wear the some of the cheesiest 'Merica t-shirts we could find.  M originally started this a couple of weeks earlier and bought a couple of shirts because he couldn't decide on just one.  I went and bought one the week before and so I was ready too.  We reluctantly put them on and headed out for the day. We got them at Wal-Mart, the best place to find shirts like this, hands down and probably only one of the couple times a year you'll catch me at a Wal-Mart. Yuck.  I had three compliments before I even left the hotel and M had two.  It settled our nerves a little bit about wearing them out and we would seriously have lots of compliments all day long.

I would have bought this shirt had it been in my size.  A raccoon holding a patriotic cupcake with sparklers and a flag in it with a bow in its hair?  Are you kidding me?!?!

We ventured up the North Shore, stopping at Stoney Point.

We continued all the way up to Lichen Lake.  We were just there several weeks earlier but there were campers in the area where we put my dad's ashes.  I assumed since it was Fourth of July weekend there would also be campers there but we decided to take our chances.  The spot was clear when we got there!  

We saw this little guy in the middle of the road so we had to stop and help him across safely before we moved on.  

Butterflies again!  How I love butterflies. These are Silvery Checkerspot butterflies.

In September of 2013, most of us threw pennies into the lake for my dad.  M decided to put lodge his into the bark of a tree.  The first thing I did was go look at the tree to see if it was still there.  It was not but after searching for a minute or two on the ground, I found the penny.  

We drove back and checked into our Two Harbors hotel, rested a little before heading back to Duluth to watch the fireworks from Bayfront Park.  We were worried about finding a place to park so we got there early, close to 7 pm and hung out in the park in our grassy spot listening to the bands play, people watching and walking around to the different food vendors.  We saw multiple people in the park with the same shirt that M had on.  

We had heard big things about the fireworks show in Duluth and were excited. The show was good but I think St. Paul still has them beat, despite Duluth boasting the upper Midwest's largest fireworks show. (Not sure what largest really means.) We stayed around Canal Park walking around and admiring the lit up Aerial Lift Bridge before heading back to Two Harbors.  We had tons of fun in our last-minute trip!

June 2014 - Father's Day

May 2014 - Mother's Day

I don't even remember what we did for Mother's Day, if anything but I went to my sister's, where my mom also moved to in April 2014 and we hung out for a little bit.

I made this for my mom.  It's a picture of Lichen Lake transferred onto a piece of wood and then I painted it gray to match my mom's room.  

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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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.