once upon a time

Way back in July, I marked a few things off the ol' Life List--visiting a new state (Minnesota) and a new ballpark (in, um, Minnesota). Because things got pretty crazy in August and September, I've totally neglected blogging about this.

So July 15-19. I traveled up to Minnesota with my MIL and SIL. We flew into Minneapolis and then drove on up to Pine River. It's a small, quaint little town with two motels. We chose the better one. They had a Dairy Queen and a farmer's market. We visited both. The main reason we went up this far north into the state was so that we could drive up to where my MIL spent summers as a kid. She hadn't been in a very long time and my SIL and I had never been.


One of the numerous lakes in Minnesota is Lake Ponto. It's small and quiet and has just a few lake houses on each side. We visited the house that my MIL's grandfather had built and talked to the next-door neighbors. Things were very much like my MIL remembered, and it was great to be able to see this part of the family history. We took a lot of pictures and enjoyed our time there.



The second reason we made the trip was to visit some extended family members in Minneapolis. Before we headed there, however, we had to make a few small detours to see Paul Bunyan and Babe as well as the World's Largest Ball of Twine.

These family members were kind enough to let us stay in their beautiful home for the second part of our trip. They were so nice and hospitable. We had fantastic breakfasts and got a little tour of the city. They took us out to eat at some great restaurants and were just nice to visit with. I think the best part of the trip was that it turned into a ladies weekend. There was good girl talk and lots of talk about other family members and family history. I feel like I got to know everyone so much (more). And got to know where my husband came from. It was also good to just be able to spend some time with my in-laws without Hubby there. Nice to work on our relationships separate from the relationships he has with them.


And, like I mentioned, we also got to go to a Twins game. The ballpark is new, open air, and really nice. It was pretty chilly and overcast when we got there (most of the trip was chilly--in JULY) but the sun came out and burned me. The life of a redhead... We had good seats in the outfield. Is it bad that I don't remember a lot of details now? Freakin' baby brain... Three things, though. One, parking at a ballpark has never been easier. You literally exit the freeway into the garage that is connected to the field. Two, the side of the parking garage is visible from the field so they fancied it up a bit. The side of the structure was covered in these small, reflective metal pieces that moved in the breeze. It was really mesmerizing. I should have taken video. And, three, the "races" that they do on the jumbo-tron at Target Field (of course I liked the place), were between Babe and 2 Target characters. What did they race around? Only everything we'd seen--lakes, woods, Paul n Babe, and the GIANT BALL OF TWINE. We were very amused.


Minnesota? Beautiful. Hopefully some of these pictures will make up for my lack of memory details.

Comments

Post a Comment

crowd favorites

100 things--thankful

For another list of 100 I blame Geek . I am thankful: 1. for having all five senses. 2. for being mobile. 3. that I'm smart. 4. for not dislocating my knees in quite some time. 5. that my heart issue is not as scary as it first seemed. 6. that I have lots of great friends (and all that that means). 7. for having the ability to make friends. 8. for having a close relationship with my brother. 9. that I was adopted. 10. for being employed. 11. for getting to work from home. 12. for being able to read. 13. for being alive. 14. that my bio-mother chose life. 15. for having a place to live. 16. for having a reliable car. 17. I live in Texas. 18. I live in a place that is not war-torn. 19. for the relative safety of the town in which I live. 20. that I have all my limbs. 21. that it's socially acceptable for women to wear makeup. 22. that I can afford most of what I want and not just what I need. 23. for my parents. 24. that I was raised poor. 25. for bug spray (not necessarily rela...
Read more

hey, would you like to see the nursery?

Image
After a very productive week/weekend, the nursery is just about done. I think the only thing I want to do is whip up a simple padded headboard and Hubby needs to trim down the legs on a little footstool. That's it! Finally! So without further ado... This is what you see when you walk in the door. Too bad the baby won't be able to appreciate it right away. (And I'll apologize right off the bat for having some wonky-colored photographs in this post. I just don't have the energy to fix things. At least on my monitor, the above pic is roughly true-to-life.) Would you like to see that awesome rug a little better? Man, I love it. It was the one splurge for the room but it has such great colors, fun animals and designs, and is round. All my criteria were met. Love. Here's the corner with the crib. I wanted a clean, simple, modern, white crib. I hate to admit it but we ordered it from Wal-Mart. Hey, at least we didn't have to enter an actual store to get it. It was ine...
Read more