St. Paul Adventure

Last Thursday, Adelyn and I made our way to St. Paul to go to a Chile exhibit with some moms and babies. We got there about 10 minutes before we were supposed to meet them, which was perfect because we had to park and get there. Well, I didn't realize that the boys hockey tournaments were going on. Parking was a mess! Every lot that I know of and passed by were full. Some lots were closed to event parking. I drove around for about 40 minutes before I found something. Luckily, it wasn't that far away from where I needed to be, and I could use the skyway system for most of the journey. I got Adelyn in her carrier and away we went!

Our destination was the Landmark Center. We quickly made our way through the skyway. I stopped to look at a map and a very nice lady stopped and asked if I needed help. She said that the Landmark Center wasn't connected by skyway, but if I go back to the building I just came through, go down to street level, it would just be across the street. Perfect! So, down four flights of stairs we went. When we got into the parking garage on street level, I realized that I no longer had Adelyn's blanket draped over my bag. Oops. So, back up four flight of stairs and retracing our steps through the skyway. Luckily, we didn't have to go too far to find it. Phew. Back down four flights of stairs...

By now it's about a quarter to two. I haven't been able to get a hold of the gal that organized the event, so I have no idea if there is anyone waiting for me. I stopped by the information desk to ask where the exhibit is and if they know of other people looking for people. Turns out, the exhibit wasn't there anymore! And no, they didn't know of anyone else looking for people. Hm. So I asked what else there was to do in the building. Turns out a lot! It was so cool! On the second floor there was a music museum. We made our way there and - ta da! met up with Jen! She had just gotten there too due to parking. So, we made our way through the floor. It was pretty cool. I learned a little about the evolution of the piano. Then Jen had to go. Since Adelyn and I didn't have anywhere to be, and that we worked so hard to get parking, we stayed. I'm glad we did! Outside some of the rooms on the various floors, there were posters telling about what used to be there and some other history things about Minnesota. I thought it was super cool. (For instance, I learned that it was after FBI agents were shot at a bunch that in 1933 they were allowed to carry handguns). In our wanderings, a lady stopped by to smile at Adelyn. She told us about the old court room that was on the fourth floor. So we stopped by that. It was so neat! I loved the woodwork and the marble fireplace. We stopped by her office when we were done to thank her and she invited us back for the free concerts they have every week. I think we might take her up on that!

The day wasn't anything like I was expecting, but I am very happy with how it turned out. I really had a good time (after the stress of parking was over, that is!).

Road Trip

This past weekend Adelyn and my mom and I went on a road trip to Iowa. Why? You ask. Good question. It's Iowa. But really it's because our good friends Chuck (aka Charlie) and Michelle were having their little daughter, Alaina baptized. Ben was out of town, so we decided to make it into a girl's weekend.

Saturday morning we dropped Zoey off with my dad and picked up my mom and started our trip. Adelyn slept all the way to Clear Lake (about 2 hours). We stopped at Culver's for some lunch. Then it was back on the road. Adelyn fell asleep again and slept until we got to West Des Moines. We checked into our hotel and hit the pool! Adelyn wasn't too sure about the pool. Eventually she warmed up to it and relaxed enough to splash around.

After play time, Adelyn and I got ready for the mass and baptism. (My mom decided to just chill at the hotel). Adelyn did great during mass! I was a little worried, but there were enough distractions that she was pretty good. She LOVED Michelle's grandma who was sitting behind us. A lot of waves and smiles went to her. After mass was the baptism. Adelyn started to get a little antsy towards the end, but it was getting late for her. After the baptism, I dropped her off at the hotel to go to sleep. I headed over to Chuck and Michelle's place for dinner. There were a lot of people there, but I was able to chat a bit with both of them and their families. It was a lot of fun to see them.

The next morning we hit up the pool again. A lady came to swim laps and Adelyn did not appreciate that. I think it was the noise that it created. So, we didn't stay too long. We packed up and headed out after everyone got cleaned up. Adelyn must have been tired, because she slept all the way to Burnsville! What a good traveler!

February Review

R1 - I wrote to both my grandmas. Seems so not impressive, but whatever.

R2 - Ben pointed out a major mistake in my resolution for walking Zoey - too easy to fail! He encouraged me to rework it so that I could make it. So, instead of walking her 5 times a week, my goal is to walk her 250 miles this year (5 times a week x 1 mile x 50 weeks - roughly what I did before Adelyn was born). So, that's my new goal. Unfortunately, this has caused me to slip back into laziness. I hope to get back into walking this month! And once it's warm again, I can take Adelyn with, which will make it easier to go on a walk. Anyway, I have walked 10.5 miles so far this year, leaving 239.5 to go.

R3 - I was able to run 6.5 miles. That brings the total to 12.5 miles, leaving 137.5 to go. I'm thinking about doing a tri in May, so that would help bring my total up as I train for it.

R4 - This is the easiest goal for me. This month I made:

Chocolate Stout Cake - recipe from Real Simple. It turned out pretty good even though I put all the chocolate in the cake instead of reserving some for the frosting. Oops. :)

Coconut Chicken with Mango Salsa - pretty tasty, although would like more of the coconut flavor to come through. I might experiment with marinating in coconut milk or something.

Asian Style Meat Loaves - This was yummy! I got this recipe from a friend. I know that I said before that I don't like meat loaf, but this was totally different.

Beef with Smokey Pepper Sauce - This was also pretty good. It tasted better as leftovers though after the flavors mingled a bit more. Recipe from BH&G Magazine.

Ginger Pork Sandwiches - This was ok... the flavors were good, but strangely, you couldn't really taste the pork. Ben thought you could make a mean vegetarian sandwich by just making it without the pork. Recipe from BH&G Magazine.

I also made Oatmeal Fudgy Bars, a recipe from Ben's mom. But Ben said I couldn't count it since he's had them before. Not sure if I agree with his logic, but I made 5 recipes without that one, so I guess we can go with that.

What a Trooper!

Last week we went to Florida to watch the launch of the space shuttle Discovery. It was a very neat experience. We didn't do the best job of figuring out where to watch it from, so we weren't as close as we would have liked. But we did have a great view and had a lot of fun.

The way the flights worked out, we didn't leave until 7:20 at night. And then our flight was delayed. Adelyn usually goes to be bed between 6:30 and 7. But she did great! Smiled at the flight crew. And then snuggled in for some sleep. She woke up when we landed and stayed awake through the car ordeal...

We had reserved a car. When we got to the car rental counter, the guy told us that the manager was down there where the cars were and that if we acted mad, they would comp the gas and give us half off. I thought he was trying to give us an inside scoop on how to get the car cheaper, so I joked with him about it... then he said they only had vans left. Not just any vans, 15-passenger vans. Oh, ok. Got it. We are mad about that. So we went down to get the car. And we waited. And waited. Not sure where the vans were coming from, but we ended up waiting for over one and a half hours for it. Towards the end Adelyn started to get cranky, and so was I. But we got our sweet ride and left the airport.

In the great state of Florida, there are Steak n' Shakes. This was our one chance to go there. So we were "those" parents and brought Adelyn there at 2 am. She had napped in the van, so she was awake and alert.

Finally, we made it to the hotel. But with our bellies full of burger, fries and shakes, we were pretty happy. We were the last to check in at the hotel. Thankfully we had prepaid, so they didn't give our room away. But, they didn't have any cribs left. Adelyn woke up when we were unloading the van. We made a bed for her out of extra pillows and a blanket. She thought it was a lot of fun to crawl out of her bed. Finally, she went to sleep.

After what seemed like a short night, we were up and on our way. We went to a deli that is owned by a guy that Ben knows for lunch. SO GOOD! We had a nice chat with him and then we rushed out the door to make it to the coast.

We started hitting some traffic. We both agreed that we did not want to watch the shuttle out of our ride's windows because we couldn't find or get to a place. So, we picked a rough area of where we wanted to be and headed that way. We ended up about 20 miles away from the launch, near Cocoa Beach. We had a great view and there were very few people. But being 20 miles away, we didn't see nearly the detail as we would have liked. One cool thing about being that far away was that we saw the launch and just as it was disappearing from view, we heard it. It was neat to have that much delay. Crazy!

We had dinner plans with some people we met at this year's IM cruise. Dinner was set for 6:15 just about 10 miles north of where we were. We had about an hour to get there. No problem, right? Wrong! Traffic was terrible. It was literally stopped. People were getting out of their cars to visit with other people. People were turning their cars off. RV's were pulling onto the shoulders to wait it out... We got to the restaurant around 7:15. Our friends had an even shorter distance to go and we beat them. But finally we connected and had a nice (??) Thai dinner. The question marks is because the service was terrible. It was the waitress's first night. And because of the launch it was a bit crazy. Luckily for us, we had great company. And Adelyn did great. Towards the end she started to get fussy, but by then it was after 9. Oh, and she did great in the traffic too - slept the entire time.

Even with the stop for dinner, there was still some traffic issues. We took a couple of side roads to avoid some of it. Ben let me take a nap. I don't even know what time we got back to the hotel. I think it was after 11. Adelyn was so sound asleep in her car seat, that we decided just to leave her there. But in our room, of course.

The next morning we were up at 5:30 to make our flight back home. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we had so much fun!