1.11 – 1.17 gotta do what you gotta do

On Sunday night, we learned that sitter heather was sick, as were her two daughters. Stomach virus. Not fun. So we had to scramble to watch lydi-bug. One morning, I tried working in the office while I had Lydia in her high chair playing with playdough.

That worked great, for about 20 minutes. Then she wanted a new color every 5-10 minutes. After going through each color a couple of times, she wanted OUT. Tough to get anything done with the little munchkin.
Sweetie sweets took off around lunch and brought mini-sweets to the mall of america for a butterfly show.

started off like underwater adventures, but after a few minutes she dug it.

and liked having lunch @ the moa

Also this week, I started back on my p90x home workouts. Lydia likes to watch me while she eats dinner.

Thankfully, heather & fam got a clean bill of health and were ready to resume regular duties on Thursday.
With all the paper I threw out and with the recent birthday bash, check out our recycling day layout.

Looks like Sanford and son.
saturday lydia went to spend the night w/ auntie lisa (thanks!) and we headed out w/ sara to see local musician Chris Koza @ cafe maude.
great food, great music and great company


On Sunday, I was able to get playoff tix for the Vikings v. cowboys game at the dome. Dave and I were pumped. Abriel came over and we went out for brunch at the new loring kitchen & bar in loring park.

Very cool space and fantastic food. I got a prosuitto eggs benedict thingee and lara had a fru-fru omelet.

Awesome. Dave treated. Not necessary, but thanks!

We also put in a $5 wager on the golden globes. I felt rushed with my picks and the other 3 tied for the top spot (I came in 2nd).

Are you watching dexter yet? He won best actor…..here is a video for another taste


The girls dropped us off at huberts, across from the dome, for a quick drink before heading in. it was packed. Love this pack showing how jammed up it is


You could feel the energy outside the dome.
Favre banner was getting me pumped.

How can you not love the guy?
Here’s me & dave.

We TROUNCED the ‘boys (34-3). It was AWESOME. Check out these pics.



Here is the skol Vikings song that was played many times on this day.

12.14 – 12.20 it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas

lydia and lara decorated for x-mas.

having some saggy diaper issues.

fixed.


we gathered together our annual donation for Toys for Tots

on friday, tia came over to babysit so we could go see abriel graduate from mba school from st thomas.

way to go abriel (or ab-rail as they pronounced her name to receive her diploma…too funny).

her brother clayton flew in from nyc and dave and his mother joined the group as well. man, i had forgotten how boring graduations are. great events, don’t get me wrong, but let’s open up the phone book and read every name for an hour. whoa.


got some nice pics afterwards.





and then hit the swanky d’amico kitchen inside the uber hip chambers hotel downtown for some celebratory dinner.

rayna and jonny met up with us as well. d’amico owns several successful restaurants throughout the twin cities and this is the swankiest and is only a few months old.

the food was great and it was really fun hanging out with everyone. and, clayton picked up the tab for everything! too, too kind and thanks again!

after dinner, we headed outside to the eden “ice bar”.



i had heard so much about it, so we had to try it. the ice bar is, well, a bar made out of ice.

there are also ice couches, sculptures….even flowers in ice

lots of ice in general

here i am w/ abriel showing how cold our breath is

there is also a super-rad fire pit in the middle of the bar area and check out the awesome lights above. love it. only in minnesota.
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the fire was really blowing and felt like it was coming a little too close to us. am i on fire here?

pretty cool and i guess it should be since all drinks are $12.50. this isn’t nyc!

it was fun but it was also cold, so it was one quick drink and out of there.

on saturday morning, i took lydia to check out bunny clogs.

bunny clogs is the lead singer of the honey dogs, adam levy, new children’s band. the show was at the cedar (awesome) and was packed! we are very lucky that they have so many cool live shows and cultural opportunities for kids. we started out hanging out in the back and taking in the vibe.

then headed to the back corner so lydia could have some room to groove. she was enjoying hanging on to my legs while she worked it out.

had to take a self pic.

time to sit down for a break.


here is a video of bunny clogs to give you a taste.

she was worn out on the way home.

that night, we had clayton, abriel and dave over for dinner. clayt’s flight got snowed out, so we did our best to keep him entertained.
lara made her famous enchiladas & a mexican salad. such a good cook.

group pic

me lydia pic

dave read to her after dinner.

it wasn’t long before we had to had downtown for my second show of the day…..mason jennings at first avenue. the place was a zoo.


and obviously sold out.

we got there right before mason came out, so it was hard to find a good vantage point with the sea of bodies.

great show. he just played here a few weeks ago and now sold it out again. wow.


we had a great time. the highlight was a late set cover of the bands’ “the weight”. here is a video sampling of that cover at another show.

poor clayt, his flight got cancelled again on sunday, so we had abriel and him over to watch the vikings game the next night. lydia working on getting the floors ready

abriel brought over some pizza from broders (thank you).

abriel read to lydia, and they were both decked out in their vikings gear.

a nice ending (sans result of the game) to a great week.