Memorial Weekend 2014

Hooray for Memorial Day weekend!  For the last few years, I've had to work the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend; this year I lucked out!  Normally, we would take advantage of the long weekend and head up north for a camping trip.  This year, we stuck around the metro to attend Matt's friend's wedding.

 

All decked out!  Matt and I at the reception.  Matt went with the Mohawk 'do.  :)

Time for a goofy selfie!!

Cheers to the couple (and to open bar)!

Matt giving his best Dean Martin impersonation.

Matt with his friend Jake ( groomsmen, middle) and the Groom's brother.

The wedding reception was a lot of fun, and though I had only met a few random peeps from the wedding just once before, I still let loose out on the dance floor and we both had a great time!  Sunday was followed by "veg out" day, both of us sluggish from the night before.

Normally I take my long jogs on Sunday, but since we were both dragging from Saturday's wedding events, I ran on Memorial Day instead.  Look, it's the running tomato!!  Monday was rather warm and humid, with dew points in the mid 60's; perfect conditions for sweating my ass off. My training schedule was to run 7 miles that day.  It was 7 miles of hell, but I did it anyway!  This was around mile 5, my face red as a tomato.  The tune "Summer Breeze" was playing at this time; and let me tell you, the summer breeze wasn't making me feel very fine right then!  Ha

By the time my run was finished, I had "sausage" fingers!  My normal sized fingers on the top photo, my chubby sausage links below.  Yikes!  Lots of water guzzling when I got back home...

The fun didn't stop there!  After I got back from my exhausting run, we continued working on the back yard projects. We began putting in the dry rock bed along the side of the garage. After a couple passes with the tiller, soil grade was adjusted before laying the rock. 

The beginning stages of the dry river bed.  Finally, all the rock we've been finding in the yard goes to good use!

A couple more photos of the tulips from the back yard..

Minnesota nice!

It was a gorgeous day in Minnesota; sunny and 80°! For my upcoming 15k, my training schedule was to run 5 miles today. I've been struggling with my weekday runs lately, probably due to our busy spring work hours and boredom running the same route. I decided to try a new section of the Gateway Trail that runs near our neighborhood. The Gateway Trail runs 18 miles between St. Paul and Stillwater; that means plenty of trails to explore! After taking in two handfuls of chocolate chips (Jolene, thanks for the snack advice!!), I hit the trail and began my usual route. At mile 1.2, I veered off to a different trail section to finish out my run. How awesome was the view! It was a great distraction from thinking about running, and my already trashed feet (an unusual love/hate relationship with tennis shoes); not to mention the large blister I developed too on this run! I cranked out the 5 a lot better than I usually do. :-)

A beautiful section of the Gateway Trail. What's not to love?!

After finishing my 5 miles, I was still a couple miles out from my starting point by Lake Phalen. While walking back, I stopped to snap a couple photos of the Phalen area with my phone. There was no wind today which made for awesome reflections on the water. With nature finally waking from the long winter, everything was so green and spectacular looking!

I love this area! There were tons of people out by the lake; runners, walkers, people fishing, grilling, canoeing, playing volleyball. It was great to see so many active people out enjoying our awesome Minnesota day!

Happy 30th Matthew!!

Yesterday (Sunday, May 18th) Matthew turned the big 3-0!! To celebrate, we had a fun weekend of festivities starting Saturday night.

 

I took Maddie out to our new fave little restaurant on the East side - Ward 6 (Photo by  Bill Kelley). There we enjoyed apps, tasty brews, and yummy burgers.  Afterwards, we went home and enjoyed a nice bonfire out in the backyard!

 

On Sunday we went to the St. Paul Saints game. This is the last year the Saints will play at the Midway Stadium before it is scheduled for demolition.  They Saints will move closer to downtown with a new stadium. 

 

What a beautiful day for a game and for Matt's birthday!  Sunny and 70 with a slight breeze. :)

Though the Saints lost by a landslide, it was still great to sit out and enjoy a baseball game! And what better way to end the day with a tasty Root beer float.  Here's to a wonderful year, Maddie! :)

Appetite for Destruction

It's spring time, and once again we've started up where we left off last fall on the yard. There's still MUCH work to do!

 

This past weekend we focused on 3 main areas; the side of the garage, the garden area, and the area where the retaining wall will go in. And this is just the backyard!

There were three volunteer trees along the side of the garage that needed to be removed. Matt taking one down, old-school axe style.

With the trees removed (except the one in the far back that is grown into the fence), we removed debris (in which I found Rhubarb!) and rocks before tilling.  Lots of rocks, wth? Once the grade against the garage is adjusted, we'll be putting in a dry rock river bed for excess water runoff.

Our rock piles continue to grow.  This is only one of 3 piles!

We're not sure what this area was used for before we moved in, but we tore out all the black fabric and tilled it up for our garden area. More rock (huge concrete blocks) found. There's the Rhubarb I found!

The cats LOVED us being outside this weekend; that meant they could too!  Hershey loves spending ample time outdoors; more so than the other two.  He had to make his way up into the tree at some point in the day.

Since this is our first spring at the house, we had no idea what to expect as far as what would be emerging from the ground.  Turns out we have tulips!  A plethora of yellow, and a few red stragglers.

I plan to keep all of them; they're just so pretty!  But where to put them all?  They will have to be removed from the area they are in currently; we plan to put grass down in their spot.

Red ones from the old landscape.

Another shot of Hershey, by the tulips. 

We also have a large lilac bush in the back yard that we intend to keep.  The cats love hiding out underneath there, watching the birds land up above in the birdfeeder in the tree. And there's the photogenic Hershey, underneath!

 

Yikes! A look back at what we started with last year when we moved in.  Though the yard is a giant mud pit now, it's gotta look worse before it gets better, right?