Collin has finally mastered rolling over!
note: after posting this we figured out that the sounds doesn't align with the video for some weird reason, so its probably better to watch it on mute- not to mention Drew isn't super excited that the world gets to hear his silly baby-voices :)
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
4 months!
Better late than never! Collin's four month photos are here. Our little guy is getting so big!
Double the Fun!
This past week was full of excitement for our family, as I turned 28 on the 22nd and Collin turned 4 months on the 21st. September is a ridiculously busy month for us as we have LOTS of events including at least 8 family anniversaries/birthdays/events, so sometimes we have a hard time keeping things straight.
So, to keep with the craziness we celebrated by going out to dinner, like we always do, except it turns out I have a knack for picking places that are closed for unusual reasons. This has happened three times now, and our most recent "attack of the closed restaurant monster" happened at Jay's Cafe in St. Paul. We had decided to try this place, after lots of good review on the critics blog at Minneapolis St Paul Magazine's restaurant guide and I was excited to eat something delicious. Unfortunately, as we pulled up we noticed the lack of life in the building. I thought, seriously? Again? What the heck is wrong with me?
So, as a back up plan we made our way to tried-and-true D'Amico, which I love
(specifically, I LOVE the key lime pie), but wasn't exactly what we usually do for birthday dinners. To top it off, Collin wasn't liking it either, and was super sad and fussy during dinner. We did figure out though that he liked to watch the flames in the brick pizza oven, so nearly all of dinner one of us spent time walking him back and forth in front of the oven. It made for fantastic birthday dinner discussions.... (right..... if talking to yourself qualifies then this statement is true).
But, to make up for the lack of fun I did get some fantastic gifts, including Collin's three month picture CD from Jenn, our fantastic photographer. Drew also did a great job shopping, deciding on a small nightstand for Collin's room (that I desperately needed for drinks and such when nursing), the Strap Perfect, which I've needed for a handful of shirts, and a toy, which was really for Collin, but I had asked for it earlier since Collin doesn't have too many lights and sounds toys- and really seems to like them. I also got lots of fun things in the mail including some cloth napkins and Bath and body works (thanks mom!) and some of the national letter books (Thanks Andrea!) to add to our growing collection.
Overall, it ended up being a great birthday. Not because of all the dinner mishaps, or because I've turned a year older (meh...). But instead because of what Drew wrote in my little card. He's always very sweet about what he writes, but this time, the best part was one little sentence:
" I love you so much, and I'm so lucky that we've created a family"
hmmm...
Its true. We've created a family, which is so much more than just a mom, dad and baby. Instead, we've grown together as we've welcomed Collin into our lives and I can honestly say that we are closer now as a result of building a family through love and respect than we ever were before Collin came along. While Drew wrote it, I am feeling like I am the one who is so lucky to have such an amazing family.
So this year, I have LOTS to be thankful for. I've been extra lucky to have a tremendously helpful husband, beautiful, healthy baby boy and an extended family that is supportive, caring and compassionate. Growing a year old doesn't seem so bad when I realize all of the love and support I am surrounded with.
Order up: I'll take many more years just like this one, please. Minor troubles on the side, with a large helping of double the love and double the fun.
Its true. We've created a family, which is so much more than just a mom, dad and baby. Instead, we've grown together as we've welcomed Collin into our lives and I can honestly say that we are closer now as a result of building a family through love and respect than we ever were before Collin came along. While Drew wrote it, I am feeling like I am the one who is so lucky to have such an amazing family.
So this year, I have LOTS to be thankful for. I've been extra lucky to have a tremendously helpful husband, beautiful, healthy baby boy and an extended family that is supportive, caring and compassionate. Growing a year old doesn't seem so bad when I realize all of the love and support I am surrounded with.Order up: I'll take many more years just like this one, please. Minor troubles on the side, with a large helping of double the love and double the fun.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Back Burner?...
It seems when you have a baby you just can't keep up with everyday tasks. Like blogging about our anniversary, which is now nearly a whole month past. Somewhere between the dirty diapers, doctor appointment calls, work schedule, and piles of laundry I seem to have misplaced my effort to share the events of our anniversary.... To the back burner with a dozen or so other tasks that are now finally getting the recognition they deserve.But as they say, better late than never...right?
For those of you who weren't actually there to help us celebrate our marriage, we took our wonderful vows on August 25th, 2007. That puts us now in the first steps of our third year of marriage. I can't believe its gone by so fast, and in someways its a little bittersweet. We aren't so young anymore and its hard to believe its been 2 years, where did the time go?
On our actual anniversary we were in Ludington, Michigan, so we went north to the sleeping bear dunes, then we spent the afternoon on a wine tour in the Sutton's Bay region of Michigan. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, its absolutely beautiful. Drew had never even been to the shores of Lake Michigan on the Michigan side (he'd only trompsed around on the Wisconsin side, but that doesn't really count... I mean its actually Michigan's lake right? Why else would they name it Lake Michigan).
We were able to leave Collin with my family for the whole day so we packed in as much as we could, however mother nature took that as a competitive statement and challenged us the whole way.
We started our morning bright and early with a 2 hour drive north to the park. We packed our things, gathered our maps and tucked in a picnic lunch for the day. We were off to enjoy our anniversary! We hoped to get to the dunes early enough to beat all of the summer holiday travelers who aren't exactly fit enough to make the dune climb a pleasant experience. We envisioned one or more of these travelers loosing their footing and rolling down the dune taking out small children and people along the way like bowling pins. We had no intention of becoming bowling pins. To our pleasant surprise, when we arrived the dunes were nearly empty, so we quickly shed our shoes and started the climb.
As a visitor, when you approach sleeping bear dune climb it doesn't seem like its too steep or huge, but in reality its a GIANT sand dune. If you look closely you see these little tiny ants...but you guessed it, they aren't ants. They are people. Crazy people like us, up at the crack of dawn, racing to the top of the dune to enjoy the view, unspoiled by hundreds of travelers.
As you climb your perspective improves and you find yourself saying, geez, this is a long way, wow I'm tired and do we have any more water? As we treded in the soft sand we were able to get some amazing morning views of the surroundings. It seemed so peaceful and austere. But still a bit exhausting. At the time we noticed the wind was picking up a little bit, but didn't think much of it. We should have listened to mother nature, but alas, we were lovestruck, spending our anniversary locked in adoration for each other. No amount of wind could have bothered us....(insert sarcasm here)... we chased a few tumbleweed (yes there are tumbleweeds at sleeping bear) and played in the sand.
After about an hour walk in toward Lake Michigan we made it to our lookout point, which was still about a mile to the shore. I promised Drew that the other lookouts at Sleeping bear national park were directly on the lakeside- he was looking forward to seeing the lake meet the great sleeping bear.
For those of you who don't know the legend of sleeping bear, you can find to whole story here, but in a nutshell, a momma bear and her cubs were out looking for food in Wisconsin. They were starving and noticed Michigan, because its so much nicer, had lots of good eats. So they decided to try to swim across the lake, but they became so tired that the two cubs didn't make it. So, the great dune on the shore is the momma bear, looking out over her two cubs, little and big Manitou Islands. Here she is, in all of her glory. Have a hard time 'seeing' a bear? Us too. Just use your imagination.
Back to the dune climb, here we are looking back at the inland lakes from about half way through our climb. You can't see the initial hill in this photo because we are so far in behind it.
After leaving the dune climb (amidst about 100 travelers...thank goodness we got there early) we went back to the sleeping bear scenic drive that includes the famous lookout point #9,(among other things, like a little covered bridge) where ridiculous people try to climb the dune, which is literally straight up and down and about 5 times as large as the one at the dune climb. We arrived at the lookout point and were greeted with some serious windiness. Now this would seem like no big deal, except for wind + sand = sandpaper shower. I wore a blanket just to avoid loosing my skin! 
It was awful! We could barely walk, let alone see, so we spent a total of maybe 10 minutes on the lookout. On this day because there was so much wind, and hopefully because its such a stupid idea, only one or two poor souls were trying to climb the dune here. You can see a very tiny little spot of a person along the shoreline in our photos.
After seeing the sleeping bear in all her magnificence- well, not really. The wind and erosion has made her look less and less like a sleeping bear and more and more like a little grassy plain. We ate a picnic lunch and started our way toward Sutton's Bay for wine touring.
The wine tour portion of our date was filled with lots of odds and ends. As a preface I'll mention that all of the wine tasting I've ever been on were in little wineries that were comfy little buildings, created to cater to wine-buyers. A wine bar, usually with a little shop, an outlook over the vineyards etc. Now, I've only been wine-tasting one other time, so maybe my expectations were limited but what we found along our trip was nothing short of strange.
Our first stop started out well. We started toward the west of Sutton's Bay and made our way toward Traverse City. It was a lonely Tuesday afternoon so the tasting rooms were wide open and we got lots of attention. The problem with attention is you feel obligated to buy something at every single winery..... We first stopped at Good Harbor Vineyards, which left a lot to your imagination. It was fairly boring. On a boring little road, in a boring little building. We were in and out in 15 minutes tops, but not without first buying two bottles of one of their white wines, Trillium, and its where the drinking began! Sadly, one of the pioneers of the Leelanau Peinnsula wine industry owned this vineyard and recently passed away.
Then we were on to a cluster of vineyards including 45 degrees, which sadly, was closed for construction and Circa, a new place that was super cute and had a great atmosphere and little porch. They gave away these little buttons, like flare. I chose "nutty" for Drew. He was sweet, and chose "exquisite" for me. We wore then for the rest of the day, you can see them in our last picture of the vineyards.
After Circa, we traveled on, all the while getting a bit more intoxicated. Drew was looking for reds, and striking out. At Circa the staff told us to try a vineyard called Raftshol to try the reds. Here's where the weirdness begins.
Driving along we see lots of county signs for vineyards and finally see the one for Raftshol, except for it appears to drive into a driveway....to a garage. We are confused. But we pull in anyhow. We go to the door, which is indeed a garage door and we peer in. What do we see? A garage. boxes, books, piles of shit everywhere, and along side the stuff is a bar. A tasting bar to be exact. We felt like we were trespassing. In we went, and out comes (from the attached house) a little old man looking like the Gorton's Fisherman, with something similar to waders on (do wine-makers need waders?). We asked to try the red, he poured some and looked at us like, okay? What next. It was such an odd experience. The kicker was Drew says the wine was wonderful. We bought some. As we were waiting for him to write a bill of sale, on some recycled piece of a hotpocket box, I noticed the walls were studded with notes of the family sort. Buy paper towel, organize old taxes, etc. Who new some of the best wines come out of a little man's garage in the Leelanau Peninsula. Check out their website here, it doesn't show the 'tasting room' (surprise surprise) but you can read the endearing story of how he, and his brother found themselves in the wine-making business.
Moving on, as the wine starts to have an effect on me, the names of all of the wineries blurred together. We had a few more experiences in standard tasting rooms, adorable settings with yummy wine. We went to Black Star Farms, which has one of the cutest, mind you, spendy, B & B's around. We then went to Shady Lane Cellars, and I drank more and more. At every stop you get between 3 and 6 wine tastings, so by now, I was feeling good. Drew was holding himself accountable, as he was driving, while I was all about tasting as much as I could. Then we found ourselves at Willow, which sat high on a hill in Suttons Bay. Here I am at Willow, with perma grin admiring the little delicious grapes. At Willow, we ran into some other folks from Minnesota. Who knew!
Willow vineyard was adorable, with a iron gate with the word Willow spelled out in the iron. We loved it here (possibly because they had heavy pours). We then went on in a mumbo jumbo ruckus, landing at a few places including, L Mawby, which I remember because this was another diamond in the rough. This one wasn't in a garage though, it was in a barn. Saddle up kids. We walked in and found a sweet woman who shared all sorts of sparkling wine with us. I expected hay on the ground, but it turns out it was just concrete.
For our wedding we recieved a bottle of Sex sparkling wine, we found that here. We had no idea it was local at the time, but appreciate it more now. We really liked their Fizz, which is a sweeter version and bought two bottles to celebrate with. We also learned that L Mawby has two lines, L. Mawby for their wines, and a reversa of the name, M. Lawerence for the sparkling wines. We sauntered out of the winery heavy two more bottles and went a few yards down the road to Ciccone vineyards. Yep. This is that Ciccone family. Turns out Madonna's family makes some good wines, and along the way doesn't forget to plug her products. You can buy an exclusive Madonna wine there. It actually looked pretty cheesy though, so we didn't try it. Drew tried the reds here and loved them, so we bought another bottle and made our way to our next stop, Chateau de Leelanau. By this point I was fairly incopacitated. We wandered in after I scarfed down a hershey's bar. I tried three more wines and liked one, but when we saw the price of just a half bottle (32.99) I scurried away. In the end, it was the only vineyard we didn't buy wine at. Just as we were leaving, mother nature was catchin up and it started to rain. We had about a 2 hour drive back to the cottage, so with my little buzz, and the blanket left over from the sandstorm I cuddled up for a little nap and Drew took us home with the sweet drone of rain putting me to sleep.
When we arrived we said hello the baby, stowed our 13 bottles of wine and quickly got ready for our anniversary dinner at the local Ludington Yacht club. We were exhausted after such a busy day, but thankful to be spending another anniversary together. We spent dinner talking about all sorts of things, how our life has changed, what we enjoyed about the day, but mostly I just found myself thinking how lucky I've been in life to find such an amazing husband.
So here's to you Drew, better late than never.
To many many many more years of adventure, love and laughter.
For those of you who weren't actually there to help us celebrate our marriage, we took our wonderful vows on August 25th, 2007. That puts us now in the first steps of our third year of marriage. I can't believe its gone by so fast, and in someways its a little bittersweet. We aren't so young anymore and its hard to believe its been 2 years, where did the time go?
On our actual anniversary we were in Ludington, Michigan, so we went north to the sleeping bear dunes, then we spent the afternoon on a wine tour in the Sutton's Bay region of Michigan. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, its absolutely beautiful. Drew had never even been to the shores of Lake Michigan on the Michigan side (he'd only trompsed around on the Wisconsin side, but that doesn't really count... I mean its actually Michigan's lake right? Why else would they name it Lake Michigan).
We were able to leave Collin with my family for the whole day so we packed in as much as we could, however mother nature took that as a competitive statement and challenged us the whole way.
We started our morning bright and early with a 2 hour drive north to the park. We packed our things, gathered our maps and tucked in a picnic lunch for the day. We were off to enjoy our anniversary! We hoped to get to the dunes early enough to beat all of the summer holiday travelers who aren't exactly fit enough to make the dune climb a pleasant experience. We envisioned one or more of these travelers loosing their footing and rolling down the dune taking out small children and people along the way like bowling pins. We had no intention of becoming bowling pins. To our pleasant surprise, when we arrived the dunes were nearly empty, so we quickly shed our shoes and started the climb.As a visitor, when you approach sleeping bear dune climb it doesn't seem like its too steep or huge, but in reality its a GIANT sand dune. If you look closely you see these little tiny ants...but you guessed it, they aren't ants. They are people. Crazy people like us, up at the crack of dawn, racing to the top of the dune to enjoy the view, unspoiled by hundreds of travelers.
As you climb your perspective improves and you find yourself saying, geez, this is a long way, wow I'm tired and do we have any more water? As we treded in the soft sand we were able to get some amazing morning views of the surroundings. It seemed so peaceful and austere. But still a bit exhausting. At the time we noticed the wind was picking up a little bit, but didn't think much of it. We should have listened to mother nature, but alas, we were lovestruck, spending our anniversary locked in adoration for each other. No amount of wind could have bothered us....(insert sarcasm here)... we chased a few tumbleweed (yes there are tumbleweeds at sleeping bear) and played in the sand.
After about an hour walk in toward Lake Michigan we made it to our lookout point, which was still about a mile to the shore. I promised Drew that the other lookouts at Sleeping bear national park were directly on the lakeside- he was looking forward to seeing the lake meet the great sleeping bear.
For those of you who don't know the legend of sleeping bear, you can find to whole story here, but in a nutshell, a momma bear and her cubs were out looking for food in Wisconsin. They were starving and noticed Michigan, because its so much nicer, had lots of good eats. So they decided to try to swim across the lake, but they became so tired that the two cubs didn't make it. So, the great dune on the shore is the momma bear, looking out over her two cubs, little and big Manitou Islands. Here she is, in all of her glory. Have a hard time 'seeing' a bear? Us too. Just use your imagination.
Back to the dune climb, here we are looking back at the inland lakes from about half way through our climb. You can't see the initial hill in this photo because we are so far in behind it.
After leaving the dune climb (amidst about 100 travelers...thank goodness we got there early) we went back to the sleeping bear scenic drive that includes the famous lookout point #9,(among other things, like a little covered bridge) where ridiculous people try to climb the dune, which is literally straight up and down and about 5 times as large as the one at the dune climb. We arrived at the lookout point and were greeted with some serious windiness. Now this would seem like no big deal, except for wind + sand = sandpaper shower. I wore a blanket just to avoid loosing my skin! 
It was awful! We could barely walk, let alone see, so we spent a total of maybe 10 minutes on the lookout. On this day because there was so much wind, and hopefully because its such a stupid idea, only one or two poor souls were trying to climb the dune here. You can see a very tiny little spot of a person along the shoreline in our photos.
After seeing the sleeping bear in all her magnificence- well, not really. The wind and erosion has made her look less and less like a sleeping bear and more and more like a little grassy plain. We ate a picnic lunch and started our way toward Sutton's Bay for wine touring.
The wine tour portion of our date was filled with lots of odds and ends. As a preface I'll mention that all of the wine tasting I've ever been on were in little wineries that were comfy little buildings, created to cater to wine-buyers. A wine bar, usually with a little shop, an outlook over the vineyards etc. Now, I've only been wine-tasting one other time, so maybe my expectations were limited but what we found along our trip was nothing short of strange.
Our first stop started out well. We started toward the west of Sutton's Bay and made our way toward Traverse City. It was a lonely Tuesday afternoon so the tasting rooms were wide open and we got lots of attention. The problem with attention is you feel obligated to buy something at every single winery..... We first stopped at Good Harbor Vineyards, which left a lot to your imagination. It was fairly boring. On a boring little road, in a boring little building. We were in and out in 15 minutes tops, but not without first buying two bottles of one of their white wines, Trillium, and its where the drinking began! Sadly, one of the pioneers of the Leelanau Peinnsula wine industry owned this vineyard and recently passed away.
Then we were on to a cluster of vineyards including 45 degrees, which sadly, was closed for construction and Circa, a new place that was super cute and had a great atmosphere and little porch. They gave away these little buttons, like flare. I chose "nutty" for Drew. He was sweet, and chose "exquisite" for me. We wore then for the rest of the day, you can see them in our last picture of the vineyards.
After Circa, we traveled on, all the while getting a bit more intoxicated. Drew was looking for reds, and striking out. At Circa the staff told us to try a vineyard called Raftshol to try the reds. Here's where the weirdness begins.Driving along we see lots of county signs for vineyards and finally see the one for Raftshol, except for it appears to drive into a driveway....to a garage. We are confused. But we pull in anyhow. We go to the door, which is indeed a garage door and we peer in. What do we see? A garage. boxes, books, piles of shit everywhere, and along side the stuff is a bar. A tasting bar to be exact. We felt like we were trespassing. In we went, and out comes (from the attached house) a little old man looking like the Gorton's Fisherman, with something similar to waders on (do wine-makers need waders?). We asked to try the red, he poured some and looked at us like, okay? What next. It was such an odd experience. The kicker was Drew says the wine was wonderful. We bought some. As we were waiting for him to write a bill of sale, on some recycled piece of a hotpocket box, I noticed the walls were studded with notes of the family sort. Buy paper towel, organize old taxes, etc. Who new some of the best wines come out of a little man's garage in the Leelanau Peninsula. Check out their website here, it doesn't show the 'tasting room' (surprise surprise) but you can read the endearing story of how he, and his brother found themselves in the wine-making business.
Moving on, as the wine starts to have an effect on me, the names of all of the wineries blurred together. We had a few more experiences in standard tasting rooms, adorable settings with yummy wine. We went to Black Star Farms, which has one of the cutest, mind you, spendy, B & B's around. We then went to Shady Lane Cellars, and I drank more and more. At every stop you get between 3 and 6 wine tastings, so by now, I was feeling good. Drew was holding himself accountable, as he was driving, while I was all about tasting as much as I could. Then we found ourselves at Willow, which sat high on a hill in Suttons Bay. Here I am at Willow, with perma grin admiring the little delicious grapes. At Willow, we ran into some other folks from Minnesota. Who knew!
Willow vineyard was adorable, with a iron gate with the word Willow spelled out in the iron. We loved it here (possibly because they had heavy pours). We then went on in a mumbo jumbo ruckus, landing at a few places including, L Mawby, which I remember because this was another diamond in the rough. This one wasn't in a garage though, it was in a barn. Saddle up kids. We walked in and found a sweet woman who shared all sorts of sparkling wine with us. I expected hay on the ground, but it turns out it was just concrete.For our wedding we recieved a bottle of Sex sparkling wine, we found that here. We had no idea it was local at the time, but appreciate it more now. We really liked their Fizz, which is a sweeter version and bought two bottles to celebrate with. We also learned that L Mawby has two lines, L. Mawby for their wines, and a reversa of the name, M. Lawerence for the sparkling wines. We sauntered out of the winery heavy two more bottles and went a few yards down the road to Ciccone vineyards. Yep. This is that Ciccone family. Turns out Madonna's family makes some good wines, and along the way doesn't forget to plug her products. You can buy an exclusive Madonna wine there. It actually looked pretty cheesy though, so we didn't try it. Drew tried the reds here and loved them, so we bought another bottle and made our way to our next stop, Chateau de Leelanau. By this point I was fairly incopacitated. We wandered in after I scarfed down a hershey's bar. I tried three more wines and liked one, but when we saw the price of just a half bottle (32.99) I scurried away. In the end, it was the only vineyard we didn't buy wine at. Just as we were leaving, mother nature was catchin up and it started to rain. We had about a 2 hour drive back to the cottage, so with my little buzz, and the blanket left over from the sandstorm I cuddled up for a little nap and Drew took us home with the sweet drone of rain putting me to sleep.
When we arrived we said hello the baby, stowed our 13 bottles of wine and quickly got ready for our anniversary dinner at the local Ludington Yacht club. We were exhausted after such a busy day, but thankful to be spending another anniversary together. We spent dinner talking about all sorts of things, how our life has changed, what we enjoyed about the day, but mostly I just found myself thinking how lucky I've been in life to find such an amazing husband.So here's to you Drew, better late than never.
To many many many more years of adventure, love and laughter.
All my love.
Monday, September 7, 2009
happy birthday daddy!
Today is a special day in our family. What special day you ask? Why, its Andrew's Birthday. 32 years ago he made his way into this world. Collin and I are especially blessed to have him in our lives and look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with him.
So, as the day approached I began the process of figuring out what to get Drew. Maybe something fun, like a trip to the Leininkugel's brewery...or maybe something more practical, like a new tool from the Craftsman catalog, but all of my thoughts were put aside when Drew announced just what he wanted. No surprises here folks, he even went as far as to put together a 'wish list' at the website so that I new EXACTLY what to buy. What go him so excited you ask????
Well, of course, a lawn sprinkler timer and other various gadgets from sprinkler warehouse. How absolutely riveting (insert sarcasm here)! Who wouldn't get their pants in a bundle over this! Here it is, in all its amazing glory!
Really though, while I found this gift a bit on the dry side, Drew was super excited about it. It even has a little remote that he's mentioned he'd like (hint hint Santa).
While some people would think identifying just what you want for your birthday is a blessing, I was rather confounded by the situation. I love birthdays. I love getting fun gifts for friends and family and my dear husband stole all the fun right out of it, as I couldn't do much shopping since I knew what I had to get him. Eventually, I got over it, but it left me feeling like I cheated on birthday shopping.
We had a little pre-birthday incidence just yesterday as we took Collin to the fair for the first time. What a GREAT MINNESOTA GET TOGETHER! We love the fair! Especially the deep-fried deliciousness. For one day a year there is a no-holds-barred pass to eat whatever the heck you want, for me this year, it was tried and true cheese curds from the mouse trap, deep fried pickles, a little of Drew's garlic fries and a whopping bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies, washed down with lemonade, followed by milk for the cookies. Had I thought it would work I might of actually tried to get in the stroller so Drew could have pushed me home. Too bad Collin needed the seat! While we were in line for one of our treats we came across a banner that said "Happy Birthday Drew!" it was clearly for someone else, but we bogarted it for a few minutes to take a few pictures, so it at least looked like Drew had a birthday party at the state fair. Or, I mean, we er...did...have a birthday party at the state fair. To whomever Drew is (likely a 5 year old somewhere in the twin cities) thanks for sharing your birthday fun!
Every year on our birthdays we make a day of it. You get to do whatever you want, culminating with the dinner choice. Any restaurant, no questions asked. Except for this year- there were questions asked, specifically about a little tag-along we have named Collin. How well would he do in a restaurant we wondered, could we feasibly take him with us? Did we want to get a sitter just for dinner? A whole new world of choices opened up like a black hole. How on earth do people with kids do birthdays?!?
Drew decided he wanted to get a bike-ride in, sans the wife and baby, so off he went for three hours of peace, quiet and speed, followed by his very favorite food, Pizza. It was up to him, as the rules suggest, to decide on the pizza place and to determine if we were going to brave eating with Collin or get a pizza to go.Drew decided we should all go to eat at Fat Lorenzo's, rated as one of the best pizza places in the twin cities. He was STARVING by the time we were able to get a table and sit down- it was super packed, so by that point I am pretty sure he would of thought the cardboard pizza box was tasty.
After we gobbled down the delicious and sinfully bad for you artichoke dip (and thats saying a lot coming off state fair food) and part of a Fat's combo pizza we made our way home to wrap up the birthday festivities.
Our celebratory efforts didn't end with Drew's desires for the day- what kind of birthday would be complete without a cake, so while Drew was away we made an angel food cake with berry sauce and sneaked out to get Drew a little something so he actually had a surprise on his birthday, albeit small (see I really couldn't resist getting him something). Collin and I decided an ode to daddy would be nice, since Collin is still a bit small to be thinking of things on his own. We also framed up two of the photos of Collin with is dad too to.
Here's his (our) ode to daddy on his birthday:
All in all I think it turned out to be a great 32 for Drew, although he mentioned earlier in the week that he was going to stop aging at 30, so I suppose he would just be 30 again, for the 3rd time now. Whatever it is, we love him so much and can't wait to see what next year holds.
So, as the day approached I began the process of figuring out what to get Drew. Maybe something fun, like a trip to the Leininkugel's brewery...or maybe something more practical, like a new tool from the Craftsman catalog, but all of my thoughts were put aside when Drew announced just what he wanted. No surprises here folks, he even went as far as to put together a 'wish list' at the website so that I new EXACTLY what to buy. What go him so excited you ask????
Well, of course, a lawn sprinkler timer and other various gadgets from sprinkler warehouse. How absolutely riveting (insert sarcasm here)! Who wouldn't get their pants in a bundle over this! Here it is, in all its amazing glory!
Really though, while I found this gift a bit on the dry side, Drew was super excited about it. It even has a little remote that he's mentioned he'd like (hint hint Santa).
While some people would think identifying just what you want for your birthday is a blessing, I was rather confounded by the situation. I love birthdays. I love getting fun gifts for friends and family and my dear husband stole all the fun right out of it, as I couldn't do much shopping since I knew what I had to get him. Eventually, I got over it, but it left me feeling like I cheated on birthday shopping.
We had a little pre-birthday incidence just yesterday as we took Collin to the fair for the first time. What a GREAT MINNESOTA GET TOGETHER! We love the fair! Especially the deep-fried deliciousness. For one day a year there is a no-holds-barred pass to eat whatever the heck you want, for me this year, it was tried and true cheese curds from the mouse trap, deep fried pickles, a little of Drew's garlic fries and a whopping bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies, washed down with lemonade, followed by milk for the cookies. Had I thought it would work I might of actually tried to get in the stroller so Drew could have pushed me home. Too bad Collin needed the seat! While we were in line for one of our treats we came across a banner that said "Happy Birthday Drew!" it was clearly for someone else, but we bogarted it for a few minutes to take a few pictures, so it at least looked like Drew had a birthday party at the state fair. Or, I mean, we er...did...have a birthday party at the state fair. To whomever Drew is (likely a 5 year old somewhere in the twin cities) thanks for sharing your birthday fun!
Every year on our birthdays we make a day of it. You get to do whatever you want, culminating with the dinner choice. Any restaurant, no questions asked. Except for this year- there were questions asked, specifically about a little tag-along we have named Collin. How well would he do in a restaurant we wondered, could we feasibly take him with us? Did we want to get a sitter just for dinner? A whole new world of choices opened up like a black hole. How on earth do people with kids do birthdays?!?
Drew decided he wanted to get a bike-ride in, sans the wife and baby, so off he went for three hours of peace, quiet and speed, followed by his very favorite food, Pizza. It was up to him, as the rules suggest, to decide on the pizza place and to determine if we were going to brave eating with Collin or get a pizza to go.Drew decided we should all go to eat at Fat Lorenzo's, rated as one of the best pizza places in the twin cities. He was STARVING by the time we were able to get a table and sit down- it was super packed, so by that point I am pretty sure he would of thought the cardboard pizza box was tasty.
After we gobbled down the delicious and sinfully bad for you artichoke dip (and thats saying a lot coming off state fair food) and part of a Fat's combo pizza we made our way home to wrap up the birthday festivities.
Our celebratory efforts didn't end with Drew's desires for the day- what kind of birthday would be complete without a cake, so while Drew was away we made an angel food cake with berry sauce and sneaked out to get Drew a little something so he actually had a surprise on his birthday, albeit small (see I really couldn't resist getting him something). Collin and I decided an ode to daddy would be nice, since Collin is still a bit small to be thinking of things on his own. We also framed up two of the photos of Collin with is dad too to.
Here's his (our) ode to daddy on his birthday:
Yippee for Daddy! You're 32!
Today is a day of celebration long overdue!
To celebrate how much you mean to us
shouldn't take a birthday date
instead, once a week we should make a fuss
to tell you why you are so great
You clean my dirty diapers,
and thats no easy task
because we use cloth instead of paper,
and sometimes they are so bad you feel like you need a mask
When I am with you you make my day
I smile and giggle when we play.
I love to see the world from your chest
to me you are the very best!
Happy birthday Daddy!
love Collin
Today is a day of celebration long overdue!
To celebrate how much you mean to us
shouldn't take a birthday date
instead, once a week we should make a fuss
to tell you why you are so great
You clean my dirty diapers,
and thats no easy task
because we use cloth instead of paper,
and sometimes they are so bad you feel like you need a mask
When I am with you you make my day
I smile and giggle when we play.
I love to see the world from your chest
to me you are the very best!
Happy birthday Daddy!
love Collin
All in all I think it turned out to be a great 32 for Drew, although he mentioned earlier in the week that he was going to stop aging at 30, so I suppose he would just be 30 again, for the 3rd time now. Whatever it is, we love him so much and can't wait to see what next year holds.
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