I am blogging from my deck while enjoying a gorgeous sunset, lit tiki torches, the occasional mosquito (okay, so maybe I am not enjoying that part) and a cold one. The day finally turned into something magnificent after we endured above 90 degrees for the past two days in a row. Not that I am complaining, because heaven knows that this is better than -30 degrees. It was so hot yesterday that I broke down and purchased a kiddie pool for the backyard to cool Benjamin and I down a bit. We both enjoyed splashing around in it for a while before Daddy got home from work.

As you can see in my previous post about this weekend, we were busy but not terribly so. Earlier in the week, on Monday, I decided to clear out the house of all unnecessary items and put on a garage sale. I gathered all of the misc items and furniture we wanted to sell and organized it for our grand opening Friday morning. The weather looked like possible rain, so I put up all of the tables inside the garage in a nice configuration for those stopping by to see our wares. Friday's crowd was full of garage sale professionals ready to buy some goods and eager to make deals. But Saturday was the cleanup crew. We went into the day wanting to at very least sell the last few furniture pieces that were left, which we did.

To celebrate Father's Day, Mike decided that he wanted to take a little road trip down to LaCrosse, Wisconsin Saturday afternoon. It was his choice to pick whatever he wanted to do, so he chose the Pearl Street Brewery tour, picking up food at the co-op and picnicking at Riverside Park down by the waterside. We have always adored LaCrosse and we had a great time visiting once again. The brewery tour was okay. We did get to try a bunch of their beers though and the price of their 6 packs was very reasonable. I won't go into it, but the tour guide was - um, interesting. As always the co-op in LaCrosse puts ours to shame, especially their prepared foods/deli section. Benjamin and I enjoyed sloppy Josephines, which were made from textured vegetable protein - awesome! Mike had a goat cheese and roasted red pepper sandwich on a delicious baguette.

We had originally planned on camping somewhere near LaCrosse Saturday night, but were unsure of the weather and also unsure of how hard it would be to find an open campsite. But we came up with a solution. Mike and Benjamin put up the tent in our backyard and after all three of us sat around the campfire for a while, they both camped out in the tent for the night. I got to sleep inside. I woke up early and surprised them with a newspaper, coffee, chocolate milk and a bagel from the gas station. They were very happy and actually slept very well during the night. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and dining at our favorite place. I think Mike enjoyed his father's day very much.

We have a very big weekend ahead of us. Benjamin turns the big #4 on Saturday and Mike runs his first triathlon on Sunday. We are all preparing for the weekend and can't wait to celebrate with Benjamin.

What a lovely Father's Day weekend it has been. I'll do a full recap in a couple of days, but here is a taste...

On Friday and Saturday we held a garage sale at our house to free up some space in our closets and rooms. Proceeds are going toward a fancy new vacuum cleaner and maybe a night out for Mommy and Daddy some day. After we closed up the garage sale, we headed to LaCrosse for some activities of Mike's choosing...

Mike and I along with our friend Nate and Mike's brother Dan competed in the annual Amuzing Race, a fundraiser for the Rochester Public Library. This was the third year for Mike and I to participate in the race, which is very similar to the television show, Amazing Race. Teams of four are given clues which take them to different locations in and around the city of Rochester where they compete in challenges and race to get to the finish line first. We always have an awesome time doing the race and this year was no different. Here is our race report:

As always registration and the start of the race was at the library. We all gathered in the auditorium to review the rules and receive our first clue. In previous years we have tried to position ourselves near the door so we could be ready to run out and get a good start on the race, but in the past 2 years the first clue didn't involve needing to get out of the room quickly. So this year we didn't worry about where we were standing and wouldn't you know it, the first challenge had us all run upstairs with a definite advantage to those getting up there first. We had to locate two candy bars hidden somewhere on the second level of the library. Our team was one of the last teams up the narrow stairway and so we were left with locating the more cleverly hidden candy bars. We all felt very frustrated at first as we saw team after team completing the task while we were still wandering around aisles of books. It seemed like we were the last team to still be searching. Luckily, Nate had some keen eyesight, located both bars and notified the rest of our team. We ran downstairs and received our second clue which instructed us to travel to Peace Plaza on foot for the next challenge.

Nate and I decided to let our more athletic team members do the running, so Dan and Mike set off for Peace Plaza while we got the car and met them there. Once they arrived, they had to search through a Post Bulletin newspaper to find a message for the racers. After some searching, they finally located a Lost and Found ad that told us to drive to the Girl Scout camp within Rochester city limits. Luckily I was aware of the location, so we were fast to set off in the direction of the camp.

When we arrived there we were given the next clue - a Roadblock challenge, which meant that we had to choose between 2 challenges. We could either learn and sing two Girl Scout camp songs for judges or roast marshmallows to make and eat one S'more per team member. The singing challenge sounded like it would be faster, so we started with that one first. The two songs were the Brownie song ("There is something in my pocket which belongs across my face...") and "Make New Friends," which were two songs I know very well thanks to my many years as a Girl Scout. However, the boys on the team didn't know the songs and when we found out that we had to memorize them, we decided that making and eating S'mores would be easier and faster. It was a breeze for us and we quickly moved on to the next challenge on the clue we were given at the campfire. Next we had to locate 7 out of 11 trees within the Girl Scout camp that were listed on our clue and marked on the tree itself. We had to collect slips of paper with the tree names from a little pouch on each tree. This involved a lot of running around on very muddy trails, which was extremely tiring and even caused Nate to slip and sprain his ankle (poor guy!). We were able to make up some ground at this point because the guys realized that a whole group of trees were back in the campfire area from the S'mores challenge. Most of the other teams were still running around the trees when we finished and were given the next clue.

Next we had to locate the Bookmobile somewhere in the small town of Byron, which is not far from the camp. We drove around for only a short time before spotting the Bookmobile, getting another clue and moving onto the next challenge. At the Byron Links mini-golf course each team member had to take turns putting onto one of about 6 greens for a hole-in-one. One person from every team either had to get one hole-in-one or if they could not, the teams could move on after 25 minutes of trying. Our team came so close many times, but we were unable to get that allusive hole-in-one, so when the 25 minutes were up, we were able to get our next clue and leave the putting green behind.

From there we had to travel back to the library in Rochester. We got there quickly, snagged a parking spot from a friend and fellow racer out front and ran inside to find that a challenge was setup in the auditorium. A projector was showing images from movies and we had to guess the movie titles correctly. We only had one chance to do them correctly (it was at this point that I actually remember to take pictures during the race).

There were 30 images and if you named 25-30 correctly, you could receive the next clue. If you scored less than 25, you had to incure a time penalty. The penalties were longer depending on how many you had incorrect. Thanks to our team's extensive knowledge of movies, we were able to get 26 correct and could proceed to the next challenge without a penalty. From the auditorium we then had to run upstairs to the library's parking ramp roof, which was about a 7 flight climb (more running!). Once up on the roof, we had to search the surrounding buildings and ground by sight for a race volunteer holding a bunch of balloons. Once again, Nate's keen eyesight helped us and we were quickly able to locate the balloons. Then we had to race by car to the location of the man holding the balloons and he would give us the next clue.

The clue from the balloon guy told us to go to the Silver Lake Boat Launch where team members were to canoe or kayak around Silver Lake looking for a volunteer on a bridge who would hand them the next clue. I was very excited for this challenge, because I adore kayaking! I decided to "take one for the team" and do the kayaking by myself. It felt so good to be out on the water and I found it easy to paddle quickly despite being very tired from previous challeges. I knew exactly what bridge to paddle to and made quick work of getting out there, getting the clue and paddling back to the boat launch. Other teams seemed impressed that I kayaked alone for the challenge and I have to say that I was extremely proud of myself; it was so much fun!

We ran back to the car and read the clue which instructed us to locate the Kutzky Park shelter. We had a vague idea of where the park was, but because Kutzky Park is split into two halves along a river, we unfortunately chose the incorrect location and had to turn around to get to the other side. Dan and Mike ran to the shelter to see if the challenge needed 2 people or 4. We all needed to do the challenge, so they waved us on. Nate and I drove the car over and hopped out to help with the challenge. We had to take uncooked pieces of dry spaghetti and gumdrops and create a structure that could stand 36 inches tall on its own for at least 30 seconds. We looked around and other teams were making cubes out of the materials, so we stupidly did the same thing. During our construction process, we realized that we shouldn't have worked so hard to make a cube, we could have achieved the needed results from a much simplier structure. So we modified it and quickly had our finished product. At this point in the race, we were pretty sure that we were ahead of most of the teams, but we didn't know how far ahead. We kind of pushed ourselves to beat this one team, "the green team" in particular who seemed to be pretty close to us throughout the whole race and so when we finished our spaghetti-gumdrop structure before them, we were pretty pumped! The next clue told us to locate and drive to the building under construction which is named for the first African American to travel to Antartica. At first we were all stumped, but after a few minutes of thinking, I remembered that the new elementary school on the northwest side of town is named after a notable black Rochesterian, but I wasn't exactly sure where the school is being built. Ironically, just as we were driving north on Highway 52 trying to figure out where to go, the "green team" passed us! We were pretty irked that they got ahead of us, until we realized that they knew where they were going! We followed them all the way to the new school, which was where we thought it was, but who knows where we would have ended up if it wasn't for them! A volunteer at the school gave us each a water bottle and another clue.

The clue told us to go to John Hardy's BBQ, but purposely didn't say which location (northside or southside) to go to. We hedged our bets and went to the northside since it was closer to the school. The lanes heading south on Highway 52 were down to one lane and we weren't sure for how long, but the traffic looked bad. We took a detour to avoid the traffic, but we soon realized that the backup wasn't as bad as it looked and we had lost some ground on beating the team ahead of us. We arrived at the northside John Hardy's restaurant only to receive a clue that said we had picked the wrong location and we should drive to the southside location. At this point we were all very bummed. We knew we were not in the top 10 (the lady at the restaurant told us we were the 12th team to check in there) and we didn't think we could catch up with the "green team." But we did our best to get to the restaurant as quickly as we could anyway. We were just a few blocks away from John Hardy's when we realized that the "green team" was only a few cars ahead of us. Mike avoided a red light by cutting through a gas station (illegal, we know) to get ahead of them. Suddenly the race was back on for us and our adrenaline was pumping again! Mike had enough forethought to turn a little before the restaurant, which is not accessible from the side of the street we were on. Amazingly, we got to the volunteer, got our clue and were back in the car before the "green team" even arrived!! The clue told us to head to the History Center of Olmsted County, which we knew was where the finish line was located.

Mike did some fancy driving to get us to the history center very quickly, we parked the car and we all ran like crazy people to the volunteers waiting outside of the building. We had one more challenge to complete - we had to correctly remember the sponsors of each leg of the race. Luckily we had been keeping all of the clues which had each sponsor name printed on them and we were able to quickly compile a list of enough sponsors to get the next clue, which told us to locate the picnic shelter and cross the finish line. We ran to the shelter just as other teams were arriving for the last challenge. We triumphantly crossed the finish line and learned that we were the ninth team to finish! Amazingly we DID finish within the top 10 AND we beat the "green team!" After a round of high-fives and a finish line photo, we "raced" over to the buffet table for a much deserved John Hardy's lunch!!!

We didn't beat our finish from last year (8th place), but we managed to stay in the top 10 even with this being a much more physical race, having a new team member and one person getting injured. We also had so much fun, as always!

Our little guy has a big day today! Benjamin is moving up to a new room at daycare, into the Preschool room. Today is his first day of no longer being a "multi-ager." He has been in the multiage room since October of 2007, so this has been a long time coming. The process for moving the kids up to new rooms goes by birthdate, so because new older kids kept coming into daycare, Benjamin wasn't able to move up until now. But the good thing about waiting is that he is able to move up with a bunch of his best buddies, so he won't be the only new kid. He can't seem to make up his mind on whether or not he is excited. On one hand, he thinks that because he's a preschooler now, he can suddenly do things he wasn't allowed to do before he became a "big boy." Yesterday he tried to get me to lift the ban on watching Spongebob Squarepants, so I had to explain that he's going to have to wait a bit longer for that to happen. This morning he woke up and told us that he didn't want to go to preschool because he didn't want his friends to look different. Apparently he has it in his head that they've all aged about 3 years since last week!

To honor this big step, Mike and I wanted to do something special for him. We took him to Target last night and let him pick out a new preschool backpack that he can use to bring his books for naptime and his show-and-tell toys everyday. It was a hard decision, but he went with the Batman backpack, a fine choice.

I spent this weekend in the Chicagoland area, which was fun. Mom, Dad and I drove down on Friday and we stayed with my Uncle Terry and Aunt Clarice in their beautiful home. It was a treat for me to spend some time in the areas where I grew up, which have changed unbelievably since I lived there 13 years ago. Mom and I went to Kelly's bridal shower and Dad visited my Aunt Cookie (Marianne) whose cancer has sadly returned. It was a successful trip and we all had a very nice time. We were back in Rochester Sunday evening to enjoy Mike's cooking with our tagalongs, cousins Jeanne, Jordie and Joe who are in town from Hawaii. They're staying with Mom and Dad for a few days to get a taste of Minnesota.

Mike and Benjamin spent the weekend doing guy-stuff like having a bonfire, visiting the farmer's market, having brunch with runners and watching movies. Although the weather took a turn for the worse (high temps in the low 50's), I think they enjoyed their weekend.

I am having a hard time with this week's blog entry. I don't feel motivated to write it at all! Maybe that's because the weather is so nice and when I'm not outside, I'd rather be daydreaming about being outside! This weekend we hosted some family at our house for a nice evening hanging out on our deck, took Benjamin to see the movie Up with Mike's parents and celebrated our godson's first birthday. Mike and I even got to visit our favorite sushi restaurant for an amazing meal of specially prepared delectable nigiri at the sushi bar. I can still taste the wasabi! Delish!

I am in the beginning stages of preparing for Benjamin's fourth birthday party. I cannot believe that June is here and his birthday is only 3 weeks away. He's having his first friends-party, so this is new for us. He is very excited. I showed him the invitations that I designed and he was very impressed.

Mike's triathlon is the day after the party, so he is in the midst of his training. He purchased a new road bike on Friday and has been taking it out so he can figure out the gears and everything. So far he still loves it, so that's good. I have to say, it is pretty slick looking! Benjamin is SO pumped to "see Daddy swim and then bike and then run."

I am off to Chicago this weekend for my cousin Kelly's bridal shower. She's the gal who was the little rugrat that would follow me around begging to play Barbies and now she's getting married. Unreal.

Our oh-so-adorable Godson, John, celebrated his first birthday yesterday. I'll take the time to write a full entry tomorrow, but here are a couple great photos from the day...

It was a weekend of home improvement projects:

Benjamin and I repainted his bedroom on Friday from the crazy yellow and nursery murals that I did FOUR years ago to a gray color that allows all of the colors in his room to pop, it looks fabulous! Mike and I also began our bathroom flooring project, but because we were having visitors this weekend we decided to not rip up the toilet just yet. The completion of that project will have to wait until this week.

...a weekend of the outdoors:

Grandpa Bert and Grandma Cindy visited on Saturday and we took a trip out to Oxbow Zoo for animal viewing, a picnic and hiking. The weather started out rainy, but eventually the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. We had a great time exploring in the woods on our very long hike and I played around with my camera a bit to capture some interesting photos.

...a weekend of running:

We found a spot near mile 10 at the Med City Marathon Sunday morning for our annual cheering station. Mike and I stayed up late Saturday night making signs and Benjamin let us bring along some of his musical instruments to make some noise for the runners. The weather was amazing and the runners really seemed to enjoy our enthusiasm! We went to a couple of marathon after-parties throughout the day and then ended the evening with a bonfire in our backyard. We toasted some marshmallows, made s'mores and just relaxed around the fire.

...a weekend of baseball:

Mom gave us a couple of tickets that she had won at work for the Twins on Monday so we decided to travel up to the cities for the game. We dropped Benjamin off with Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed and we drove out to the Metrodome. The Twins lost to the Red Sox, but we had a blast at the game. Joe Mauer, who was out for the whole game, came in at the bottom of the ninth inning to hit a home run and bring the score up to a loss by only one point. It sure was exciting! Benjamin spent his time meeting Mom and Dad's neighbors at a Memorial Day block party. We drove back to Rochester Monday night and said goodbye to our nice long weekend.

What a perfect holiday weekend it was!

Okay, okay - I get it. Obviously most of you out there call out "Slugbug" when you see a VW Beetle, so I concede. However, I'm going to continue to play "Punchbug" with Benjamin when I see one. Mike is concerned that he's going to come home with a black eye (or eyes) someday from a friend (or friends) when he tries to fight with them over what it should be called. There's nothing wrong with being different, is there? But on the other hand, I will not stand by and let Mike teach him to play "Duck, Duck, Greyduck" because even here in the land-of-crazy-words, kids are beginning to see the light (or lifer Minnesotans are slowly being overrun by transplants from WI, IL and IA) and now more of them are playing "Duck, Duck, Goose."

Our recent weekend was a pleasant one spent at home for a change. We have been having some really wacky weather here lately though. Saturday morning while Benjamin and Mike were at the Farmer's Market, I was working on one of my landscaping projects in the backyard and it was around 47 degrees with a strong wind. I wore a sweatshirt, light jacket, jeans and my work gloves to keep my hands warm. Yesterday the high here in Rochester reached 94 degrees. Needless to say we were all wearing shorts and t-shirts and LOTS of sunscreen! Benjamin hasn't really adjusted to the up and down temperatures and was very confused when on Saturday he was wearing a jacket and on Monday he could wear shorts.

We spent much of the weekend hanging out at our house and running errands. We stopped by Lowe's at one point and picked out floor tiles for the new upstairs bathroom floor. We are beginning the installation tonight, I am very excited. I promise to take some before/after photos. Saturday night we were able to get together with our neighbors, who also happened to be at home this weekend, for dinner. We also broke into our favorite summertime traditions finally and ate outside at Whistle Binkies by the Lake where Benjamin could once again play in the sand volleyball courts with his sand toys. We waited all winter to be able to do that again!

This holiday weekend is a busy one for us. We are really looking forward to the Med City Marathon morning where we have made it a tradition to be out on the streets to cheer for everyone running the races. We are planning to go all out this time because the feedback we got from the runners last year was that we created a great boost for them at just the right point in their races!

It's been a debate in our family all weekend as to exactly what the slang name is for Volkswagen Beetle. Daddy says "Slugbug" and mommy says "Punchbug". Benjamin is on the fence. Please vote on our survey and tell us your opinion.

Who decided that Mother's Day should be in May?!? Because that was pretty cruel considering (at least in the Midwest) the weather can still reach almost freezing temperatures at this time of year. I cannot remember a Mother's Day in recent years that has provided Moms with good weather and this weekend was no different.

Saturday morning was pleasant, in that it was sunny, but it was chilly. Benjamin and I once again were stationed at a water stop for the weekly marathon training run. This time we had our table along the Douglas Trail in the actual town of Douglas. It had rained Friday night so the ground was quite wet and the parking lot where we were stationed was just gravel, so it was a muddy mess. I didn't even let Benjamin get out of the car because I knew he'd just be tracking in some horrible mess when he got back into the car. So he kept busy by playing in the trunk, watching some movies and making faces at the runners out of the back window. It wasn't cold-cold, but chilly enough to invade your bones where you just can't warm up. After Mike finished his run and we got back home for some lunch, we drove up to see Jen, John and AJ for the afternoon. Benjamin had a great time playing with his cousins and it was good to see the boys.

Later that evening Jen and I left to head out for our Girls Night with Jennifer and Katie. We had reservations at Barrio Tequila Bar, which is a newer restaurant in Minneapolis. We were taking a chance on trying somewhere so new to us, but it actually was named one of the best new restaurants of the year, so we were pretty sure it wouldn't disappoint -- and it did not. The food was very tasty and so were the drinks. We tend to order lots of small plates when we go out together so we can all try more menu items, which we did again. The guacamole was to die for and everyone really liked the Black Bean Chicken Tostada. The kids, Mike, Joe and Dan all grilled and hung out at the house while we were enjoying our meal.

We left the house early Sunday morning to meet up with my Mom and Dad for a Mother's Day brunch. Before we left, my Godson John, gave me a Snuggie for my Mother's Day gift. It is so awesome!

Our brunch was at Birch's in Long Lake, which is just a hop, skip and jump from Mom and Dad's house. We were all so impressed with this restaurant. First of all, though it is small, it is very classy and beautiful on the inside. The menu is full of very unique and fresh items and so it was very hard for everyone to decide on what to order. They presented all Moms with free Mimosas or Bloody Marys in honor of the holiday, which was a real treat! The food was amazing. We were all extremely impressed with the quality and taste of the food. I highly recommend this place! After brunch we stopped by a local garden center, which was full of beautiful flowers and plants. Then we just happened to drive past the Noerenberg Memorial Gardens, so we stopped for a short walk around. Unfortunately not much was blooming in the gardens yet, but it will for sure be a great place to stop again as summer gets closer and the flowers come out. I took the opportunity to play around with my camera and ended up getting some great shots of everyone. Benjamin especially liked the "stage" area (really just a little gazebo-type thing) where he conducted his "band" (Mike, Mom and Dad). After playing around there for a while we went back to Mom and Dad's for a little bit and then the three of us headed out on our own adventure.

I wanted to spend as much time outside on Mother's Day as I could and even though the weather was a little on the chilly side, I decided that we should go to Minnehaha Falls. Benjamin loved looking at the waterfall and was so good about hiking down to it and back up again. We love doing those kinds of things with him, he's so into exploring, just like us! After our short hike, we plopped ourselves at a table at the Sea Salt Eatery for some beverages. We had originally planned to have a late lunch/early dinner there, but they really only serve seafood, so there was nothing on the menu for Benjamin. They had my favorite beer on tap: Summit Hefeweizen, so I was a happy Momma! Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car, so there are no pictures of the falls or anything from our afternoon. However, we definitely plan on coming back sometime this summer when the weather is nicer and I will not forget again!

I am pretty sure this was my favorite Mother's Day so far! What a great day and a wonderful weekend.

I had a wonderful Mother's Day this Sunday and spent much of it enjoying this adorable little man. More to come.

Phew! What a day yesterday was!! Mike and I hosted a table for the Rochester Track Club at Family Fun Night, which is an event sponsored by Rochester's Childcare Resource and Referral and is open to all families with young children.

They ask that all exhibitors provide some kind of activity or giveaway for the kids, so we did a long jump competition, which was pretty popular. I'd say about 50-70 kids did the jump. We gave out prizes for the top 3-8 jumpers in half hour increments. Benjamin was with us at the event and he even helped show the kids how to do the jump. However, we were inconveniently located just across the aisle from a certain group in town that has a person in a large kangaroo costume as their mascot. He is deathly afraid of costumed characters so between the kangaroo across the aisle and the panda bear performing with the Teddy Bear band next to us, he was doomed. He spent a lot of time hiding under the table.

At the beginning of the event we had a celebrity visit our table! "Miss Rosa" from PBS kids - if you have children, you probably know who she is - stopped by our table, tried to talk to Benjamin (who was scared of her as well) and even tried out our long jump! She is adorable! Mike had to leave early to go to his triathlon clinic, so Benjamin and I manned the table alone for the last hour. More and more kids tried out the jump and we gave out medals. It was a lot of work, but a really fun experience. We are already talking about what we are going to do differently next year!

Mike and I escaped to a bed and breakfast this weekend to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary. We stayed at the Escape by the Lake B&B in Hudson, Wisconsin.

We knew it wasn't a standard bed and breakfast before arriving, but were a little dismayed to see exactly how different it was. For starters, the guest rooms were not separated from the innkeeper's quarters, so upon entering the home, you walk through their living spaces to enter your room. Also, the room which we picked (The Garden View Room) had a sliding glass door that led out into a sun room, which we were not told was shared by the other guests. It was a little awkward. But the room itself was very very nice and the whirlpool tub was a treat! The breakfast was delicious and the views of the lake were stunning. We had so much fun wandering around Hudson and just spending time together. We had dinner on Saturday night at San Pedro Cafe where we had delicious food. On Sunday after our breakfast, we check out of the B&B and drove out to the Willow River State Park where we did about a 3 mile hike to and from the waterfall there.It was a gorgeous day and gave us an opportunity to play around with my camera a bit. I still haven't figured out how to photograph waterfalls, but we tried. After working up an appetite hiking, we went back into town for a casual lunch at Barker's. On our way back to Mom and Dad's, we also stopped off at a favorite of ours, Town Hall Brewery, which unfortunately like the rest of this state, follows Puritan-like liquor laws that include not selling alcohol on Sundays. We have a growler to take one of their draft brews home, but just like liquor stores in this place, they don't fill them on the Lord's day. Argh. So we just had a pint...or two, instead.

Mom and Dad, who had Benjamin all weekend, were relaxing out on their deck overlooking the lake when we arrived. Apparently spending time with an almost four year old is tiring for them!?!? Anyway, they were pooped. We all were. We ate dinner, watched some tv and headed off to bed. The three of us headed back to Rochester early Monday morning.

Our actual anniversary is today. Mike is at work and I spent most of the day blowing out and sucking up leaves in the yard. I also re-mulched the landscaping in the front of the house, but didn't buy enough so will have to make another trip back to the store. Isn't that how it always goes??

People have warned me about having a little boy...little did I know!

Today at his preschool, Benjamin decided to go the extra mile with the "GOO" they created. His teachers suspect that when they told the kids to "NOT try putting it in their hair," Benjamin heard "PUT IT IN YOUR HAIR." The result:

When his teacher called me she actually said, "In all my years of teaching preschool, I have never seen anything like this!" That did not prepare me for what I saw when I picked him up. In the photos it looks wet and drippy, but it was actually more solid and completely stuck to his hair. The only choice we had was to take him to a salon and have them wash it out or cut it out, whichever worked. Lucky for him, washing it out came with very successful results and his hair was saved. He was very brave and good during the washing, which he said was very painful. The salon was wonderful and totally saved me the possibility of having him hate me for the rest of his life!

The end result: a smiling, happy almost 4 year old with a new haircut. PHEW!

Facial gashings at weddings, falling off piers, goo covered scalp...WHAT IS NEXT?!?

This was taken exactly 3 years ago. Benjamin was not yet 1. I found it interesting because Mike has been swimming lately for his triathlon training in the same pool. How life changes.

We spent the weekend dodging rain drops. I know that April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but we are about done with the rain! On Friday we were spoiled with over 80 degree temperatures and sun, so Benjamin and I spent a large part of the day cleaning up leaves in the backyard. There were SO many that we didn't even finish, but the job is a little more manageable for the next nice day that we are home. Benjamin has been attending a preschool class on Fridays called "Alphabet Express." It is through our Community Education program and he just LOVES it. The teachers are fabulous and the activities they do are just so awesome. One component of the class is cooking so every week they make a food that corresponds to the letter they are working on. This week's letter was T, so they made apple tarts, which thankfully had no eggs so Benjamin could enjoy them. I have to admit, they were really really good! He is always so proud of what he's made and cannot wait to eat the goods he brings home - sometimes we don't even make it out of the parking lot before he's begun to dig in.

Saturday morning Mike did his regular long run with the Rochester Track Club's training group and Benjamin and I got up early to volunteer to man 2 waterstops for the group. We keep discovering reasons to love our new Rondo, but Saturday morning took the cake. We were able to hide from the cold temps, wind and possible rain in the back of the car while watching movies thanks to the outlet in the trunk. SO awesome. Benjamin was all cozy under a blanket in the warm car watching Curious George while I filled up cups of Gatorade and water and got out our special treat for the runners: M&M's. The only downside was that pretty soon after we arrived and set everything up, Benjamin had to go to the bathroom. He's still not proficient at doing that kind of thing outside, so after a couple of tries we had to give up and wait until Mike could bring him to a bathroom after the run. Because we had all been up so early in the morning, we spent the afternoon napping, relaxing, wine tasting and dining out at Whistle Binkies, which was perfect!

Everyone was up early again on Sunday. Mike and Benjamin headed out to Oronoco to volunteer for the Winter Begone Duathlon and I went to church so I could lector for a morning mass. It was another cold, rainy day with scattered thunderstorms and the race actually was shortened for the safety of the runners. Benjamin and Mike braved the elements though and helped out at a transition area and the finish line. They had a great time and Mike was able to see first hand how those kinds of things work in preparation for his upcoming first triathlon in June. The rest of the day for us was pretty uneventful as we wanted to just hang out at home and stay warm and dry.

Today Benjamin and I are taking it easy at home. The weather is still pretty chilly and just generally yucky. It rained ALL night last night, but the good thing is that the grass is very green and the tree buds are opening up.

We played around in the kitchen for our lunch and ended up making a fabulous veggie sauce for our whole wheat spaghetti, which we both loved. I had the camera sitting near by so I snapped a couple of shots of the meal. Mine with my all-important Diet Coke and Benjamin's with a big glass of milk.He's totally a Schmitt; in every picture I took of him today his eyes were 1/2 open. We are all very excited for this weekend. Mike and I are escaping to a B&B for a night and Benjamin is going to spend the weekend with Grandpa Ed and Grandma Chris. He keeps asking if he's going there "tomorrow." He has absolutely no concept of time! Silly boy!!

We all spent a lovely weekend in Milwaukee for Erin and Dennis's wedding. I drove down Friday morning all alone in my sweet new ride, the Rondo. When I arrived to Erin's house, she immediately put me to work folding programs and when that was done we went to pick up her wedding dress and brought it over to the hotel. We were pampered Friday night by staying in the Penthouse Suite at the hotel, which was very very cool. The rehearsal was Friday evening followed by the rehearsal dinner, which was in the hotel next to ours at a Champp's. It was a really fun day and somehow we all kept Erin from getting too stressed out or nervous. All of us girls, plus our Aunt Debbie, spent some time hanging out in the suite before we all were too tired to stay up any longer. I got to share a room with Erin and was lucky enough to be the first person to see her on her wedding day!! We sang a rousing chorus of "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" and "Goin' to the Chapel" before crawling out of bed to breakfast. While Erin, her Mom, Stephanie and Sarah all went to get their hair done, Cicely and I spent some time decorating the suite.

Everyone came back in a couple of hours and we ate lunch, had our makeup done by a makeup artist, got dressed and headed over to the church. I think we all were starting to get nervous at this point because everyone was pretty quiet as we were hanging out in the Bride's room. After Aunt Mary and Kelsey arrived, Erin slipped on her beautiful dress and we all waited for our cue. I had a small scare as we lined up for the procession. The Priest asked me if I had put my reading up on the podium and since no one had told me to do that at the rehearsal, I had assumed that someone would be taking care of that the day of the wedding. Not the case. So luckily I had brought a copy with me and could run back to the Bride's room to get it. Phew! I was nervous before that, but after I was just a sweaty shaking mess, haha. The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch and everything was so perfect and beautiful. Before we knew it, we were on the limo bus on our way to have photos taken at a park. It was a cloudy day and it looked like rain was on its way, but fortunately it mostly held off until photos were done. They took some photos at a really cool location that had a bunch of old buildings and farms, which will no doubt be amazing! Mike was able to ride along on the bus with all of the wedding party, so Benjamin spent the time meeting and charming family with Grandma and Grandpa. He was such a very good boy all day! The reception was back at the hotel where there was a cocktail hour in the atrium followed by the dinner and dance in the ballroom. I somehow made it through my matron of honor speech with only choking up once, but with no tears, thankfully. Benjamin danced the night away with relatives until he could no longer keep his eyes open, so Mike brought him up to the suite where Erin and Dennis had provided babysitters to watch Kelsey and the other children. It was great to have the chance to talk with family members who we don't get to see often enough and we had a fun time dancing, too. Eventually we were both too tired to keep going so we gathered up a sleeping Benjamin and headed to our room. In the morning we met up with all of our family members staying at the hotel for a breakfast and a small gift opening in the suite. We said our goodbyes and started for home around 11:30 or so.

The three of us made a couple of stops on the way home to make the ride a little more fun. One of our stops was at the Tyranena Brewery in Lake Mills, WI. Mike and I sampled their beers and we all had a relaxing time hanging out in the tasting room playing games and watching tv. It was a fun time and really made all of us wish we could take a roadtrip vacation sometime soon. Benjamin is a pro at traveling - seriously. He likes to listen to his music, read books and color in the car and generally is just really awesome at it. We haven't pulled out the dvd player in the car for a year at least, it is great!

This weekend we are staying close to home. Mike is doing a training run Saturday morning and Benjamin and I are manning a waterstop. Should be fun!!

In honor of it being the season opening week of baseball and because the three of us have been enjoying the evening Twins games on tv all week:

Would you believe that he is deathly afraid of this bear now?!?!

No, no, not THAT kind of new addition! :-) Got your attention though, didn't I?? We just wanted to officially announce that we have welcomed a new automobile to our familie!

Here she is resting with her brother:


We picked up the Kia Rondo yesterday and I am SO excited! As I mentioned a while ago, my Saturn was hit in a parking lot, so we took that as a push to buy something new. The Saturn, which was a hand-me-down from my Dad treated me well over the past 5 1/2 years, but it was time to move on and up. I salute you Goldie...

and I hope you enjoy your new home, wherever you end up!

Mike and I spent all day Saturday looking at cars and our last stop was in Burnsville where we found the Rondo that we ended up purchasing. It was a stressful process, we both lost a lot of sleep, but in the end everything worked out the way we hoped it would. I think my Grandpa Murphy would be proud of our car buying (he was a car salesman).

The rest of our weekend was spent hanging out with Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed in Mound. They took Benjamin to Dave & Busters on Saturday while we were out looking at cars and he came home with a couple of cute prizes. On Sunday we sort-of celebrated Easter with them since we will be with Mike's family over Easter weekend. Benjamin searched for and found his Easter basket from Easter Bunny Grandma and Grandpa.

Our nephew, AJ, just celebrated his fourth birthday yesterday. His party is on Saturday and Benjamin is all a twitter with excitement over it. He is counting down the days! The boys have grown so much, it is amazing. Last night we called to sing AJ Happy Birthday and the two of them talked on the phone for a little while. They need just a little prodding on either end from a parent still, but they speak so well to each other, it is very cute.

Things are gearing up for Erin's wedding in TEN DAYS (yikes!). I think we are all outfitted, have our plans all set up for driving and arrivals and even have a sweet new ride for the drive to Milwaukee! I cannot wait!!

Uncle Andy and Auntie Jennifer "bounced" down to Rochester today for a visit. We took them along for our first visit to the House of Bounce, which is a play place filled with blow-up slides and bouncy houses. We are actually having Benjamin's fourth birthday party there in a couple of months and since we were not sure how he would like it, we wanted to try it out before the big day. Just as we expected, he did not initially want to have anything to do with the place. After some coaxing, we got him into the toddler area and he immediately loved it. He spent a few minutes in the more tame areas before trying out the next slide up in size. Following the ride down he exclaimed "LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!!" He was hooked. Andy, Jennifer, Mike and Benjamin tried out every single thing in the place while I played cameraman and purse holder (my stomach was feeling icky again). It was just a blast to see them all having so much fun and I can't wait to go back so I can ride that big slide too! Here is a video of one of their rides down:

There are a bunch of new pictures online of our day, check them out!

As you can see by the posted photo, Benjamin has adapted quite well to the new addition to our house: Mommy's new laptop. Literally as soon as it came in the door, he was asking if he could play on it. He does well with games on websites like Nick Jr, Playhouse Disney and PBS Kids. I find it amazing that at age 3 (almost 4) he's navigating a computer so well, especially since Mike and I didn't even SEE a computer until we were older than 7.

Aside from the time it keeps Benjamin busy and quiet, the laptop has opened new doors for me as well such as being able to blog on a Friday afternoon. Also, I have a place to store and edit all of our photos, I am able to listen to my downloaded music on more than headphones and heck, if I wanted to I could even break out my old Sims games. Life here is good these days.

Last weekend Benjamin went to his friend, Amanda's birthday party before we headed up to the Twin Cities for a couple of activities we had been planning to participate in. We dropped him off with Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Bert so we could meet up with Andy, Jennifer, Dan and Katie for Firkin Fest (basically a beer tasting event) at the Happy Gnome in St. Paul. At some point during the night, Benjamin found himself with a 24-hour flu, so we didn't stay out too late so as not to leave Grandma and Grandpa with too much of a mess to clean up. The two of us skipped going to the Human Race with Mike on Sunday since Benjamin still wasn't back to 100%, but Mike was able to run the 8k and meet up with some friends. By 3:00 on Sunday, Benjamin was fully recovered and we were able to spend a little time with Mike's parents before driving back to Rochester.

Many of you have heard us mention the adoption process that our friends Jen and Nate have been going through and we are happy to say that Baby Julia Christine is at home with her Mommy and Daddy finally. They brought her over for friends night at our house last night and she is absolutely adorable. It is so wonderful to see them as her parents, we couldn't be happier for them.

As for us this weekend, we plan to hang out in Rochester, possibly take a trip out to LaCrosse, definitely spend time researching cars to buy and hopefully we will have some visitors on Sunday. TGIF!!

Familie Schmitt was split across two states last weekend. Mike and Benjamin were in Rochester hanging out with Grandpa Ed while Grandma Chris and I were off to Milwaukee for Erin's Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party. Mom and Dad came down Friday after work to stay at our house before our road trip on Saturday. The weather here lately has been nothing short of miraculous, which certainly helped our drive in the morning. The shower was in Kenosha, WI at the Birchwood Grill, a very nice place. We were there early enough to get everything ready and change our clothes before most guests got there. The food was good and I think people enjoyed themselves. I was lucky enough to be seated next to Miss Kelsey, Erin and Dennis's daughter who is now about 18 months old. With living so far away, I don't get to see her as much as I'd like to, so this was a treat! She is so cute, a perfect combination of both of her parents. I tried so hard to get her to talk and did eventually get her to utter some possibly unintelligible, but apparently very important sentences.

After the shower we all drove into downtown Milwaukee to our hotel, the Hilton City Center. It was here that I provided the goods to deck Erin out from head to toe in fun novelty items. From there we went to The Safe House for dinner where Erin began her Bachelorette Party. After dinner we ditched the older ladies (wink, wink) and got our party on! I had booked a private class at a store called the Tool Shed where the owner taught us the finer points of using the items she sells in her store. I'll let you readers figure that one out (my Grandma reads this blog!). We also visited some bars though it was not a raucous night, it was still a whole lot of fun and I know Erin had a blast!

Back at the ranch, Mike, Dad and Benjamin were busy doing "guys weekend" stuff. They went to the Farmer's Market, Fleet Farm, Menards and even did a couple of home improvement projects. Last week we ordered a new range hood for the kitchen and new burner plates for the stove, but unfortunately the hood ordered was the wrong color and the burner plates didn't come in packs of 2 like we had expected. So that all has to be returned - just our luck. But Dad and Mike found a hood in the correct color at Menards and they were installing it as Mom and I walked in the door on Sunday. It looks fabulous!

Though it is one of our favorite holidays, the Familie Schmitt had quite a horrible St. Patrick's Day yesterday. Mike and Benjamin are both very sick with a cold, which started off our rough day and my Saturn was hit by a driver in the parking lot of Hyvee in the evening, capping off the bad day. No one was hurt, well, except for my Saturn. I am waiting to hear back from his insurance company about either getting it fixed or totalling the car. There is a nasty hole in the driver's side door now. The car is up there in years and though it has treated me well over the years, I was kind of waiting for an excuse to move on to something newer. We'll see. We did enjoy some green mashed potatoes and cabbage for dinner though, so not all was lost from our St. Paddy's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Six years ago we were driving along the Ring of Kerry in Ireland, occasionally as a float in various parades in the small towns along the road.

As I said in a few posts back, I am working on uploading all of our old photos to Flickr and in doing so, memories come flooding back. I’m going to try to document some parts of our adventures in England and abroad during that time by linking to some of these photos.

Mike and I were married nearly 7 years ago in May 2002. Mike was working at IBM as he is now and I was working at Mayo Clinic, also where I am now. About a month after our wedding, an opportunity came to Mike at his job that we could not refuse. Betsy Baartman, Mike’s manager at the time and still a dear friend of ours, presented Mike with the chance to work in Hursley, England for a year as part of an exchange of knowledge between the two locations. Betsy told Mike about this possible trip and asked him to go home and see what I thought of it. Mike told her right then that he didn’t need to ask me, he knew my answer (YES! YES YES!), but we still discussed it that evening. We were still living in our 2 bedroom apartment, so we didn’t have a house to sell or maintain while we were gone. We didn’t yet have any children. My job was expendable. We had NO reason to say no. The time from June until mid-August was insanity for us. IBM kept going back and forth over whether or not to send us. Ironically enough at that time another manager told Mike that “nothing was for sure until you were on that plane headed to England.” We had no idea exactly how true that was until we were at the rehearsal for our friend Tina’s wedding in the Twin Cities and Mike received a call on our cellphone from Betsy. She told him that the trip had been cancelled by some idiot executive and that we should come back to Rochester on Sunday instead of flying out to England. We had moved out of our apartment and put everything into a storage facility. I had sold my car and Mike’s was being stored. We had nowhere to live and nothing to drive. After the wedding Mike’s parents drove us back to Rochester where Betsy had reserved us a suite at a hotel and a rental car. She also stocked the room with goodies and a much needed bottle of wine. I remember being absolutely stunned by the whole situation. Here we were all ready to fly to England Sunday morning, but instead we were back in Rochester living in a hotel! It was all so surreal. On Monday Mike went into work and of course everyone was shocked to see him there. Behind the scenes Betsy and others were working to get the idiot executive’s decision reversed. By Wednesday they had succeeded, Mike and I repurchased airline tickets, turned OFF our cellphone and we flew out to London immediately!

We arrived in London very early in the morning and had a car drive us to Winchester where we had booked a hotel room for the time being until we could find a house to rent. The Wessex Hotel was our home for about 4 weeks.

We made friends with the staff, ordered an unbelievable amount of room service, ate out at every single restaurant in town and were awakened by the sound of the Winchester Cathedral’s bells every weekend morning. It was difficult living in a hotel where housekeeping disrupted my every morning and where we had no real place to just hang out other than our “bedroom.” Our first day in Winchester was probably an indication of how things were to go for us for the entire year to come. We were starving and totally unfamiliar with not only the town, but also with England in general. We walked down the High Street and the only recognizable name we could find was Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut – Americana – something familiar? Oh no! We walked in and sat down at an open table. Minutes later we were being reprimanded for not being seated by the hostess. Day one and we were already sticking out like sore thumbs!

Interesting weekend for us last weekend. Thursday morning I woke up with a strange stomach ache which turned into quite a mess by evening and by Friday afternoon I figured out that I had food poisoning. I am still not sure what causes it but I've narrowed it down to some rouge roast beef. Yuck. Benjamin was so good dealing with my sickness on our "stay home Mommy day" on Friday. I rented him a couple of movies and while he watched them, I was laid out on our bed trying to calm the abdominal cramps. Every once and a while he'd come skipping into my room and ask me, "Are you all better now Momma?" He even tried to make me better himself with some kind of Benjamin-like voodoo motions over my stomach. He was pretty proud of himself, it was positively adorable.

I was feeling slightly better on Saturday so I decided to keep my plans for a birthday dinner with the sisters-in-law in Minneapolis. Benjamin and Mike stayed behind in Rochester so they could attend a party to celebrate the successful Lace Up Against Breast Cancer race.

The girls and I had an awesome dinner at Cafe Maude. We ordered a bunch of small plates and shared everything, which we like to do since we all seem to mostly have the same tastes. I stayed at Jennifer and Andy's house and the next day I met up with Jen for some shopping and lunch. It was great to get that much girl time, no matter how I was feeling!

Unbeknownst to me, the boys back in Rochester had plans of their own. Mike and Benjamin both got haircuts at a men's only salon here. They were apparently pretty pampered there and both of them now look extremely handsome (not that they were not handsome before)! Then they spent some time at Dunn Brothers, a coffeeshop, where Mike read the paper and Benjamin colored. It was definitely a bonding day for them.

Now that it is March, our spring fever seems to be increasing. Today the weather is supposed to be in the upper 30's and tomorrow it will be somewhere in the mid-40's - a heatwave! I keep hoping to be able to break my bike free of the garage, but there is still so much ice and snow on the ground, so I am not sure if that would be a good idea.

Our good friends, Nate and Jen, who have been trying to adopt a baby for quite some time are expecting a little girl to come home to them sometime soon. The c-section date was just moved up to next week, so we are all going out to celebrate their last bits of freedom tomorrow night. This Friday Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Bert are driving down to Rochester to spend some time with us, but other than that we have no big weekend plans. Next weekend Mom and I are off to Milwaukee for Erin's bridal shower and bachelorette party - both of which we are planning. It is going to be a full weekend, but an exciting and fun one, too!!