10 Questions About…

One of the nice things about our area in the summer is going to hang out at the Minnehaha Falls. There’s a fun restaurant called Sea Salt – and you can eat in the park. We went over Memorial weekend and had a really nice time. The Falls are pretty weak this year – a sign that we need rain desperately. The Falls should still be pretty impressive at this time of year.

We climbed all around the Creek. They are actually working on it – and it’s going to be nice. They are building up the ad hoc swimming area, which is fun but has always been pretty muddy. We actually walked from the Creek around to the shores of the Mississippi. We could see the big dam.

Next time we go we’re going to get there early enough to rent a bicycle build for 4!

So my hope is to go back and post articles from the last month. I have the photos; I just need to get the time – but I have to talk about our strange day in Minneapolis today.

Let’s start by saying we didn’t know where we were headed when we got into the car. I don’t know if you ever do that – but it’s not the best start. Some people think we’re going to Minnehaha Falls; some people think we’re going to the Open Eye Figure Theatre.

After much heated debate we head to Open Eye. We don’t really have good directions; it’s not really in a great part of town. But we find it. Then we have to grab a quick lunch before the show.

We drive down Franklin and see the Franklin Street Bakery. Score! I’ve always wanted to go there. They have parking, they have sandwiches, they have amazing cupcakes and they have tables on the sidewalk. Score!

We set up to eat outside – and see that there is a fight just down the block. A real fight with grownups. So, undeterred we move inside. We squish into a small table and start to hear sirens. So I guess the fight 10 feet away got a little heated. Lily is beyond nervous, Kate’s a little curious and Aine’s a little oblivious (thankfully!).

So we eat quickly and drive around (the not great neighborhood) for 30 minutes. Then we go to the theater. Patrick is crabby! But the theatre is very cute. Your ticket in is a balloon. The theatre seats fewer than 150. We’re going to see Dummy, which is billed as a vaudeville sort of thing, which makes us nervous but we’re excited to see the show.

I have to say that the show was brilliant – very, very funny! It’s part hokey, part really impressive, mostly very funny facial expressions and clown-type improv. Ten minutes into the show the clown needs a helper/target and selects Patrick. Aine and I (3 seats away) were laughing so hard I was crying.

In retrospect Patrick was lucky. He never got out of his seat and he never had to imitate a chicken – unlike the last volunteer they pulled from the audience.

Didn’t have the camera the other night but we went to the Cabooze to the see English Beat. It was fun. The music is always fun – really I think everyone knows every song by the English Beat – and they are all very danceable. They had said that they started 30 years ago!

It was also some of the best crowd-watching I’ve seen for a while.

OK , once again I’m playing a little catch up with the blog. With any luck, I’ll get a few posts done today – despite the amazing weather in the St Paul.

A week (or two ago) we went to see the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Jan arranged it and we went with Mary, Emily, and Kristin – who is a new (to me) friend with great taste in music. And we had a last minute substitute of Anita, who is always great about coming to see any band.

We had dinner at the Loring Pasta Bar, which is one of my favorite restaurants and then headed to the Varsity. We were just in time to see the dance contest – which was fun to watch. In my next life I’m going to be able to dance like that – and sing.

Then the band started. They are even quirkier live than you might imagine if you know their music. We watched the trombone player more than usual, now that we’re proud parents of a trombone player. They played all of our favorite songs, there was plenty of room to dance and we parked close to the venue – what more could you ask.

More videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKKz3TEiL3c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmhAEX4X8b0 – focus on troombone player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjtZs3cwQOw – Damnation, but not al lof it

The Art Shanties are ice fishing houses on Medicine Lake. Each shanty chooses a theme and does theitr best to decorate the ice fishing house based on that theme.

So we’re city kids. Walking out on a frozen lake is always a big thrill for us. Seeing houses on the lake is an even bigger thrill. Did you know that there is about 2 feet of ice on the lake , even near the shore? We got to peek into some of the holes cut into the ice for fishing and it was pretty cool. OK, I don’t’ think most people out here were fishing but it was cool to see anyways.

We visited most of the shanties. Here are the themes we remember:

Mapping – we were able to track our house on their map and to check out several maps they had posted and/or created for the event. They gathered different info on visitors each week – based on their home location.

Submarine – looked like a submarine inside – kinda cool

3 Story House – yup you could climb up 3 stories in this house. It looked like a periscope from the outside.

Kites – the girls got to make a kite in one house and then fly it! We went on a beautiful day so it was fun to see the kits in the air. Plus this was a popular shanty and with dumb luck on our side our timing was perfect to go in and create without waiting. The artist’s name was Plunkett – and I don’t think he belived me when I said we had seen Sir Oliver Plunkett’s head in a jar in Drogheda.

Words – this shanty has a bring-and-take library. Also they had a list of words that are in danger of being made extinct and they asked each visitor to adopt a word to try to bring it back to life. I chose latibule. Probably most of you know it – it means a hiding place. As in, get out of that latibule kid, it’s mine. I encourage you to use it often.

Paper shanty – made entirely of paper – well a lot of industrial looking tubes – but it was cool.

Dice – there were a bunch of little shanties that looked like dice and they had games inside that you could play. We played a minute of boggle. It was super warm and cozy in the die!

Admundson – Admundson was an explorer. He and his crew went to the Antartic in about 1911. There was a shipwreck and they got stuck in the ice. So a contingency went to the whaling station to get help while 20 men were left behind. This shanty was a replica of station they left behind.

Confessional – It looked like a church. You could write down your confessional admissions. It reminded me of the exhibit at the Minneapolis Public Library last summer – except that these admission were pretty family-friendly.

Radio – one shanty broadband a radio station. How cool is that?

Last weekend Patrick and I went to the Cash Only – Johnny Cash tribute at the Cabooze. It was great. First we went to the Town Talk Diner. We had to wait at least 30 minutes to get seated but it was worth the wait. The cheese curds are (and I know some may think this is blasphemous) better than the State Fair. The adult malt – ice cream and a bunch of girly liqueurs was pretty darned good too.

The wasted a little time at Merlyn’s Rest – where we know the owner – then off to the Cabooze. It was packed. But the music was very fun. We were able to get pretty close to Trailer Trash and then went down the close – but on the side route for Sherwin Linton – who clearly makes his living playing Johnny Cash. Patrick liked Sherwin Linton best – I voted for Trailer Trash. I liked White Iron Band too – in fact I thought they put the most interesting spin on some songs – but I spent most of their show near the door waiting for Patrick who was parking the car in the freezing cold.

Here are links to more video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk829wHy3rY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS0m4jzTsno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX-9lezjb9g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUQZVEX_xL0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q2IhYfZD3Q

The rest of the weekend is kind of a blur. I know Kate has tin whistle on Saturday morning. The Kate and Lily both had swimming Saturday afternoon.

The girls are signed up for more things like swimming and music lessons this semester. I don’t like it. It takes away from time that we would usually be doing fun stuff together. Not that watching k-4 graders swim isn’t fun, but it’s a different kind of fun.

Sunday we hung out at the YMCA.

After Como Zoo we went to meet up with the cousins – The Treay’s. It was a really nice night. The bonus is that we went out to Blaine so we got to get the car washed at $3 Car Wash – the best car wash in Greater Minnesota. OK, maybe Coon Rapids doesn’t qualify in everyone’s book as Greater Minnesota but it seemed pretty far to us.

For Christmas we all took ourselves to Children’s Theatre to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We see the Christmas show every year. It’s fun. Last time we saw Frog and Toad, which was a little slow moving for some of us. It’s big on character development – light on plot. I think those of us who are also light on character prefer the plotty shows.

LWW was not light on action. It was actually pretty scary. A girl behind us really screamed at one point. Luckily the move had been on TV on Christmas night and we all watched it then – I think that helped some of us keep up.

They did a really good job moving between the two worlds in LWW. The White Witch was particularly good – very scary. She even came out during the curtain call glaring at kids in a very scary way. The girls decided that some of the actors were a little over the top. The sounded like Patrick critiquing the show; I suppose that’s good.

After the show we heading to Bonfire Grill on Grand Ave. Kids can make their own pizzas and sundaes – parents do not have to help. The food is good; they even have a full bar. What could be better?

So how does a mom make it up to 3 girls when she has been gone for work all week? Well by waiting in line for an hour to go into the new American Girl Doll Store for the MOA Grand Opening. We were in the shop about half the time we spent waiting in line.

The cookie shop from the MOA gave out cookies in line so that took the edge off –a nd was such a good marketing move! The people in line were in a good modd and the line was ever-growing so we were always ahead of soemone, which makes it easier.

We didn’t buy anything. I’m prety sure we were the only ones who went through who didn’t buy. I do have some dieas for Christmas but we knew going in that we weren’t going to buy.

The shop is not as big as the one in Chicago but it was nice. After the tour we went to lunch at the Twin City Grill and that’s always fun.