10 Questions About…

Since we were out of town for my birthday, we celebrated in August at the final Saints game of the season. It was great. I think I had about 70 tickets to the game – and they were all used. As always my favorite part was the tailgating before. But the game was good too. It did go into 11 innings, which we didn’t love because we were a little tired. We did love the fireworks after the game. The fireworks feel so close there and it’s a great display. I’m hoping that I can celebrate my birthday a little earlier next eyar – but a second tradition might be making the final game of the season – especially if they keep up the fireworks

Ag Building

1. How big is the biggest pumpkin at the Fair?

All About the Animals

1. 2. Get a picture of a baby animal.

2. 3. How big the biggest boar is? (Remember the Swine Barn closes at 3:00.)

3. Get a picture of everyone wearing pig ears from the Swine Booth.

Food Glorious Food

1. 5. There are 59 things to eat on a stick at the State Fair. Keep a list of how many you see. (Bonus points for each one you try.)

2. 6. What is the strangest food at the Fair? Was it good?

3. Andy’s Beer Garden is a great place to hang out. They sing a song each half hour. What song do they sing?

Educational Building

1. Get a calendar with a family picture.
2. 9. Who is smart enough for MENSA? Visit the MENSA booth and see if you can answer any of the MENSA questions.

Creative Arts Building

1. 10. Get a picture of all the kids with the healthiest food poster.

Dairy Building

1. How many butter queens have they carved so far? Get a picture.

Random

1. Ride the Giant Slide at the Fair. (Be sure to have someone take your picture.)
2. Visit the DNR fish pond. What’s the ugliest fish?
3. Pick up as many school supplies as you can. (Each kid should have their own bag!)
4. How many tickets can you win in the arcade? (Each kid gets $2; no spending your own money!)

1. Get an autograph from a famous person. (Or get a picture of the team with a famous person.)

1. What is your favorite part of the Daily Parade? (It starts at 2:00.)

1. Get a bird’s eye view on the Skyride!

We have been pretty faithful visitors to the local farmer’s market. We have visited the one in St Paul a couple of times. It’s great for sugar snap peas, sticks of honey, flowers, cucumbers and more. It’s just so nice to be down there in the nice weather and seeing all of the produce. We’re not early arrivals, but we’re very relaxed.

We’ve checked out the Minneapolis market near the Guthrie. It’s nice too – although we got there just about the time it was closing. The area near the Guthrie alone is amazing. You look over the Stone Arch Bridge and the new 35W.

Our friends Camille and Andrew were in town. Woo hoo! We had a great time. We had an amazing time at the Sample Room and then the new Kieran’s. The next day we met up at the Lower Town Arts Festival. Our friends moved to California two years ago. While we’re sad they are gone it was so much fun to hear how much they like it and how good the move has been for everyone. Now we’re making plans to visit them soon!

Yup sometimes we do exercise. My favorite Pilates trainer Suzy Levi offered free Pilates in the Park. It was on the top of the Ramsey Hill (where Summit Avenue turns). The view is beautiful – you can look across the Mississippi and see downtown. An eagle flew over us. Grandma, the girls and I went – and you know who the sleeper Pilates natural is? Aine.

The River is as high as I have ever seen it. I tried to take some pictures. I really took pictures for the girls back in Ireland so I took pictures of things that I thought they would recognize. I don’t know that the pictures are super impressive if you don’t know what the River usually looks like in these places. They were expecting near record-breaking heights (or would that be depths) for the River – but the River crested on Wednesday, a foot short of expectations in St Paul.

The amazing thing is that despite the high levels of water there has been little to no damage. Rover Road is closed near both downtowns but we walked by these areas are they seem OK. The bridge in Stillwater was closed the other day.

Christmas seemed even more hectic than usual in many ways. The storm of the century was predicted days before Christmas, which actually closed a number of places and caused the Chicago to leave a day early. Turned out, we did get a foot of snow between December 23 and Christmas. It was pretty! Some of our regularly planned activities did go on as usual…

Big Christmas Party

We had our annual Christmas party the Sunday before Christmas. Patrick’s stew was a big hit. We had a bunch of new people come – like some high school friends of mine who I were delighted to see. The nicest thing was that we had the basement set up for kids so the house felt a lot less crowded – and a ton quieter.

Cinderella at the Children’s Theatre

We saw our annual show at the Children’s Theatre with all of the Treacy’s. This year it was a Cinderella pantomime. It was very funny. Most of us loved the step-sisters, Pearl and Dorkus. Aine and Bridie loved Cinderella.

Presents

Another big highlight was opening presents! It was definitely an electronic year for us. Partially that’s what everyone wanted; partially that’s usually easy to pack for a 6-month stint in Ireland.

So I work with a fun company (Learning ZoneXPress) that does nutritional curriculum, games, posters and stuff for schools. They have a great series of foodscape cards, posters, stuffed animals… Foodscapes are animals and other things created from fruit and vegetables.

Anyways, LZE has started to post ingredients for Foodscapes! So we took on the challenge and create our own cauliflower and broccoli sheep. Ours do not look as good as the originals – but I have to say that Aine ate the rest of the broccoli over the next two days so maybe we’re going to start making more foodscapes.

Here are our creations!

The girls were worried that we wouldn’t see any snow before we left for Ireland. That would not have made me sad – but in the end we did get snow. All told we’ll have almost a month of snow before we go back to Dublin.

The girls built a kind of fort in the front yard. And we spent a good day sledding in Grandma’s backyard. Unfortunately, Lily had a little run in with a bush. We’re hoping it won’t leave any scars.

Lily has been taking trombone for two years now. I voted for the flute – or anything else that’s easier to carry but Lily wanted the trombone. She has been great about practicing and I was really proud of how well she’s been playing. Actually the whole band concert was very good.

The video is a little shaky – I hired a videographer who would be able to sneak into the front row – but the sound is good.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whtOWjUHxD0]