Filed under: St Paul
The last fun event in St Paul was Aine’s Girl Scout Party. Aine’s Girls Scout troop is a great group – we like them very much. The event of the night was bobbing for apples. It must be harder than it looks. But fair play to the girls I think everyone eventually got her apple in the end.
Filed under: St Paul
Aine and I had a great time on Grand Old Day. We met up with some friends for Koo Koo Kangaroo, which is always super fun. And then we walked the Avenue. I’m going to guess that we walked 4-5 miles total. But it doesn’t seem so arduous when you’re nibbling along the way. We notice that they had a lot more happening on the Western side of Lexington, which is usually kid city. The art cars were a fun addition. The kid area was good as usual with pony rides, bouncy castles and other fun games.
It was nice to be home for the opening of the Walker Open Field – even if we’ll miss most of the fun there this summer. Aine and I went for Free Family Saturday. Aine made some nature art. We walked around the sculpture garden, we saw a wedding party we did a quick run through the indoor galleries. Then we ran into friends (the Grassmans) at the Groveland Tap picnic, which was kind of like a rehearsal for Grand Old Day. They (Groveland Tap not the Grassmans) set up some games, had a bouncy castle and a fire truck.
I have a few pictures from different shows and different music festivals. Some of the highlights (in kind of chronological order) include the Women who Rock (esp 5678s) at the Amsterdam (thanks Mary and don’t we look good dressed up?), Koo Koo Kangaroo at LynLake (Nice job Aine for sticking through BloodnStuff in the cold), Los Straightjackets (Thanks Damian – so muhc fun when the bands were outside and nearly as good when they moved inside), and loads of local music thanks to John and Troy (especially enjoyed the David Bowie night, Retribution Gospel Choir – and surprisingly enjoyable given my penchant for loud and fast – Ramona Falls, which also isn’t local!).
Filed under: Minneapolis
Had a very fun day at Art a Whirl with Aine, Anita and Will. We saw some very fun art – including a strange performance piece where a half naked, almost Victorian-type woman wrapped bandages around the head of a
Her subject a non-slim-Jim who was also mostly naked. Then her carefully cut off the bandages. I’m sure there was some seriously deep message that I’m just way to shallow to get. We also got to climb on some of the art, which is just about my level of deepness.
We got to ride a trolley – a blue one as a recall, which met Will’s approval. We got a walk a bit, which always meets my approval.
Then Anita and I ditched the kids for a very fun show at Psycho Suzy’s. We had some very healthy food – baby hotdogs, wrapped in bacon, with brown sugar – then we went to see 4oftheFloor. The good news – we ran into friends John and Troy. The bad news the rains came pouring down right before the show. The good news they moved the show inside and somehow we were able to scam out way to the front of the queue and subsequently scored the best dancing spot in the place! A good time was had by all – or at least by all who were able to scam themselves into the small stage area.
Topped off the night with more healthy food at the Sample Room. Dancing is thirsty work!
Aine made her First Communion in May. It was very nice and after we had a very delicious lunch at the Green Room in Stillwater. Aine wanted a skateboard for her First Communion – so that’s what she got. As you can see it’s a good accessory to the white dress. What’s fun was that Uncle Michael was in town from Australia – so we had a special guest. We had a fun time with Michael. We didn’t do a lot but got in some good walks, drink, food and saw a very fun band (Melosmatics) at the Amsterdam Bar.
Filed under: Minneapolis
So going back and doing a whole bunch of blog posts at once I realize how much art we see in a season. We’re lucky to live so close to so many good galleries. While we don’t go to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts as often as we could, I always like to make the Bloom event – where local florists create beautiful arrangements to accompany the artwork. It’s one of my favorite art events of the year. I think Aine did a good job getting in the spirit of the pictures.
Filed under: Minneapolis
Since Patrick is gone I’ve become a little creative in childcare and going out schemes, which really means I try to find more family-friendly night time activities and I drag Aine. One such event was Futurity – a musical at the Walker. We walked in (8pm on a Friday) and Aine asks – Why are there no other kids here? I mean there aren’t even any 19 year olds.
Well, because she is much cooler than most kids and the reward was a very fun steam punk show. Here’s the description of the story from the website…
As the Civil War rages around him, Union soldier Julian Munro and Lord Byron’s brilliant daughter, Ada Lovelace, attempt to invent an omnipotent steam-powered brain designed to save humanity before it destroys itself. Featuring up-and-coming Brooklyn indie-rock band the Lisps, this quirky new music-theater piece melds traditional Americana, Brechtian choral elements, and avant-rock, resulting in a unique and compelling portrait of war, human imagination, and technological hubris.
Well I had at least a day and a night of playing hooky this spring. Billy and I went to a Twins game. I won the tickets – they were kind of fancy so that was fun. Beforehand we had some snacks at the Capitol Grille – so it’s always nice to combine fine food and sports. The twins lost – but that was OK. We had fun checking out the stadium.
My other skip day was a Summit Brewery Tour to celebrate Rick’s new job. It was fun to learn about the company. Unfortunately the tour part was cut pretty short as they were shipping or something else that meant we couldn’t hang out very long. But we did get free beer. And I got to sneak preview Summit Summer Ale, which I like!
We really had a gorgeous spring, which meant lots of good walking early and thankfully I still have one kid who will walk with me. Aine and I planned a day of walking. Out plan was to go to a Cash Mob up on Grand Avenue. I think it was probably about 2 mile away from the house – so that made for a good walk. For those not in the know – a cash mob is a reaction to the nefarious flash mobs (where people get organized to all run into a shop and wreak havoc). With a cash mob the idea is to get a group of people to patronize a local establishment at a given time. It’s kind of fun – although it seems like they pick some pricey places to visit. We went into a high end cooking sort of store, which doesn’t have a large appeal to either of us. But we were able to buy some tasty treats.
On the way up we ran into the Easter Bunny. That’s doesn’t happen every day.
After the cash mob, we dragged Patrick to The Walker for family day and to see the Reality show – OK I can’t really remember the name now – but the idea was everyday items in different scale. So we saw 3-story chairs and an 8-inch elevator. We also found a friend for Patrick. His comment on the picture – spot the State worker.
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