Filed under: Minneapolis
Last night I had a fun night with my friend Daniela at The Walker After Hours. We started with appetizers at La Belle Vie. Years ago I had one of the best meals ever at La Belle Vie when we went with Billy. The sous chef back then had worked under Billy and cooked us an amazing meal. Well the appetizers were pretty good too – personal highlight was the truffle oil potato chips.
Next we headed to The Walker. It was relatively warm (27 degrees) so it was an easy walk. We started by going through the newest exhibition – The Spectacular of Vernacular. We visited the ice bar outside, which was fun but not as cool as the ice bar I visited in London a few years ago. Then we got our picture taken – as seen here. Very Fun!
Filed under: Minnesota
This weekend Aine and I went camping with the Girl Scouts and Daisies at Camp Lakamaga – just 45 minute north of St Paul. With an average temperature of 8 degrees (F), this was our agenda:
9:30 – check in
10 am – meet folks, exchange handmade gift with other troops
12:45 – snowshoeing
Noon – lunch
12:45 – cross country skiing
2:00 – ice fishing
3:00 – snack
3:15 – songs et al
4:15 – craft
6:00 – Dinner
7:15 – Night hike
8:15 – campfire (thankfully indoors) and Karaoke party
9:45 – sleep
So we spent a lot of time outdoors. Aine was a natural skier. We each had fun snowshoeing. The ice fishing was kind of fun – but cold. I think if anyone had caught anything that might have been a highlight. The ice fishing guide was very good – but standing on the frozen lake in the freezing lake is only going to be so good. We did find a dead, frozen fish – that was a big deal to everyone.
Our lowlight was sleeping in the cabins – on the ground. We got mats; we decided that out best approach might be to pile out mats on each other and sleep in the same sleeping bag. I don’t know that it wasn’t our best approach but I think I got about 2 hours of sleep doled out in 10 minute increments. A silver lining was that Aine didn’t have to go to the bathroom during the night – since that required a walk outside.
Overall we had a great time. If I ruled the world – we might enjoy all of the fun daytime activities – but sleep in a hotel. But that’s more outdoorsy than I bet most of you thought I’d go.
Filed under: Minneapolis
OK this is what I’ve been hoping to post – today we went to the winter kite flying gig at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. It was 7 degrees Fahrenheit. But you know what? It didn’t feel that cold – until we started to freeze. If you’ve spent time in Minnesota, you’ll know what I mean.
The wind was almost non-existent. Yet – we managed to get our kites up! The girls earned the roasted marshmallows they had.
It’s hard to get yourself going to something like this – but the group did an amazing job. There were marshmallows, hot chocolate, pretty affordable kites and some amazing kites brought in my kite experts. We had a great time.
An added note for Grandma — we did wear sunscreen.
Filed under: St Paul
So our goal (my goal) for 2011 is to lose any weight I may have gained since our return from Ireland. (No thank you stupid cookies from Lund’s!) I have done some serious walking, weightlifting, Pilates …. and roller skating. Kate and Aine and I went roller skating last weekend.
Aine must have fallen a billion times. Kate didn’t fall – but she did help hold up the edge of the rink. In the words of Aine – I was BRILLIANT. But brilliant includes using the wall to stop. It was fun. Our secondary New Year’s challenge is to become better roller skaters.
(Anyone looking for monthly fitness challenges should check out my friend Suzy’s blog. Last month she challenged folks to do 50 pushups and 25 triceps dips every day. I was one of the successful challengers. This month it’s 30 lunges and 10 roll ups. So far I’m nailing that one too!)
Filed under: St Paul
During the break Aine, Kate, Kate’s friend and I took a trip to the Science Museum (We’re members; so every trip is free.) Aine had fun climbing around. We also saw the Omni show all about the Hubble telescope, which is going down as one of my faves.
Did you know that they have used info from the Hubble to figure out how solar systems are formed? It was cool to see the solar systems that were just forming. I must admit that I could only really pick out the ones that had the oval orbiting like ours but it turns out they come in all shapes.
Filed under: St Paul
Aine has taken up Irish Dancing this year. I’m sure we’ll have some video to show for the effort this spring when they have their big show – but in the meantime… We went to a Christmas party sponsored by the dance company. Other famous guests – Santa!
Filed under: St Paul
We did a lot of our holiday celebrating the week before Christmas this year. It started with our annual Christmas open house. We took no pictures – but we did make a lot of food. As always we left everything until the very last minute – but all of my family is so great about helping. The Saturday before the party the girls and I go to Grandma’s for a marathon cookie bake. Our big lesson this year – don’t try to use healthy peanut butter for cookies. Dad and I went to Sam’s to get good things like shrimp trays. I try to hide one every year – but it never works out. So we share.
We opened presents mid-week. Everyone was very happy with their haul. Presents included a big princess tent, betta fish and Flip Camera.
We went on our annual sojourn to the Children’s Theatre. We saw A Christmas Story. It was a family favorite. Actually it’s always fun to see who likes which plays. Katie’s favorite was Frog and Toad. Patrick liked the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Many of us still go with Wizard of Oz.
The adults had an amazing dinner at Luci’s. Sadly Mom was sick – clearly sick if Luci’s was out. I’m trying to remember what we had – it was a 5 course meal. And if that wasn’t enough we also got an extra dinner of scallops just because we all wanted to try them. If you haven’t eaten at Luci’ you should try it. They have a 3-course meal that you just can’t beat. And much to our delight, there’s a special rate on Thursdays. We had hoped to go earlier in the week but snow helped us decide on Thursday.
One last thing I remember from our whirlwind week was the Mall of America amusement park. Due to a some excessive holiday spending and a bargain they were running we got some very economical free-ride bracelets. The kids had fun. There is a huge difference between the rides that O’Donnell’s think are fun and the rides the Lynch’s like. In fairness they have season passes to Dix Flag so they have been desensitized.
Filed under: Minneapolis
All of the Treacy cousins met up for the annual Christmas Pizza party. I think everyone made it, which is fun. Every year we meet up at Broadway Pizza in Minneapolis. And this year we proved that we met in all sorts of weather. The snow was really coming down, In fact I think we were all about 30 minutes late.
Filed under: St Paul
So Lily and I have taken on a new challenge. We are the neighborhood correspondents for the Twin Cities Daily Planet. That means we interview people in Mac Groveland for the online newspaper. We started with our neighbor Pete Greenheck up at the Nativity Christmas Tree Lot. We’re still working on our second interview. Got an idea? Let us know!
Filed under: St Paul
At Nativity (the girls’ school) they don’t have an all-school Christmas pageant, which is kind of nice. Rather a couple of the grades have different events. The first grade did a reenactment of the of the Nativity. Aine was an angel – so that wasn’t too much of a stretch for her.
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