I’m not sure who all has had Fat Tire before. It’s brewed in Colorado and in general is liked by all (I think it’s good if I remember correctly). Well…according to the liquor store by my house, it’s been legal to sell in Minnesota since Tuesday (June 20). WOO!

Just wanted to do my part & let you know. Enjoy.

I saw two Twins games in two days…and TWO WINS!!

Game 1: On Wednesday night I had tickets as part of my season ticket package and I invited my sister to join me. She & Nathan had only been back a few days, but she was up for it. Josh & Nathan actually decided to take in the game as well from the Student Section. I think it’s $4 for an upper level general admission ticket on Wednesday…plus it’s Dollar Dog night. I met them at our parents house and we all drove down together. We parted ways with them at the ticket window and met up again at the end of the game. Becky and I played Twingo (BINGO Twins style) and lost horribly. What is Twingo…it’s a game sponsored by Applebee’s where each box has a play score in it…1B = single, F8 = Fly out to center…and you keep track for both teams. They do show each play on the scoreboard so everyone has a chance, but I think Becky learned something. Another fun game event was a horse race on the big screen after the 8th inning. I don’t remember this game from the previous games, but this time Section 221 happened to be assigned to the white horse, Nitro. Believe it or not…Nitro won!! We each got a free admission to Canterbury Park and a free hot dog and pop. We also got to see Morneau & Hunter hit back to back homeruns after Lew Ford hit his first one of the season. The biggest highlight of the game was the 9 innings pitched by Carlos Silva without giving up a run. Yes, you read that correctly…Silva threw a complete game shut out! Twins win 6-0!

Game 2: Thursday night was Medical Technology Device day at the Dome (or something like that) so Chris was able to snag seats for 1/2 price for us! We had to wear a Boston Scientific T-shirt…but it was free & blue so it wasn’t too painful. I figured that with Santana pitching I had a good chance to see 2 wins in a row, but unfortunately (as it has been happening for a while) he got NO run support. I had planned on staying for about 1/2 the game because it had been a long week of no sleep after the weekend of no sleep in St Louis. Boy, oh boy, am I glad I stayed! Santana gave up 2 runs before being pulled due to his pitch count, but the Twins came back with an amazing 3 run rally in the bottom of the 9th! Everyone in the metrodome was standing…it was really fun! We sat with a few of Chris’s co-workers and they stuck out the whole game as well so we all celebrated together. Rather than fighting the crowd to board the light-rail we headed up to Kieran’s again. Yes, I should have gone straight to bed, but it was Thursday night & the weather was gorgeous so a walk sounded good. Anyway, Twins win 3-2!!

My record of regular season games for 2007 is now 7-5!

P.S. I have decided to discontinue the Trivia…but I’d like to direct you to John Gordon & Dick Bremer’s blog at MLBlogs.com for occasional trivia & fun Twins facts.

I have found a new favorite shoe! I started looking for shoes for Liz & Casey’s wedding and when I googled “silver shoes” I came upon a shoe heaven: ShoeBuy.com. I found some silver shoes there (which I ended up returning) but more happily I found these amazing Skechers! My friend, Mandy, was sporting a pair of these shoes when we went to the Twins game for Girls Night in May. I thought they were super cute, so when I was doing some browsing of Shoe Buy I thought I would give a pair a try. I ordered the white pair (top left picture) and when they arrived I was a little worried because they immediately reminded me of a shoe that a bride might wear for the wedding reception. We all know I’m not getting married anytime soon…so I hesitated on keeping them because I didn’t know if they would look okay with other things. Well, all I had to do was put them on & I decided they were keepers. I wear them without socks and the inside is soft & comfy! I couldn’t believe it. When I was on ShoeBuy.com to get my return label for the silver shoes I got sucked into looking at the Skechers again. I have been looking for a black pair of casual shoes but never like the solid black options so when I found the aquarius shoes in black (top right) I decided to check them out. (Returns are free from that website.) While I was at it I came across the other white pair (bottom left) as well. I’ve worn all 3 and they are equally comfortable. I feel like I can wear them casually with jeans, but also to work with certain outfits. So anyway - since then I saw the shoes at the Albertville Outlet Mall Skechers store and the prices were the same so if anyone is interested…check it out!
And, because I know you are worried - I was able to find some other silver shoes that will be perfect for the wedding!

One of my brother-in-laws family members had an unfortunate event happen and I’ve been trying to think of possible options for them. Maybe someone else has an idea too…

Scenario: Her car was broken into (in the Uptown area I believe) and her purse was stolen. In her purse was…you won’t believe this…her spare key. So, the criminal who broke into her car & stole her purse also has a key to her car. It is a fairly common car (in my opinion at least) and it’s silver which is also common…but she’s pretty worried about the person getting into the car & driving off.

The reason I know is because my sister & b-i-l are driving her car (so she can use theirs) while they decide what to do. The options Becky mentioned were to get the locks replaced (EXPENSIVE!) or just risk it. I had a couple other ideas…maybe not as realistic, but probably less expensive than having a car stolen or replacing locks. My first idea is to place the car somewhere that has good surveillance and hope the jerk tries to take the car. Then, hopefully, they would get caught. My second idea is to paint the car. I’m not sure how expensive that is, but make it a crazy color & no one would expect it! My third idea is to get new license plates. Again, I’m not sure of the price and also there would probably be a lot of loops to jump through to prove that you actually own it.

My guess is that whoever stole the purse didn’t really look at the car and once they found out they had a key they probably just threw it away, but you never know I suppose. Anyone have other ideas?

Lesson learned: Don’t leave your purse in your car! and Don’t carry your spare key with you!

Let the celebrations begin…ehh…continue! We all rolled out of bed sometime in the 9:00 hour (I think) and decided to go for Birthday Breakfast for Shelly. We went to Chris’s which is where the wedding party went on the Friday before Shelly & Jeremy’s birthday as well. The food was good, even though we were sorta still asleep. Once we were done there though we had some work to do before the party. Jeremy & Chris headed to the Schlafly Brewery to pick up a couple Keg-let’s and some bottled beer for the party and run a couple other errands. Us girls got some stuff ready around the house before getting ourselves ready. The weather was really warm so we waited until the last minute to take our showers and get ready.

The pre-party bash at the house was fun. They have a good house for events like this because there’s a sun room on the back of the house which leads to their deck. People milled around inside & out enjoying cold beverages and some snacks. The dinner cruise started boarding at 7 so we headed down to the river in a few cars around 6:45 and found our seats. Dinner was a salad, followed by the main dish (Chris & I both had prime rib & veggies) and cheesecake for dessert. The food was as good as we expected. After eating dinner we moved out to an outside deck to enjoy the view (the city skyline was off in the distance & we were headed for it). It was time for cake (yes…we ate all weekend) when we got back and then a quest to finish off the keg-lets. Unfortunately, we were not successful. I think Jeremy had a valiant effort…and paid the price the next day!

Sunday we took it easy in the morning and then dropped Nicki off at the airport before heading downtown to catch a Cardinal’s game. The weather was iffy all morning and the rain hit us not too long after the game started. Somehow, being at an outdoor game in the rain didn’t really bother me. I realized that I will need to invest in a nice rain poncho when the Twins go outdoors…but surprisingly I didn’t mind the drizzle! Neither Chris or I had been to the new Busch Stadium. It was fun to see the new ballpark…it’s really nice & I got excited for the Twins new ballpark again. Plus, now I got in my “new ballpark” need for the season. I was worried when I had to cancel the Milwaukee trip that I might not get one this year. Anyway, Pujols put on a good show getting 2 home runs before the 7th inning when Chris & I had to leave. We had a 9 hour drive home ahead of us and then game was taking forever it seemed. Shelly & Jeremy were able to stick out the rest of the game and see the Cardinals to victory.

We had another fun weekend in St. Louis. Oh…and I think we definitely proved that 30 IS the new 20!

After welcoming my sister and brother in law back to the United States (HORRAY!) Chris and I headed out for another road trip to St Louis. He was brave enough to go with me back in March for Jeremy’s 30th Birthday (we had only been dating 6 weeks at that time!) and was game for another trip when Shelly’s 30th Birthday came up this month. What a guy!
This trip started off earlier than in March because we took the whole day off to go to the airport. We were on the road by 10 which enabled us to get to St. Louis by 6:30! The trip wasn’t that exciting…we were both able to take a nap and we didn’t have to go through much construction, if any, prior to getting to St Louis. Chris & I got to their house (they were nice enough to let us stay the weekend with them!) before Shelly and Nicki (another of their friends who was in town for the celebrations) got back from the grocery store, but as Chris was getting out of the car I noticed some white stuff on his jeans. It turned out that some of the yogurt covered raisins had gotten on the seat and he had yogurt on his butt. As I was trying to wipe it off, Shelly drove up and honked her horn! Scared the crap out of me!! So, we all went inside and Chris & I got settled into the 2nd bedroom before the 5 of us walked down to a local Mexican restaurant for some dinner. All the food was good once we got it…it probably took the waiter 10 minutes to even come take our DRINK order! Then, once the guy did come to take our he started with Shelly and when he got to Nicki he asked for her ID. Seeing as it was Shelly’s 30th Birthday the next day, she may have been a little sensitive to the whole age thing…so she asked if he wanted to see her ID and when the guy said No she wasn’t exactly pleased. Now that I think about it…she might thank her lucky stars because on the way into the restaurant (the name slips my mind) Chris noticed a whole wall of people with goofy hats on and she might have been roped into that if the waiter knew it was her birthday! We offered to get her the hat and she declined. Anyway, after stuffing ourselves to uncomfortable levels we walked back and decided to enjoy the cool evening on their back deck.

Around 11:15 I decided 18 hours was enough for one day & headed to bed. Not even 5 minutes after I had changed into my pj’s and crawled into bed Shelly knocked on the door. They had decided to have a midnight shot at the Sports Zone in honor of Shelly’s 30th. So…I crawled out of bed, got dressed enough to be decent, and we headed down to the bar. I had been to the Sports Zone one time before and it was just like a normal sports bar…but not tonight. In my jeans and t-shirt with no makeup on (seriously…no makeup!) I was a bit out of place. There was this girl there (who we called Neapolitan) in an outfit I couldn’t even imagine wearing. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo of her…but you’ll just have to believe me that it was very interesting! She was very thin…but honestly, looked trashy. Her top was pink, came off the shoulders and about mid way down her stomach. Underneath that was a white shirt that covered the rest of her stomach (I guess we should be glad for that) and then her bottoms were like black runners shorts except skin tight. Insane. Another of her friends had a similar outfit…it was like being in a night club. Oh yea, and then the GUYS…they were in suit clothes! Jeremy & Shelly said they had never seen anything like that in this particular bar in St Louis before. Anyhoo - they had a shot (star burst or something) and we all had a couple beers in honor of Shelly’s big day!! What a fun way to ring in her birthday…I’m glad they got me out of bed to go! Geez - I sound like an old lady, but I was trying to get ready for a late night the next night.

We picked Becky & Nathan up at the airport on Friday morning…very, very early. It is SO WONDERFUL to have them back in the US!!! The crew at the Humphrey terminal awaiting their flight from Los Angeles included me, Chris, my parents, Josh, Nathan’s parents and his sisters (Joanna & Julia). Boy were I surprised when all of the sudden Josh & Chris say “hey, there goes Justin Morneau.” Unfortunately (but lucky for him I guess) Becky & Nathan didn’t even recognize the name when we told them a famous person was on their flight! Now that I think of it, they were already in China when the baseball season ended last year. Anyway, they finally came out of the gate area which made it real that they were home. We all headed down to baggage claim to wait for their worldly possessions all packed into 4 suit cases. They were able to share some of the household items that they acquired with friends who live in China as well as a group that helps needy people in China. While we were waiting Justin Morneau was standing facing a wall where his girlfriend was standing. He is super tall & was wearing jeans and a beige colored hooded sweatshirt with the hood up most of the time. I don’t really think anyone else recognized him…or maybe no one was awake enough to notice…but he was left completely alone. Maybe that was the point of taking a 1am flight out of LA on Sun Country. I think the tickets were less than $150 - not exactly AL MVP standard I wouldn’t think!! Well, he had to walk by us a couple times to retrieve luggage and I was seriously considering saying “Good Luck” or something like that but he definitely didn’t look like he was in the mood for communication. Plus, as I told Shelly at Spring Training - he’s just a normal guy like us!
Once we retrieved the luggage my parents had to headed off to work and the rest of us went to breakfast at Perkins. It was so surprising that we were headed to breakfast at 7:30…we had been up for 2 1/2 hours by then and it seemed like it should be later! Mom & Dad had to go to work because they were having a bbq at the house for the guests of honor. Breakfast was nice…a chance to catch up a little and share stories. Being the ever thoughtful big sister, my welcome home gift was the most recent 2 copies of People Magazine. I wanted her to be caught up on the latest celebrity gossip!! Ha. Once breakfast was over we said goodbye before Chris & I began our road trip to St. Louis for Shelly’s 30th Birthday party.

Becky and Nathan are getting settled into the Central Time Zone and catching up with family in friends before heading out on some interviews around the Midwest. I wish them good luck finding employment (closer to home is better!). No matter what, it will be nice to be within 2 or fewer time zones and be able to make a call on my cell phone rather than having to schedule time taking the 14 hour time difference into consideration.

Yet another spring weekend has now come and gone. Late last week I decided that I wanted to take Friday off and catch up on some R&R while getting more done on a project at home. Well, I got the R&R…but the project didn’t get as far as it should have! Oh well…that’s what days off are for, right? Relaxing. Friday night Chris & I had dinner at Chili’s before heading to the mall for some shopping. He was able to find some of the clothes he wanted to pick up before leaving for Ireland for work next month. We ended the night by watching the Twins game until it was tied up in the 9th. We decided to go to bed then because you never know how may extra innings those games will go. It turns out the Twins pulled off the WIN against the A’s right away in the 10th. Yea!

Saturday morning Liz came over & we got some work done on the map insert for their invitations. Her brother has this cool program that made a very nice, professional looking map which we printed on one side with written directions on the back. After getting the 2 sides to line up correctly we were off to Anchor Paper where Liz had found paper that matches her invites. Unfortunately, we got all the way to FedEx Kinko’s only to find out that the sparkle paper can damage their copiers so they won’t print on them. It’s frustrating that the people at the paper store didn’t post something or indicate that this was going to happen if we tried to take it to a place like that. The guy at Kinko’s was nice enough to let us know a trip to Office Max across the street wouldn’t help. I found out later on in the weekend that Paper Depot DOES post that warning & also has a list of printers that will accommodate the ‘dangerous’ paper. Oh well. We headed back to my place and started printing on the ink jet. It was very slow going, but I printed while Liz started cutting the complete pages. I think we got about 1/3 of the maps done & she had to take off for a dress fitting and cake tasting. Saturday evening Chris & I grilled chicken and had that with salad for dinner before heading to Uptown for Beer Fest. As we arrived in the general vicinity it started pouring. We were the first ones there so we walked toward the event and found that the vendors had tents set up, but the middle of the area was solid umbrellas. Since I had gotten my ticket at a discount from a co-worker who couldn’t use his…we decided to sell it for the same discount and skip the drenched festivities. We started asking people who walked by if they wanted to buy a ticket for $20 (it was $28 at the gate). The first guy didn’t have the cash and the second group counter offered $15. We said no & they tried to argue that we should take the $15 but there were enough people walking around that we stood our ground. Eventually the guy came back with the $20. I couldn’t believe that he was going to walk over & pay $28 just to spite us! Anyway, we took the money & decided to go to William’s instead. Chris hadn’t ever been to William’s and I knew I had seen it when we were walking around, but I couldn’t remember where. So, we started walking back toward the car but didn’t find it. Well, I wasn’t about to give up so I called 411 and got the address from the operator - we were less than one block away! So, we headed over and went down to the peanut bar. We ended up having a couple beers, playing some darts (we each won Cricket once), and enjoying a $1 burger and some $0.50 fries. Mmmmm. After we left William’s we walked towards Beer fest since it had stopped raining. We ran into Steve, Adam, Teressa, and Kim who were using a bathroom somewhere but after walking past the festivities I decided it was time for bed since we were getting up early the next morning.

Sunday was Grand Old Day in St Paul. Erica had sent a link to register for the 5k a while back and somehow Chris agreed to run it! So, we got up bright & early in the morning and headed over for the run. My co-worker Todd had gotten up even earlier than us to run the 8k so he met up with us when we arrived to check in. TJ & Steve came to cheer us on along with Erica’s friend Mindy’s husband, Drew, because Mindy was running the 5k as well! I’m so excited that Chris has decided to take up running with me! He did a great job at the race…both of us finished in the 33rd minute…and we’re actually already signed up for more 5k’s this summer. (Boston Scientific sponsored Pacemaker 5000 and the State Fair Milk Run.) After the run Chris, Todd, Steve, TJ, Erica, Mindy, Drew & I all headed back to Minneapolis to allow the runners to shower before heading to Clicquot Club for some brunch. This was the 2nd time I had been there and neither time did we receive spectacular service, but generally the food has been tasty. After brunch, TJ, Erica, Steve, Chris & I headed back to St Paul to enjoy the Grand Old Day festivities (okay - we really just wanted ice cream from Grand Old Creamery, but it seemed like a good excuse!). This was my first Grand Old Day experience…but I guess if I had to explain it I’d say it’s like the State Fair in the sense that there’s TONS of food everywhere and plenty of people too. One thing I knew I did NOT want was the roasted corn. When we were running the race in the morning they had started cooking the corn and it smelt AWFUL to me. Really, I asked Todd what that horrible smell was & he figured it out. After the ice cream, and watching some freak do a juggling/unicycle act, TJ & Erica decided they had seen enough. Chris, Steve & I waited around to check out the free Tapes & Tapes concert that was scheduled for 3:30. We listened from outside the fence (there was a $5 cover, but we decided to stay away from the crowds) and Chris enjoyed a Gyro for a while but took off after a few songs. Josh was actually at the concert too, but he went inside the fence so I never did see him. Anyway, I crashed hard that afternoon. I fell asleep on the floor for a while & then moved to the couch before deciding I better wake up & eat something. We enjoyed some Chipotle and watched Man of the Year (with Robin Williams) before going to bed.