Sunday was Fair day for Chris & I. We were scheduled to get up and run the Milk Run at 7:45 but after fighting a cold all week (Chris) and not running for at least a week (both) we decided to sleep in instead. I enjoyed the state fair so much more this year than I have the past couple. So much that I think my Milk Run days may be over.

We finally left around 11:00AM and after driving around a while we found a parking spot close to where we parked last year. In addition to eating delicious (and horrible for you) food, this year Chris and I were checking out buildings for possible reception halls. Todd & Patty met us around 1:00PM and the four of us took a whirlwind tour of the fairgrounds! (Click the photo to see the rest of the Photo Booth pictures!)


We took a bunch of pictures (although none of the buildings) so I’m going to let those tell the story.

Our first stop was Heritage Square where we found some interesting wall decorations and the first food of the day…beer. We shared everything (except a Pronto Pup) so we could sample more items!

Also at Heritage Square was a train we toured and some old time cars.

After Heritage Square we hit up the food stands outside the Grandstand.

Patty & Todd’s first fair food of 2008: Vegie Fries (supposedly they’re “healthy”). And the MN sesquicentennial cake decorating competition.

Walking past the old time tractors led us straight into the afternoon parade!

And we finally got our Pronto Pups!

Near the end of our day Patty & Todd had a Cheese on a Stick and all four of us went down the Giant Slide. Happily, both came with goofy signs to stick our heads through!

Patty & Todd took a photo with the Fry Guy and we went and saw the Butterheads!

We started walking towards Sweet Martha’s cookies but before we made it there Chris & I decided we had had enough. It felt good to leave the fairgrounds without being stuffed from food! I would call Fair Day 2008 a complete success!

If that wasn’t enough…click here to see all our pictures from the fair!

We went to the Eight is Enough concert on Wednesday night and met my brother there. I was surprised that when they opened the doors at 7:30pm there were more people in the “need tickets” line than the “pre-paid” line. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to be in the shorter line but I expected more Obama supporters to give up front rather than waiting.

Each group played for about thirty minutes which was about perfect. First up was Tape & Tape (2 guys from Tapes & Tapes) and I enjoyed them a lot. Then came Kill the Vultures which was an interesting experience. I enjoyed what I heard…after I went to the bar & purchased earplugs. Yep, it’s true. I am no longer too good (cool) for ear plugs. I think something popped in my ears when he started performing and so rather than do permanent damage I paid the $0.50. Thank goodness too…it was SO NICE to not have ringing ears on Thursday morning!

After Kill the Vultures was Dosh who had his stuff set up on the floor so my brother lead the way over there to get a front row spot. There were a lot of photographers around and I was wondering how many pictures we were going to be in. Turns out a couple at least. My brother found us in some on the Pitchfork site (a favorite music site of his). Click here and go to the Dosh section to find us. We’re in the front row, Josh has a red baseball hat on and Chris & I are to his left. He also found us on Spin.com. It’s like we’re famous or something. Haha.

Anyway, Dosh was fun to listen to and it was fun to be in the front (until the girl behind me decided to continually bump into me) to watch how he was mixing the sounds! After that was Low and seeing as it was 10:30PM on a school night Chris & I hung around for a couple songs before taking off. Josh lasted until after midnight and said that there was good music but nothing too eventful that we missed.

As I previously mentioned, I really do love Google. I can’t believe how long it took me to get a Gmail account because today I could not imagine living without it. (Yes, I know, there is probably a 12 step program somewhere for me.)

Anyway…yesterday Chris reminded me of another reason why I love it. Shared documents!

Chris created a spreadsheet within his google account and then shared it with me and, poof, we have a common location to create and edit our wedding guest list! We can see what changes each other has made AND we can get to it from any computer. Genius. This will be a great task to complete and Google made it easier.

Photo courtesy of makeshiftlove via Creative Commons.

The last stop on BBRT 2008 took us to Miller Park in Milwaukee to watch our hometown boys take on the Brewers. Unfortunately the Twins lost but we had some fun while at the park. This photo is of Chris & I “running” in the sausage race.

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Our Saturday last weekend (8/23/08) was stuffed full of fun times and happiness! It all started when we slept in! It’s been a while it seems and not having to set an alarm was fantastic!

Then we were off to my parents house to celebrate my Grandma’s 85th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!! Unfortunately I don’t have an photos yet (there were already 5 cameras around so I didn’t feel like carrying ours as well). However, my parents hosted a wonderful birthday bash complete with lots of family and friends, delicious food (contributed by all), yard games and singing to the birthday girl. It was really nice to see all my dad’s siblings together since we’re all spread out these days. Unfortunately the cousins weren’t able to make the trip but hopefully I’ll be seeing them soon (at my wedding…if I ever get one planned!).

Chris and I took off around 2:30pm to get ready for our next event. My friend since High School, Heather, was marrying her sweetheart Nathan!

The ceremony was very nice (aka short!) and everyone looked fantastic. Immediately afterward we had a parade down the street to the Varsity Theater where the reception was. We passed at least one restaurant with outdoor seating and I’m sure they were like “What the?” as hundreds of people walked past!

The Varsity looked a lot different to me that it did last time we were there (for Girl Talk). The main floor was covered in tables and the tables had candles or lamps which gave off really nice mood lighting. I didn’t end up getting any of the appetizers but the main meal was really, really tasty and they had open bar for beer & wine until dinner was over which was nice. My only complaint about the day was that it was a bit crowded at the reception. We had to eat our dinner on our laps because there weren’t enough tables. That and the fact that they had the rare problem of too small a dance floor (seriously…uncommon!). Never fear though - Chris & I made our way down there and boogied a little! Click here to see all my photos from the night.

Congratulations Heather & Nathan. I wish you many great years together and tons of happy memories!!

I love Google. I love my gmail, the google calendar that Chris & I share, saving documents that I can get to from any computer, and finally I love google reader. Google Reader allows me to follow a crazy number of websites without remembering what all the URLs are and I love it for that. Chris finally got himself a google reader and now I love it even more! Today he shared a blog post that he liked…his shared items are available for me to see & what I bring you today comes straight from there…

CubeeCraft.com is a site where you can download, print, cut and assemble a wide variety of fun little characters. I plan to work on a couple of these (Super Mario & Kermit first I think!) over the weekend. If anyone puts one together send me a link to a photo & we can share with everyone!

I am one discouraged girl. Chris & I had come up with what we thought would be the perfect way to celebrate our wedding only to have that come crashing down yesterday afternoon. I am just getting started and I’m already sick of the “we can do whatever we want because people will pay it” mentality of the reception industry.

Here’s an example. From the MN State Fair Rental Sheet:
Tables (8′ x 30″ Banquet Tables)
• 1-3 event days………………………………$6/each
• 4 or more event days …………………$8.50/each
Folding Chairs
• 1-3 event days……………………………$.75/each
• 4 or more event days ……………………..$1/each
Then at the bottom of the list it says…
Labor, forklift and truck charges shall apply when renting tables, chairs,bleachers, ticket booths, benches, barricades, etc.

EXCUSE ME?!? You couldn’t just write the labor charges into the cost of the tables & chairs? That is ridiculous.

Needless to say I’m trying to stay calm and figure out what all of our options are before completely losing it. I am sure something will work out and that it will turn out to be a super dooper fantastic party in the end no matter what.

Plus, the most important thing is that I LOVE CHRIS!

Photo courtesy of theresa21 via Creative Commons.

As the Olympics in Beijing wrap up I thought I’d share one of the most memorable parts to our trip. We thought we were going to the Beijing Zoo but it turns out that we were going to the zoo ONLY to see the Pandas. At first I was disappointed but after our visit I was happy with what we got to see. The pandas were huge and we were there just as they were getting their breakfast. It was so neat to watch them eat…they have movements just like humans!

Don’t get me wrong…all of the amazing history we saw was great too. This was just something that I thought would be fun to share.

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Pictured L to R: Kathy, Chris, Victoria, Paul

Tuesday night was a time to celebrate with the families that were part of the most recent Circle to Success (C2S) program. We had met for 8 weeks talking and learning about finances, the community, goals and many other skills that are important to being a responsible citizen and last week everyone took a test which required 75% or better to graduate. It was so exciting to hear that all families were going to be graduating! (If someone didn’t pass they were given another chance to take the test but that wasn’t necessary with this group.)

Pictured: Me, Somer, Isis, Robert and Nyla

The graduation ceremony began with Paul (the founder of TWN) and Kathy (our trainer) speaking about the program and how these families improved over the past 8 weeks. Then they moved right into handing out the graduation certificates.

After all of the certificates had been distributed, the children handed out cards to their parents. The card listed at least one thing the child will do to help with the new household and each child was asked to share out loud with the group what they were going to do. This program is about improving the responsibility of the whole family which is great! A couple of the families spoke about how the program has improved their lives and their outlook (including Chris’s mentee Victoria!) which was very touching and then we all went downstairs and had cookies and punch.

The changes that we witnessed in our families over such a short period of time was amazing. They learned things that seem like common sense to us because we grew up with it and some of them re-lit the fire under a goal that has been on the back burner for a while. For me it was eye-opening because everyone in this group had jobs and most if not all of them had a car but they were struggling to get by every month. It’s sad that someone who is willing to work has to live with their family in or near poverty. My brother’s gf, Robyn, let me borrow a book titled The Working Poor: Invisible in America and I’ve just started it but the first chapter made me immediately think about these families in the program. I hope that Paul is able to successfully raise the money needed to get more families into this program because it seems like a solid idea to me and he has a great vision. If anyone is interested in making a donation to Third Way Network, Paul said a check would be best but that they are set up with United Way and have an online link for donations on their website as well. Apparently United Way takes 15% (gasp!) and the other one takes 5% so if you want the entire donation to go to the program a gold old check is best.

As I look back on the past 8 weeks I am so happy that we made the commitment to the program. Being an adult mentor was a lot more emotionally involved than I had expected but we really got to grow with the family we were working with and I’m looking forward to helping Somer keep on track with her goals and eventually celebrating home ownership with her sometime in the future. The Third Way Network program consists of multiple parts of which Circle to Success is the first (after being accepted). Next each family will move into their discounted housing before participating in the third phase which is called Foundation to Stability.

Foundation to Stability will start up this fall and is the first and third Thursday of each month. Each family will be required to attend at least one session a month in order to continue to receive the discounted rent and this enables us to continue with a positive environment and keep the learning active.

If anyone is looking for a volunteer opportunity and would like to participate let me know. You do not have to commit to EVERY session. I know that help is always needed both in the kitchen (from 4 - 7) or with the children or adults (from 5:15 - 8:15). Dinner is provided for all volunteers…we eat family style with the families prior to breaking into the adult/child groups.

I just signed up for Blog Action Day 2008! The only requirement is that you have a blog and you agree to write about the Action topic on October 15th so if you meet that criteria you should sign up too!

This year’s topic is Poverty. You can write about anything related to poverty…how it has affected you, what you’re doing to decrease poverty, organizations you’re involved with that are working to combat poverty, a favorite documentary or book about poverty and the list goes on. The people at Blog Action Day even created a list of ideas to help people get started! With the ability to schedule posts for the future, I plan to begin writing mine now and just review the post as 10.15 approaches. So…who’s in?!


Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.