Colorado National Monument - July 6, 2009

When I was out in Grand Junction, CO for work just after the 4th of July, I decided I needed a mini-vacation, so I spent a couple of hours one evening exploring the Colorado National Monument. It is about a 25-30 mile drive through the park with various "look out" points and trail entrances along the way. I only had time for hiking a couple of the short trails, but would have loved to have had more time to explore and get more exercise. Even in the 95+ degree heat it was a fun short diversion from the work week. I snapped a few pics with my cell phone, not the best way to take landscape photos, but you can get the idea! ;-)

Pork Fest II

Our dinner club dared to reprise the original 2007 Pork Fest last weekend!! We all came to a consensus that we may only be able to handle it once every two years...it takes nearly that long to recover from all that salty meat and gluttony! Emily and Eric Backstrom graciously hosted us along with the Farleys, Doseks and Wilds for a yummy backyard soiree completed with various pork dishes and accompanying side items and salads. The Backstroms outdid themselves this year with not one, but two extra special piggy desserts! Both were awesome, but the piggy cupcake put me over the edge...I should have stopped with the ice cream sandwich pig!! I am rationalizing that playing catch with the kids worked off all those calories....yeah right... ;-)

Our Baby, Ace!

Ace has really been lovin' the slightly cooler temperatures this week since he has his permanently thick coat of black fur! He loves to travel with mom and dad wherever we go!

Bar-B-Q at the Shores for the Youngquists

Last weekend we headed to South Minneapolis for a Bar-B-Q at the home of Wade and Christa Shores to see the Youngquist clan (Mark, Darla, Lauren, Courtney and Hannah the dog) who made their first trek back to the Twin Cities since they moved to St. Louis last summer! Jeff Hames and his two boys, Nick and Alex also joined us, so Paul got some great catch up time with his best college buddies. It was the MOST BEAUTIFUL day and we just hung out all afternoon soaking in the sunshine. We also had some unexpected entertainment from Wade and Christa's girls, Sophie, Olivia and Emma, along with Lauren and Country Youngquist who played dress up for us.

Aftermath of the KY Derby Brunch...

As I mentioned in the previous post, we all thoroughly enjoyed the food at the Kentucky Derby Brunch and some of us more than others...Paul nearly overdosed on BACON...or was it the Bloody Marys????

Kentucky Derby Dinner Club

We hosted the last official JLM dinner club of the year at our house a few weeks ago. The theme was KY Derby Brunch (although we were over a month late with the date) and a few of our dinner club members arrived donning hilarious hats and other redneck "accessories"--unfortunately I didn't capture pics of everything. The food was awesome and we all ate way, way too much!!!

Absolutely Too Cute!!!

My dear friend Kayla Scherder shared these pictures of her two girls Reese and Rylee this morning and they are too cute for words. I haven't seen the girls since Christmas when we stopped by to see their new home in Iowa on our way back from our Missouri visit. They are even cuter today than 7 months ago! We definitely need to get down to Iowa or have the Scherders up to the Twin Cities soon!

Thursday Night Out with the Bassis

Last night we ventured to South Minneapolis to try out Cafe Maude with friends Glynne and Lorenzo Bassi. Cafe Maude is a cute little bistro with a French flair to the menu. I must admit I am not really a fan of French food in general, but the menu had some interesting and tasty items with especially great desserts. The real highlight though was catching up with Glynne and Lorenzo. What a year they've had since little Grayson was born at 25 weeks in Italy last July! A big Happy Birthday shout out to sweet baby Grayson who recently celebrated his first birthday!! (Note: I shamelessly got this pick from FB as I forgot to take camera to dinner)

A visit to "The Land"

Well, after putting a significant portion of my pay check toward paying off "The Land" as we refer to it during the first years of our marriage, I finally got to see more than just a drive by view of our land investment over the 4th of July! It really is a beautiful undeveloped piece of land with rolling hills, a small lake, etc.(about 1 hr 15 minutes from the Twin Cities adjacent to the Kimball, MN Golf Course.) Paul, Ace and I did a bit of hiking around the interior of the land, which was an adventure which Ace LOVED, but it was quite hot and sort of buggy so we called it a day and headed back to the Twin Cities. Paul even brought home a few wood ticks unexpectedly -- what a treat!>@?#!

We do not know exactly what we'll eventually do with this land, but in the short run I guess we are very thankful we invested in this rather than putting more money in the stock market over these past couple of years. Also, regardless of the future appreciation potential as my mom might say, if all "goes to Hell in a hand basket" we can pitch a tent and live off this land!!! (Let's hope that never happens as about 3 days of camping is about all I can take and wood ticks are not an acceptable accessory!!) LOL!! We hope to make another trip up this winter and do some snow shoeing or maybe even cross country skiing. Paul has even been talking about maybe having a guys "shooting day" if we can find a time this Fall.

4th of July at the Brown Family Cabin

What beautiful weather we had for the 4th this year! It was a terrific day to spend with Paul's parents, Pat and Marv, Karl (Paul's brother) and Heather along with Spenser and Abbie, frequent stars of our blog. Along with Ace, Paul's parents lab Sammy (Ace's "girlfriend") and Bruno (Karl's family dog) also joined in the fun at the cabin. A few highlights were getting Ace and Sammy to pose for a picture together, watching Spenser climb trees like a true monkey, playing with Spenser, Abbie and Ace by the lake and eating all the good food prepared mostly by Pat and Heather with Karl manning the grill.