sculpture

This weekend we went to the sculpture gardens to explore. The "spoonbridge and cherry" is the central sculpture and also a Minneapolis staple. It was a beautiful day. We had so much fun spending time together admiring our new city.

A walk around the lake

The state of Minnesota is known as the the land of 10,000 lakes. The chain of lakes in Minneapolis has tons of bike and walking trails. Lake Calhoun is the largest of all the lakes and we have loved visiting that area. A couple weeks ago we met some of Gabe's coworkers for a walk around the lake. It was brisk that day and fairly overcast, but it's been in the 80's all week again. You won't find me complaining though!

Here are some of the pics we took.

Mary Lacey, AJ, Gabe, Vicki- downtown in the background

Little bitty blankets

Boys, boys, boys!!

 Lots of baby boys lately. Cutie pie little baby boys. I wanted to try something a little different for baby gifts for my friends and sister-in-law so I started looking through some of my sewing books and found a pattern to make a tactile blanket, or taggie blanket. It was pretty easy and turned out so cute and soft with the minky fabric. They are quite itty bitty considering the title of "blanket." They're designed to be held and played with more or less.

This is the sewing book I was referring to. It's a great book with all kinds of patterns and ideas.

 Great book for beginners too!

Pumpkin Creme Pies

I found this recipe the other day and couldn't wait to try it. Prep time took quite awhile and we're still adjusting to cooking/baking in our little kitchen. The results were definitely worth it though!! They were supposed to be like an oatmeal creme pie, but ended up more like a whoopie pie. Who cares really?? I love them both!

Here is the recipe!

Recently

Recently...we have been busy. I got a job, working with mommies and babies again. This time at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. People refer to this place as "The U." I woke up entirely too early this week to attend orientation that feels never ending. I have several more weeks of day shift then I'm going back to the dark side. In at 11p out at 7a. This is a contact through the end of the year, so if I hate it there will be an end in sight. I'm going to miss snuggling my honey at night. Brings back memories when we were first married, trying to figure out how to be a wife, yet asleep all day. It made the time I was at home even more special.

Gabe is in production week of Cosi Fan Tutti. He is covering a role, so he is able to sit and enjoy the performances, but has to be ready at any moment to go on. I'm going to see the show this weekend. The rest of our weekend will be spent watching General Conference, cooking, baking, relaxing, with a little bit of exercise thrown in somewhere. What are you doing this weekend??

On an unrelated note...

The other day we were in my most favorite place of all, Target, when Gabe stumbled upon the xbox. I perused for awhile, came back to see him and started chatting with him about buying a TV. Shortly after he said, "Honey, I know you're wanting to talk to me right now, but I'm trying to find Darth Vader."

He was totally serious. So I stopped to take a picture so that I could give him a hard time later then went and got a refill of diet coke. I think we both ended up happy.

reminisce

I realize now that one year ago I had a love affair with Louisville, KY. I think about that place a lot. I loved walking around downtown everyday. I was sewing and reading, we were making friends and seeing new sites. Let's reminisce shall we....

See what I mean? Pretty awesome.

photo shoot

Last night Gabe was part of a photo shoot for the world premiere of Silent Night,  The opera is about the WWI armistice on Christmas Day. The photographer brought us to this really cool part of the city in the mill district right next to the river. It was the site of an old mill that they have kept around for historical purposes, and for photo shoots of course. :) It will be on the cover of Minneapolis Monthly, a local magazine. Hopefully we'll get a copy so I can share the final pics with you.

Since we were down there I took a few shots of him, for possible headshots. I wasn't thrilled with them, but I learned a little bit about shooting at dusk. I'd love to take a bunch more. This was one of the better ones, but still a little out of focus.

This picture reminded me of another pic I love of him, taken 5 years and 9 months ago.

What a sexy dude. Over and out.