Favorites at Austin

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Austin...Enjoy!

Dinner for one...

It's never fun to make a fabulous dinner if you are only making it for yourself. Chad is training this week and is gone every night...good for him, bummer for me. I bought the ingredients to make jumbalaya again, and made it tonight. Thankfully, Chad came home hungry and had some of the leftovers...

Comments

Okay fellow readers-you need to leave me some comments so I keep writing these. I don't know if people are reading them or not, and why write if nobody is reading? Click on COMMENTS at the bottom of each post to give me your comment...

Forgetful...

On the airplane from St. Louis to Minneapolis, I realized I had forgotten to clean out the closet in my hotel room...I also forget to pack my phone charger. Needless to say, I think I'm the most forgetful person I know. Thankfully, Nate and Doug are at the hotel till Tuesday so they can bring back my stuff. Although, the hotel has not called back to confirm they have my stuff...would they really toss it?

Working out

UGH...I HATE working out! I took this last year off from having a club membership-partly due to the fact that I live in Minneapolis and there wasn't a club I liked close, and that I was so busy with my first year of teaching. Believe me, I have paid the price for this. Chad and I both want to get a membership again, but have been putting it off. The family I nanny has an elliptical machine in their basement. So last night, I decided not to shower this morning because I would "work out" at their house. I am happy to say that I did use the elliptical. I am not happy to admit that I was on it for a total of 10 minutes. PATHETIC I know... I told myself I need to rebuild my physical stamina. Hopefully, I will increase my time the more I do it. Now I just have to do it...any suggestions for sticking to a workout routine???

How "walkable" is your neighborhood?

With rising gas prices, many city-dwellers are opting to walk or take the bus. Living in Minneapolis, I feel I should walk many places, but choose to drive...stupid!! Go to http://www.walkscore.com/ to see how walkable your neighborhood is.

Let me know...how walkable is your neighborhood??

They rate on proximity to grocery stations, stores, parks and entertainment. Surprisingly, my area is in the 77th percentile! Awesome...These are some of the lovely places I have access to by foot:

B-squad vintage (I might go if it was the A-squad...)
Kmart (this horrible store breaks up Nicollet Avenue...stupid)
Ace hardware store (awesome location!)
Tarana yoga (never heard of it)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. park (Great Park...)
hosmer public library (never heard of it)
lagoon cinema (awesome cinema)
caseys bar and grill (newly remodeled patio)

In Austin...

I awoke this morning at 4 a.m. to go to the airport. We left MSP at 6:15 and arrived in Austin, TX at 10:30. We made our way to our hotel...pretty nice room. I have my own room with a king size bed. Kiel (math teacher) has a walk-out patio...not fair! We ventured a few blocks to Big A's for a true Mexican lunch. I had my first Texas beer-Lone Star...and I really liked it. I also had a great meal of nachos with beans, cheese and steak. Fantastic!

We have a reception tonight for the IB conference and might go see some live music tonight. It's super hot here and I'm glad to not have to be outside much...tomorrow the conference starts...

We will be learning all about the International baccalaureate program...to find out more...click here http://www.ibo.org/who/.

Will write more later...

my favorite part of Minneapolis...

Weekend Recap...

My 10-year old twin cousins are in town from Texas this week. They were going to stay with my grandparents, but couldn't because my Grandpa has been in the hospital for 2 weeks. Instead, they came to my cabin for the weekend. I decided that was a great opportunity to bring my honorary sisters up north too (the Kruse girls). Caitlin (13) and Kelly (10.5) had an awesome time with my cousins, Megan and Kelly...we had to call Kelly Kruse K2 or Kelly Kruse to make sure they knew who we were talking about.

All the Kruse girls could talk about on the way up was going tubing..."When will we go", "Who can we go with?", "Who will drive us?", "Can we go fast?". Needless to say, they were excited about tubing. Unfortunately, when we tried to start the boat, it wouldn't start. I thought it was the battery, so my dad decided later to charge the battery in case that was the problem. For those few hours, all I heard was: "When will teh boat be ready?", "When can we go tubing?", "Do you think we will be able to go tubing?", "I'm bored because I want to go tubing." All I could think was..."AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" I'm used to dealing with a class of question-asking 4th graders...and I'm even used to dealing with 4 pre-teen and teenage girls. But this was more than I could handle...we decided to go into Pequot Lakes and Nisswa to go shopping. They loved this and it took their minds off tubing until we got back. Then the questions continued.

Eventually, after charging the battery, we got the boat started. I took the girls on double tube rides and they had a blast. Now, some of you know we have a lake with 2 parts...one in front of my cabin, and the other around the point by the island. We were by the island and the girls wanted to switch tubers. My dad warned me about stopping the boat becasue he didn't know if it would start...my dumb mistake. I stopped the boat, we switched tubers, and I tried to start the boat...to no avail. I tried a few time, but heard nothing but a few clicks. So here we were, stranded by the island where my family couldn't see us. We sat there for an hour....yelling and waving at other boaters (they waved back). I told the girls my dad would come get us because he would get worried. Little did I know he would come in the....KAYAK!!! We thought, "How is he supposed to save us in the kayak?" He was a little perturbed that I stopped the boat, and then continued to tie the speed boat with a tube and 5 girls in it, to the kayak. He really thought he was going to pull us back. It was hilarious! He paddled his hardest, and went nowhere. We all had a laugh during that. So, long story short, my mom drove to the boat landing and saw us still stranded and went to get our neighbor in his boat to tow us back. We finally made it home...freezing, hungry and crabby.

The rest of the weekend was awesome! Because of the boredom of the girls, my mom and I took the girls over to the Lewis cabin and took them on the wave runners. I should say I took them, because my mom is kind of a wuss and the girls were bored with her.

All in all, we had a fabulous girls (except my dad) weekend! As you can see, we tubed, fished ( I put all worms on and took all fish off), played Polish golf, went on the wave runners, swam, ate, got ice cream, got stranded, fished some more, played Sorry, and finally, today, I am relaxing....with the Kruse girls :)

Awesome Weekend!

Usually, in the summer, I go up north every change I get. I had planned to go up north this last weekend, but by Friday was dreading the drive and had an urge to stay at home. It was hard to break the news to my parents, who always welcome the company when they are up there. I explained that I was kind of homesick from being gone so much the last few weekends. Plus I go to Texas in a week so I wanted to spend some quality time at home.

Friday, Chad had to work and most of my friends were staying in, so I set up a nice night at home: 27 Dresses on demand, chicken fettuccine and a glass of wine. Little did I know that I would also add a thunderstorm to my calm evening. I watched the skies get progressively darker and oohed and aahhed at the lightning. Although, a thunderstorm is not much fun by yourself.

Saturday, Chad and I ran some errands, then had lunch at the Tin Fish at Lake Calhoun. If you haven't been there, I definitely recommend it. Great food and a great atmosphere. As you remember, it was super windy that day, so that added a damper to our nice afternoon, but we still managed to enjoy our lunch.

We then made the walk into Uptown and went to the North Face store, where they were having a 40% off sale! AWESOME! Chad got swim trunks and I got a new over the shoulder bag/purse. We then made our way back to our car. Chad had to work at 4:30.

All was ok though, because I met up with Kali on Christmas Lake and had a BBQ at the Tilton's to celebrate the triathletes of the day. Hadn't seen a lot of those guys in awhile and I chatted with some new faces. We then head to Maynards, where it was so crowded you could barely move...plus it was extra windy and I was not dressed for cold.

Sunday, we spent 2 hours doing laundry at a laundromat. We do have laundry at our house, but we had accumulated so much that it would have taken all day at our house...we then hung out at home, cleaned and took a nap. I wanted to make something new for dinner, so we decided to make Jumbalaya. It was so good! Chad made it with chicken and andouille sausage...a definite must!

So, all in all, it was a good decision on my part to stay home this weekend. Living in Minneapolis, I love experiencing all that this city has to offer! We won't live here forever so it's nice to live it up while we can. We walked around the Rose Garden and lake Harriet after our Jumbalaya dinner...a perfect end to a fabulous weekend!