On The Seventh Day Of Advent We Went To Bentleyville

Every morning before Scott gets out of bed he plays on his phone (I read). I guess Meadow picked up this bad habit.

It's funny how reading a newspaper is just as OK and reading the news on your phone is bad. Maybe Brooke's the one with a bad habit.

Meadow woke up super early at 7:43. We were waiting for Blake to get up and had Meadow knock on his door.

We brought oatmeal, but after last time I wasn't feeling it. Our favorite Duluth restaurant it is.

For the uninitiated that would be the Duluth Grill.

We all got the cinnamon rolls as our side. Our waitress let us know that we got the last three.

Brooke and I both ordered corned beef hash. I used to never order the same item as Brooke.

Meadow was getting sleepy during breakfast. I put her down for a nap on Blake's couch. We hid out in his bedroom while she slept.

They got the bed. I had to choose between the floor and a uncomfortable chair.

An hour later Meadow was refreshed and ready for an adventure.

We had time to kill before it got dark. I read in a Duluth tourist brochure that Santa and his reindeer were at Fitgers.

We found the reindeer and a big blow up snowman, but we couldn't find Santa.

Instead we took some potential Christmas card photos.

The Santa was actually indoors and not very good. We decided to wait for Bentleyville.

You had to pay big bucks to get your photo taken. No thanks. We like the free Santa's.

It was still too light out so we debated what to do next.

We decided to got to the Superior Municipal Forest. Once we got a ways in, the roads were covered with ice. We couldn't make it up one hill so I decided to turn around, take a picture and try going back up the hill we had just gone down.

Suffice it to say we couldn't get back up the previous hill. The car was sliding and couldn't get traction. I slowly backed up and tried the first hill. I gunned it, within reason, and managed to make it up the hill. Every time I took this tactic Brooke freaked out. The morale of this story is don't bring a Honda Insight into an ice coated road. It's going to be a bitch to get out.

Blake took us on a scenic route home through neighborhoods we hadn't been to before.

Morgan Park was built for the workers of the nearby U.S. Steel Plant that's no longer there.

Lately I have been reading about Frank Lloyd Wright. After the first Taliesin fires that killed his mistress, Frank began designing homes that were basically fireproof. When Blake mentioned that the homes in Morgan Park were designed by Prairie School architects I understood why the homes were made 3/4 cement.

We drove into a few more neighborhoods on the way back to Denfield. This home was a Finnish socialist workers college at one point.

On the way back to Blake's we picked up some groceries for a stir fry dinner.

I think it turned out pretty good. Meadow was just happy to be eating noodles.

Then it was Bentleyville time.

Years ago when Blake went to China he brought back fake money saying it was for burning for your ancestors. Every time I would remember to do it Blake wasn't around. I brought it with last time we were here and noticed it on the floor when putting my shoes on at his house. I knew there would be fires at Bentleyville so we finally took care of that.

Oh hey Paul.

I brought the Ergo, but we let Meadow walk herself. They had strollers you could borrow, but she seemed happy on her own.

It was funny to see two and three year olds being pushed around. People need to let their little ones have fun.

Once in awhile we'd have to stop her to remind her we were here to look at the lights.

While waiting in the popcorn line Scott said, "Should we see Santa here or wait and go to Macy's?" That's when Blake replied, "Here you get a free hat." And so we waited in line for over an hour to see Santa.