38th Birthday Bike Ride and More

I woke up to a nice birthday note from Meadow.

I had some PTO to use, it was Scott's birthday, the weather was supposed to be unusually warm and Blake and Daniel were in town.

Since our ice rink was melting we thought we'd go for a bike ride.

We were almost to their hotel when Blake said they were at Hard Times.

I had to take a picture of my bike rack for Meadow.

Blake and Daniel, what're you doing here? Well, Daniel had a projection project at the Cedar as a part of the Great Northern Festival.

Daniel had to head to his gig. We thought about getting a beer at Palmer's but they weren't open yet.

I have been wanting to hike Winchell Trail so that's where we went. This is the oldest hiking trail in Minneapolis dating back to the 1880's. Yet it's older than that as it was a path the Natives used to get from Cold Water Spring to St Anthony Falls.

I didn't know there were mini waterfalls over here.

There are a few along the Mississippi River gorge, though most have disappeared.

This one is fed by an entombed creek.

You see that manhole. That was once flush with the ground. It seems the engineers underestimated the erosion from heavy rain.

We biked back to our house to pick up the kids after Blake dropped us off back by the Cedar.

I decided on Marhaba Grill for dinner before Daniel's show. It looks way better in person and not an iPhone SE2.

Theo approved.

After dinner we played at home until it was time to see Daniel's show at the Cedar. Funny enough their creations would be similar to one of the performers.

That weekend Brooke helped paint the trim since most of Theo's room was done. She's better at these kind of details.

Meadow got a Jiji cat knock off lego set from St Nick. It is so hard that I had to take it over. Some steps take me over an hour to do.

Then we went to the Riverview Theater to see the latest and possibly last Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron.

I thought I had been here before but I was totally wrong. Not sure why we hadn't been before.

Well, I went to movie with our buddy Tyler years ago.

When we got back the kiddos went for a skate. Blake had walked on the rink earlier in the week and we realized, wait, it is skateable despite the warm temps. Sweet.

To get the kids to leave the house again I promised them tamales at La Loma.

Tonight there was an illuminated walk at Afton State Park. I had always wanted to go to one of these. It was a bit crowded due to the warm weather.

It was a bit strange without snow, but better than staying home on a Saturday night.

Comments

Sisters, a Brother and Walking Chicago

Summer always seems to mean one thing: weddings. Whether I'm shooting or attending, we're bound to end up at a few every year. This time around we were heading down to Chicago from my big sister Katrina's nuptials. I feel like all our vacations are centered around a wedding or something wedding related. I wish we could go on a vacation without having to worry about being somewhere. It also means a few repetitive trips down I-94. There aren't nearly enough unique stops off the interstate. One outlier is Foster Cheese Haus , the only organic Wisconsin cheese shop I know of. Run by the folks behind Castle Rock Organic Farms , we always try to stop by. Unfortunately for us they were closed on Wednesdays, but at least we got to spy on their darling garden out front. Brooke and I arrived in Necedah. We decided to stop at Brooke's sister Brittany's home along the way to cut the ride in half and get her dressed hemmed. ...

Dakotas Road Trip: Badlands and Black Hills

I thought we would skip Wall Drug this time since we've seen it before but Scott was gun ho on going. Come on. You can't go to the Badlands and skip the world's greatest tourist trap. First stop ice cream. We thought we would have lunch here but after seeing the prices decided we would cook something at the park instead. But first we had to take a couple tourist pics. When we we decided we were coming here I was expecting it to be 90's and hot. Did not think it would be rainy, chilly and foggy. I always make Brooke look cool. She on the other hand always finds a way to take a pic at the most awkward possible moment. Either that or I'm just really awkward. Earlier this year, I asked Theo where he wanted to go on vacations this year. He said he wanted to backpack camp at the Badlands because he was sad he didn't get to go yet. This is all for you buddy.

Japan Family Trip - Part II: Exploring the Shrines and Wilds of Nikko

We had originally planned on taking the bullet train down from Tokyo to Kyoto for a day or two. While being epically fast, it was a bit spendy for the four of us. After talking to Brooke's coworker we settled on a two day trip to Nikko and its World Heritage Sites to break up our week in Tokyo. This turned out to be an amazing decision. The town is teaming with beauty from ancient shrines to epic waterfalls and some of the best meals we had on our trip. Kyoto didn't seem all that appealing to me when I started researching which location to go to. I too am glad we chose to head north to Nikko. When we booked our Tobu Nikko Spacia X tickets I upgraded to the premium seats thinking that we'd be sitting facing one another. Instead we ended up with 4 individual seats, two in the first two rows and two in the last two rows. It turned out just fine with the kids sitting in front of us in two groups. Meadow and I were seated at the front of the car. Once in awhile we'd pas...

Search This Blog