New Piano

Last Monday we stopped in at a neighbor's estate sale. It is the house that has the Lucy out front that we always see on our way to Costco. I saw they were having an Estate sale and wondered if maybe they were selling Lucy.

Well they weren't, she is getting donated to charity (or a synagogue). But we did actually see a piano! I debated it and was texting with Kyle but we needed to get home to meet Isaac after school and Thomas was really due for a nap. The sale was going until 4:00 so I had about an hour to decide.

Thomas would NOT nap, and I heard back from Kyle so just decided to load everyone up and head back over there. Got there about 4:05, but he was willing to sell it to me. Made some calls and planned for a piano mover to come on Friday.

Friday morning came and I met the Estate sale guy and the piano movers over at the house. I probably didn't need to go but just in case they needed me I wanted to make sure I was available. We went back home to meet the movers. They were pretty quick.

The kids had fun watching them move it in. Glad I didn't have to deal with getting it up the two flights of stairs out front.

Now we have a piano! Now we just need to figure out what to do with that coffee table... neither Kyle or I really want it, but he hand built it in shop class so feel like we should keep it. It's just super heavy, super big, and we don't really want it in the way :-/ It's currently our piano bench, haha.

I used to play but it's been a long time. I'm going to work on learning again. Isaac has learned at school and he has enjoyed practicing and I'm teaching the girls scales they can work on before the kids all get official lessons. Thomas really wants to play and I've let him a little, he seems pretty proud to press the keys with one finger.

We drove by the house today and they UNCOVERED Lucy. We're sure going to miss seeing her on our drive out of the neighborhood. The kids always love driving by her.

Minnesota Children's Museum

Friday we went to the Children's Museum with a friend of ours, Lesa & Parker. It was Parker's birthday!!!
Lesa had off work so she called to see if we could do a playdate. In an effort to get out of the house and do something fun, we decided to go to the chilren's museum.  Isaac loved it, of course since he's an exploring fool right now :-P

First we stopped into the ball/bounce exhibit.






Then we went across the hall to the toddler area, lots to explore in here


Attempt at a photo of Parker and Isaac:


Isaac was going nuts in this area trying to get his hands on EVERYTHING at once, it was funny.


Another attempt to photograph them both


Then we went down a level to the water area, they both had a blast playing in the water tables!!






Here's a little video of Isaac playing in the water:


We only lasted about 2 hours then they boys were exhausted. Debating on a good time to buy a membership, maybe when we have another kiddo - then it'll be really worth it.

And to add.... look what I found!


And I added him to my list (Twin Cities Peanuts) which is a little out of date since I've found a few more I need to add but I will get to that another day.

Swarm Game/Roller Derby

January 29th, 2011

Back when Kyle and I ran the Twin Cities 10K run, Kyle and a friend of ours got free tickets to a Minnesota Swarm Game (Lacrosse). So this night was when we finally redeemed our tickets and headed over to St. Paul to catch a game.

We were there a little early which was good, because since our free tickets were seating based on first come first serve, we ended up getting really good seats! And we had time to walk around the Xcel Center for a bit. I found a peanut to add to my collection!

Here's Enoch posing with Linus :-)

You can see Linus' has hockey injuries :-(

After making a few laps around the arena, we found our seats and enjoyed the game.

It was a close game through, staying neck and neck. The mascot... not sure what he is or what his name is... helped to cheer on the crowd

Swarm is kind alike hockey, just without the ice skates and with a ball instead of a puck.... but they do have the fight factor the same... lots of hitting and ramming into each other.

I went up and got a picture from the corner so I could get the whole field in

And I even got a picture of where we were sitting. Here's Kyle, Enoch, & Michelle!!!

This Swarm game came with an added bonus. They were having the Roller Derby there right after the game. It was the Minnesota AllStar team up against a team from Madison... which we were a little confused as to why an allstar team was up against a normal team... but who knows it was still fun to experience. As you imagined most of the people were there for the Swarm game, so luckily they gave us a little run down of the rules before it started. None of us had ever been to a roller derby before. It was quite interested.

As they told us about the rules, people began to pull up the lacrosse field.

Roller Derby consists of two teams, there is a pack at the front of the 'race' called the blockers. This event was held on a flat track, where I think there are some that do it on slanted track. But I'm not completely sure about this.

Then two girls (one from each team) starting behind the blockers. These girls have stars on their helments and are called the Jammers.

The Jammers' goal is to get past the group, once the lead jammer makes it through she is ready to score points, she gets a point for each person (on the other team) that she passes as she goes around. Each 'Jam' as a round is called lasts for a certain amount of time or until the lead Jammer puts her hands on her hips and calls the round to end.

it was rather hard to get any good photos as it was pretty dark in there, and they were all skating around the rink going pretty fast.

A lot of people stayed to watch the derby.... but a lot of people left. Some people even showed up that you could tell were there just for the roller derby portion of the night.

These girls usually play at a place down the road from the Xcel Energy Center, but for some reason tonight was a special night and they were playing here.

We enjoyed it. Minnesota was ahead for a while, we didn't stay til the very end, but we did stay past the intermission mark.

If you're interested in a better description of the Roller Derby rules (and maybe a little more accureant than I gave) Here's the wikipedia site, or a website about the rules.

Sunday August 22nd

It's taken me a while to get around and post this, but here I finally am.

After camping Friday night and Saturday night, we woke up Sunday and decided to just pack up camp and head to the town for breakfast (since we ran out of gas for our burner). We tried out the small town of Nerstrand (pop: 227)... only to find one small convenience store and nothing else.

We drove into the little town of Northfield (pop: 19,657). We wanted to find a little hole-in-the-wall place to eat breakfast, because well those are the best kind!! We found LOTS of coffee shops with pastries, but we were searching for Kyle some biscuits and gravy.

We also saw these signs about "Defeat of Jesse James Days"... which caught our attention because well we grew up in Missouri and Jesse James was born in Kearney, Missouri and we had watched the new movie with Brad Pitt as Jesse James and since Brad Pitt grew up in Springfield, Missouri as well there were just all sorts of connections going on. lol.... so we wanted to figure out what all this jazz was about.

We asked a gal in one of the coffee shops of a good place to get a hot sit-down breakfast and she directed us to this 'hole-in-the-wall' literally, we had to walk down many hallways to get there, place called The Tavern of Northfield.

While eating, I asked our waitress what is all the hustle and bustle about Jesse James up here... she said "Oh I need to get you a brochure" she brought us back a pamphlet talking about the Defeat of Jesse James Days (which is to take place next weekend... we should go. And we read the following story:

So after our breakfast we of course had to go check out where all this took place:

After the excitement of Jesse James died off, we got Harpo and walked over by the river in the great town of Northfield.

If only we had some bread we could have fed the ducks.

We had had enough of Northfield and headed back into the city. We decided to swing by the St. Paul Farmer's Market, where everything is 100% local... and on our detour to downtown St. Paul, I looked over and spotted this!!!!!!!!!!!

It was actually farther off the road than that, and really I have no clue how I spotted it... but I did! And I screamed! And Harpo and Kyle both thought something serious was happening... well it was serious I spotted a peanut!!!! So of course we pulled, I pulled over fast to get into the parking lot to drive over and get a picture.

The little eagle woodstock on top was so cute:

While I was taking pictures, Kyle was cleaning out the glove-box where we discovered a mouse nest. A mouse must have ventured into our Jeep while it was parked when we were camping and somehow either got car insulation or something and made itself a little nest. This isn't the first time to find signs of mice in the jeep. When we went on our backpacking trip we came back to the jeep to find little turds left for us on the seat. I'm fine with mice, as long as I don't find a snake in the car!

Happy Summer! :-)

More Peanuts!

Remember last summer/fall... I was searching for Peanuts all over the Twin Cities!?! Well my search hasn't stopped, it just took a break for the winter. I did make it by a place on my hunting list the other day and to my surprise I found FOUR there!!!!! That makes my grand total up to: FIFTY!

These 4 have been added to the main list HERE.

'Your Pint, Sir' Linus; 'Sparky's Neighborhood' Snoopy House; 'Lucky Lucy'; 'Family Barber Shop' Charlie Brown

Happy Summer!

Another Hunt, Memories, and Laughs

Today I had some business to do around the University of Minnesota Campus (Hospital) I had a meeting and some training to get done. So I took this opportunity of validated parking to conduct a little campus Peanut Hunt (if you're not familiar with my continuous peanut hunt... check out my post about the Peanut Characters around the Twin Cities)  I'm up to a total of 44 now!!!  44 out of about 518.. yeah I'm real close ;-P

Anyway it was rather nice being back on a college campus (well besides walking around in the rain), it brought back lots of fun memories. Sleeping in the library or student union, being young and on top of the world, feeling like I have something to do with my life, or that I'm continually doing something... important. Well I'm still young... just not that young and I guess I do important things... I fed the dog this morning, that's important right?

Now if you're not familiar with the UofM campus, then I need to tell you there are tunnels EVERYWHERE!!! I knew there were one or two peanuts located in tunnels somewhere... luckily I had a vague idea of where they were so I asked the information desks I came to. (oh btw I added the five I found today to my main list, link above)

Now to give you a little back story to this next part, when I go to the U (that's what we call the university hospital) I have to park in a ramp and get a ticket and get it validated by my boss when I meet with him. Well today I had BLS (basic life support - just a fancy name they use for CPR) review training and then a meeting with my boss. The training was on the Riverside campus (west side of the river) and the U is on the University campus (east side of the river) So I went to my training and then took a shuttle over to the U side, I got my parking validated by the training class which is good because I always feel guilty asking my boss to validate my parking. He does it no problem... but see since I work at Maple Grove I get free parking, where as all the Child Lifers that work at the U have to pay for it everyday... yes one good thing about working in the suburbs (the only good thing).

Okay I'm getting off track, anyway my point is, this is a BIG campus... and I took a SHUTTLE across the river from where my car was to the other areas. So I get done with my meeting, walk around find a few peanuts here a few there... I know there is one in the Andersen Library which is right on the other side of the river (west side) so I want to make sure there is a pedestrian path across the river before I trek all the way over to find out, in the rain. So I go in a building. I find the info desk, and they have a map, which I stick in my pocket because maps are good.

Oh I should also point out that during this whole hunt I am carrying around a baby aquarium thing that hangs on a crib. The U got a huge donation so a co-worker gave me one to use out at my clinic... I made a handle for it out of duck tape and I'm carrying it around like a brief case.  But I don't think everyone else thought it was a brief case because I noticed college students staring at me funny as I walked around in the rain with it :-)

Okay so I am at the info booth and it's always helpful to ask around to see if anyone knows of any Peanuts, because well they could be ANYWHERE. I have asked around to a lot of people and usually get great responses like:
"Um I don't know what you're talking about"
"Oh I've seen those, have you tried over in St. Paul?"
"Ummm they quit doing that a few summers ago"
"I haven't seen any since Camp Snoopy"
But this time the info guys said "Are you talking about the Charlie Browns? There is one in this building"  My heart jumps and I get super excited! It's so fun finding an unexpected Peanut (as Kyle and Matt know from last Saturday when I saw one by surprised and scream super loud almost giving them and myself a heart attack). See most of the ones I have found, I have had hints from online searches, or friends tell me they think one is there, it's so fun to find one unexpected. So he tells me how to get there "go down the escalators, turn right, then left, then right then right, then left... then you'll come to a tunnel called 'the gopher way' and it's before the tunnel... but don't go in the tunnel or you'll get lost." WHOA okay... so I ask if there are signs to point me to the tunnel and he said yeah (okay it would have been easier to say just follow the signs to the tunnel and it's right there). So I make my way and about, oh, 20 seconds later I come across THIS:



Hanging on the wall!!! I literally laugh out loud... but get a picture anyway - not exactly what I was looking for, but at least it's the same subject.... hmmmm.  And I take a look into this tunnel he told me not to go in... yeah I could definitely see myself getting lost in there... it was like an underground world, pretty cool if you ask me. Reminded me of the 'EAC' in Finding Nemo.

So I go back up to the main entrance info desk with a huge smile on my face cuz I couldn't stop laughing. I thanked him for mentioning that one but asked if he knew of any of the statues, lol. He couldn't think of any. But I continued across the river, got one more that I knew of, and then WALKED back to my parking ramp.  I was going to have to walk pretty much the same distance back across the river to the shuttle so I just figured I would head to my car, I was wet and cold and ready to get home. And as my luck would have it, as soon as I got in my car and sat down I had to pee!


Thanks for reading!
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Hunting Story

 went on another peanut hunt yesterday!


Problem was it was RAINING!!!  It started off a sprinkle. Then stopped... then of course when I found some it starting pouring.


But I didn't let that stop me! I finished the day off with 12 new statues.  I've updated the Peanut Page as well. Luckily a few of them were inside.

I found FIVE inside of a Pharmacy a friend told me about. Only problem was they were surrounded by junk!


And dressed in ridiculous clothes!!! :-(

Here is what they were SUPPOSE to look like:
   

Maybe I can go back at a different time and get them when they aren't 'wearing clothes'....

Thanks for reading!
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