Pre-Halloween Festivities

Wow, it's been a couple weeks. Normally one would expect a lot to happen in the a 2 weeks span of not blogging. In reality, there hasn't been a lot of excitement. For starters, my dad had his last doctor appointment about a week and a half ago. His shoulder is healing nicely, and my dad has almost all the range of motion that he will gain back. It's now just a matter of building his strength back up. Even so, it was his last appointment unless something happens in the future. It only took 10 months post injury, and we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. :)

A week and couple days ago, I spent the weekend in Wisconsin. Some friends from school were having a Halloween movie marathon consisting of some pretty special movies: The Thing, The Brood, and Poltergeist. I've seen Poltergeist, and it has always been one of my favorite Halloween movies. The other two I have never seen, but I have heard of The Thing. It was a special movie taking place in the cold and snow with a demon dog. The Brood, on the other hand, was a very special movie that I could have definitely lived my life without seeing. I can't even really tell you what it was about; it was that special. What I can tell you is that if you cross Alien with Dolls with Poltergeist, you will get something similar to The Brood. Aside from the crazy movie choices, it was a great night joined with popcorn and candy. The morning following, we all went out for breakfast at Keys, and it was amazing! The french toast was freshly made there, as was the freshly squeezed orange juice. It's a bakery and a restaurant. I'm not exactly sure how common of a chain it is, but if you ever cross paths with one, I highly recommend checking it out.

In the middle of last week, my mom and I took my grandma to the Senior Expo in town. No, I am not a senior, but I do like free stuff, especially Bunnie's coconut cake from Canadian Honker. My grandma was able to get some informational brochures, and we all got fold-up canvas bags from Think. And, of course, we all had coconut cake, with is like heaven. My sister made the weight-watchers version of the cake for Easter last year, and it was just as yummy! The day after the expo, this past Friday, we had our first snow of the season. It was raining for a little bit. In the matter of 30 mins, it was near white-out conditions outside. We ended up getting 4.1 inches, and that was in just a couple hours. It was insane for the first snow of the season.

Due to the weather, going to the pumpkin patch was pushed back a day, to this past Saturday. I love going to the pumpkin patch, even it was a big mud puddle from the crazy weather the day before. I didn't let that get me down; I still found the perfect pumpkin. We also got some squash, carmel apples, and apple cider. I love fall. Yesterday, we all got together to carve pumpkins before dinner. I carved a dog, my sister did an angry clown, my brother-in-law created the Landshark logo, and my dad did his tradition "BOO." It was a lot of fun.

Weddings followed by Eagles

So it's been a week since my last post; I apologize for my slacking. I really have no excuse, since I've been pretty bored in the past week. Then again, that's what happens when you don't have a job! Anyways, this past weekend was pretty exciting. On Saturday, my dad's work was sponsoring a project called "Bras for a Cause." Most of you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. In honor of a local organization, Join the Journey, several businesses around town collected bras, whether new, old, or gently used, it didn't matter. This past Saturday, the bras were tied together and were supposed to fly through the air attached to a hot air balloon. Sadly, it was too windy to fly the balloon. Instead of flying around town, the balloons were still tied together, but they were attached to a lift to fly about 40 feet or so in the air above the highway. I donated 5 bras to the cause, and I was able to find 2 of them flying through the air. It was amazing to see them all tied together! There were 2600 bras collected, resulting in $2600 being donated to breast cancer research.

On Saturday night, my parents and I headed to a wedding reception for an old neighbor. She currently lives in Arizona, and she got married in Cancun last month. Since so many of her childhood friends and relatives still remain in the Midwest, she held a wedding reception here. There were pictures from the wedding on each table along with candles sitting in sand from the beach and a vase with sunflowers, the flower of the wedding. Similar to her brother's reception, there was a "before they met" slide show with pictures that started it all leading up to their marriage. They even played video clips from the wedding in Cancun. It was created very nicely. Then it was time for cake, which was some of the BEST chocolate cake I have ever had! And I don't normally eat cake. I don't know where it was from, but it was like eating fudge with butter cream frosting. It was AMAZING! And of course it had sunflowers made out of frosting on it. As tradition goes, the dance started shorting after starting with the father-daughter dance. It was a great reception, even if it was outside in 40 degree weather. Welcome to Minnesota!

Sunday contained even more excitement. My parents, sister, brother-in-law and I headed to the National Eagle Center for a day of family fun. I highly recommend the center for anyone and everyone. It is a lot of fun, even if you don't have little kids. And it's cheap! There are presentations with eagle demonstrations 3 times a day. We got to see the newest addition, a young bald eagle, flap his wings and eat his lunch, a rabbit leg. We also had our picture taken with a live eagle after the presentation, a adult bald eagle. There are interactive exhibits, such as coloring, taking quizzes, and seeing what it feels like having an eagle on your arm. On the second floor, there are some videos playing, as well as an observation deck overlooking the Mississippi River to find eagles soaring in the sky or sitting in a tree. My dad and I were lucky enough to see one soaring in the distance. It was a great experience. For lunch, we headed to an Irish pub, and it was very yummy. And then we wandered around town a bit looking at the pumpkin sculptures and scarecrows in honor of Sept-oberfest. I can't remember when I have done so much in one weekend before! It was a lot of fun. Now it's time to search for a job some more. One of these days I'll be lucky enough to go to work again. Until then, I have cleaning, and scrapbooking, and much more to do.

Wild - Birthdays

This past Tuesday was spent in the cities at the home opener for the Minnesota Wild...and it was amazing! Although, it didn't start out the best; in fact we flat out sucked until 3rd period. Here's the shortened play-by-play. 1st period: a couple [pretend] fights, meaning the refs stopped the players before any fists could even get thrown, and no scoring. 2nd period: the ducks score 3 goals and we have a couple fights, and these were actual fights this time. It was great! Well, the fights anyways, not the scoring. During the intermission, about 1/3 of the fans left. No one had much hope for the wild at this point, me included. It didn't look good. 3rd period begins with a fight, go figure. 10 mins 30 secs left on the clock and BAM! Wild scores! We were FINALLY on the scoreboard! The crowd gets pumped, cheering up a storm. At about 5 mins 30 secs left on the clock, and wild scores again on a powerplay! The crowd goes WILD! hehe pun intended :P By now, I'm sure everyone that left was sorry. It was so intense; everyone was on their feet cheering and screaming. When there was about 2 mins left on the clock, the wild scored their 3rd goal, tying up the game. This lead to overtime, where the wild scored about half-way through, wining the home opener for the 2009-2010 season. :) Yay Wild!

Today was also spent in the cities. Tomorrow is the 22nd birthday of my best friend of the past 7+ years, so I went up for the day to celebrate a day early. She recently had a baby girl a little over 3 months ago, and this was the first time seeing her as well. She is so cute! We went for a walk to get lunch, and headed back to her apartment to watch a movie, "The Gingerdead Man." It's a haunted/comedy/fake/gory twist on the fairytale "The Gingerbread Man." I recommend it for anyone who likes old horror flicks. There is also a part 2, which I have been told is as good as the original but have yet to experience for myself. It was a great day, and much needed seeing how we haven't seen each other since my birthday this past February.

B-dubs + Hockey = An Interesting Night

This past Saturday started the official NHL season for the Minnesota Wild. Sadly, the game wasn't televised on a station down here, so I met a group of people at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the puck drop. It was a great game, even though it was the first season opener we have lost. On the bright side, it was Brunette's 600th career goal. Go Brunette! And I had a great dinner since BWW has awesome food. After the game, we all went back to my sister's house for a night of categories. Before the fun and games continued, we walked Dax around the block since he'd been locked up in the house for awhile. It was my first time playing categories, and it was pretty entertaining. I don't remember them all, but each card in the deck is a different category. For example, 10 is question master. Every time someone answers a question of the question master, they have to drink. 2 is rhyme time, which means you pick a word. Going clockwise, everyone says a word that rhymes until someone can't think of one, and that person has to drink. In other words, it's a drinking game, but if played correctly, you don't drink that much. And we'll just say I got pretty lucky with it being my first time. After the game, long story short, the night ended pretty quickly. I'm not going to get into it. We'll just skip ahead and say half the group wanted to go out to another bar, and the other half--me included--was ready for bed. Seeing how the group that wanted to continue to party was already half-gown, the rest of us got to play designated driver. I was the lucky one to drink the new Pontiac; I was the second person to ever drive the car--the first was the owner. It was a pretty interesting night. I blame it on the full moon, since that always brings the crazies out.