Weekend time machine

I was a great big slacker last week in terms of blogging. Woops.
We're traveling back to July 13th.. to recap M's birthday day of surprises!
They weren't anything like the time I surprised him with a trip to Florida (I sort of peaked early, huh? oh well).. but small things are still fun when they're surprises.

The day started when we woke up with apple cinnamon strudel pancakes. #nomnom

I realized the night before I didn't get him a card, so I had him read Friday's blog post as his card.
We're a 21st century couple, fer sure.
Then, he opened his presents. 

Preppy chic, just how I like him. :)
After that, I sent him off to the lake for some birthday kayaking while I lounged on the sofa with the kitty. I'm pretty sure TJ had a better day than dad did. ;-).

He got back and I told him our next "event" started at 3. So we showered up, got ready, and I drove us downtown for our next event. I had him close his eyes, got lost twice, and we finally pulled up in front of the Fulton brewery- we were going to go on a brewery tour, enjoy a beer and the food truck as a "snack" before dinner! 

The 3:00 tour was full, so we hung out for an hour and chatted, M had a beer, I had a craft-brewed in-house "soda" -grapefruit-mango, and a citrus-ginger second. Loved that they had something for the non beer drinkers! 

Tours are on Saturdays and the brewery invites a rotating list of food trucks, one per Saturday, to park in the parking lot and serve food- since they don't. We split a delicious pulled pork sandwich for a pre-dinner snack, since we had 6:30 reservations.

After the tour, which M totally geeked out on, we went for a walk by the river to kill some time before our reservation (another surprise to M!)

We ate at Masa, in downtown Minneapolis. 

If you want some ridiculously delicious high-end Mexican food, this is your spot. 

When I say "high-end", it wasn't even terribly expensive.. the entree's were between $9-$30. I got the tacos and got to pick any 3 tacos I wanted, so I tried pork, steak, and chicken. All were out of this world tasty.

[Somewhat unrelated, but I could subsist solely on cilantro lime rice.]

M had some pork with the most flavorful sauce I've ever had.
We then pushed our stomachs a bit too far and split a tres leche cake. We consider ourselves a bit of "tres leche connoisseurs" since we try it if it's on the menu wherever we go. So far, the best we've had is at 112 Eatery in downtown Minneapolis..in case you were wondering.

After dinner, we headed home for a bit before meeting some of M's friends for drinks at a local bar.
I think M had a pretty solid day, and enjoyed all the little surprises!

Sunday after his birthday, we went to my dad's for a fish fry from the guys' trip to Canada last month. My dad invited over a bunch of friends and we feasted on walleye- I even tried a little bit and was, surprisingly, not repulsed! So there's hope for me yet.

Fast forwarding to this weekend- I took absolutely no photos.. so I'll just briefly talk about it.
Friday I met up with some bloggers at Becky's house for appetizers, drinks, and Cards Against Humanity. Always a fun time with those ladies! Even if I did sweat through my shirt in my no-AC car en route to Savage, during rush hour. It was worth it :)

Saturday M and I drove up to Lake Koronis about an hour and a half away, to meet up with 2 of his friends who had rented a camp site and a pontoon for the day. My phone was near death most the day but I should've taken a photo of this pontoon. It was 110% white trash. Literally a floating raft with lawn chairs on it. The day started out a bit rainy and I was nervous but quickly cleared up and was BEAUTIFUL. We ate sandwiches on the boat and drank and cruised around, and of course.. M fished. It was a great way to spend a summer Saturday in MN.

M and I left and tried a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place near our house, which was also very good!

Sunday, today, we knocked off a few wedding tasks- we PRINTED OUR INVITATIONS- (all caps NECESSARY). I'm super jazzed about it. We also bought ties, and picked our rehearsal dinner menu. I updated my Listy McListerson in a draft and plan on republishing it again when we've done some more stuff.

I also have a few wedding-y type posts lined up soonish. One explaining my wedding helpers, and another in defense of big weddings. I think they deserve a shout out :)

Hope you all had a good weekend! M and I just got our first of 7 weeks of CSA boxes for a donation he made to help his friends' start up mobile farmers market.. so we are excited for a summer of experimentation with strange produce!