#QUISTYSDIRTYTHIRTY

I heard on the radio not too long ago that the way to make a weekend feel longer is to actually DO more things over the course of the weekend. 

Not necessarily run yourself ragged, but having some plans can stretch those 2 and a half days. Not that I'm ever ready for Monday to roll around but I didn't dread it as much as some weeks. This weekend was SO great: full of tons of fun events and yet relaxing at the same time. This weekend was all about that guy I married, M! 

On Sunday, M turned 30, so I planned us a whole weekend of surprises. 

Friday night (not pictured) we went to dinner with his mom and step dad to kick off the festivities. 

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to hit the road to Surprise #1. I was concerned about the weather but thankfully the forecast proved true: overcast, but no morning rain, which was perfect for a morning of hiking at Taylors Falls. Taylors Falls is about 40 minutes straight north of Minneapolis/St. Paul, followed by another 20 minute straight east, until you hit the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. 

The only thing I was disappointed with was that the trails weren't LONGER. This was seriously the most beautiful trail I've ever seen (not that I've done a TON of hiking), but wow. I honestly felt like I was in Montana or somewhere significantly more rugged than a typically farm-area of Minnesota. 

After hiking we devoured lunch at Romayne's in town.. all that exercise worked up quite the appetite. 

We hopped in the car and made the long, rainy drive home to shower up and get ready for Surprises 3, 4, and 5. 

Surprises 3 and 4 were stops at 2 local breweries in town: 612 and Indeed (for you locals). M loves beer, and finding new beers, so I knew this was right up his alley. A selfless date-idea indeed for the girl who doesn't drink beer (and poo on 612 for having nothing besides water from a Culligan stand for us non-beer drinkers.. womp). Thankfully Indeed had flavored San Pellegrino. 

After encouraging him to nurse the second beer a bit longer (he slammed his beer at 612 in about 20 minutes.. I had allotted about an hour for each brewery.. haha.. I think he was just excited to keep the day rolling :)) we drove over to Surprise 5: Dinner at Hola Arepa. Ho-ly SNOT that was a fabulous dinner. For locals- Hola Arepa was (still is) a food truck during the week in downtown Minneapolis and they recently opened a restaurant on 35th and Nicollet. It was out of this world tasty. 

Surprise 5.5 was going to be dessert after a walk around Lake of the Isles, but we took home dessert from Friday night's dinner so we went home and scarfed that and watched The Wire instead. 

It's quite possible I was more excited about Sunday's surprise than Christmas morning, but first, Sunday morning. We woke up early and walked to the Caribou that's about 8 blocks from our house, where we sipped coffee on the patio and split a lemon poppyseed bread. 

By the time we got home and showered I knew Surprise 6 was close. M's dad lives in Moorhead, MN (about 3 hours northwest of where we live) but emailed me and told me he was going to be at a motorcycle rally in Iowa and would be passing through on Sunday on his way home. It worked out perfectly to surprise M with a birthday lunch with his dad. He had NO idea, I was very casual about everything... right up until I saw the motorcycle drive by the front of our house to head out back and park. M wasn't expecting anything so he didn't glance twice at it but I hopped up and began pacing as M's dad took FOREVER (it was probably 7 minutes but OMG I was jacked up) taking off all his cycle gear and coming inside. I honestly thought I was going to pass out I was so excited because I know how much M loves spending time with his dad. 

I opened the back door and motioned him in, but put my finger over my lips to tell him to not say anything.. and as we walked into the living room I said "Surprise #6 is here!" and the look on his face was PRICELESS. It was similar reaction to the surprise trip to Florida reveal. 

I had arranged for M's sister who lives in the cities to come to lunch, too and realized I never told M's dad about it, so that was a fun surprise for both of them when she showed up. His dad had told me he wanted to be "in and out" since he had a long drive in front of him so I picked a place nearby with fast service typically (Rojo at West End, for locals- again!). We got back home around 1:45 with plans to visit for a little bit when the guys realized the World Cup final was on at 2:00. Well, "in and out" slowly devolved into all 4 of us watching the final together (and when I say I watched I mean I watched the entire first half then napped through the second. woops). So, he hit the road later than expected but I know how much M loves watching sports with his dad, too.. so that was extra special. 

By the time his dad left we only had about 45 minutes until the 7th and final surprise of the weekend, which was going to be a casual surprise get together with some of his friends. Nothing huge, just about 12-14 of us in a back room at a local restaurant. Except, unfortunately 6 people bailed shortly before so it was a smaller group of 8 of us.. but it was almost preferable that way.. it was a small enough group that we all had one big conversation and it was an eclectic mix of his friends so it was nice to chat with people I sometimes wouldn't. We also got to hear some big news from 2 of his friends- they're 12 weeks along and expecting a baby in January! This is the first baby in a while, and they just got married in April 2013, so I'm excited to see the wave of kids start, now that almost everyone is married in the group! 

That was the last surprise of the day- after which we head home and watched more of The Wire- duh. 

I'd be remiss to not mention that it was also TJ's honorary birthday. We got him in late August and he was about 8 weeks old so we estimated his birthday back to be around early July. Since I was a bad cat-mom and spaced it until this past weekend, we celebrated tootie's birthday too. He's 3! So he was treated to some sloppy smelly wet food and just wolfed it down, squealing and purring the whole time- hilarious. 

It may have been M's birthday weekend but I had SO MUCH FUN planning it and enjoying all of it with him. I love doing things like this and I think he had a fantastic weekend. Make me want to plan weekends like this "just because" more often! 

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! 

Office Update

Thank you all for the sweet words on the office!
I know how hard my dad works, and that it's hard for him sometimes with my mom, so I love doing things like this.

The boys got back from Canada last night around 5:30. Stephen and I tag teamed the effort to keep my dad out of the garage (so he wouldn't see all the old furniture sitting there and go, "whaa?").

Finally, things settled down, their other friend Clyde left, and my dad was going to show us some photos. I told him, "Before you do that, I have something I want to show you. Come this way."

We walked down the hallway, and I said, "Consider this an early father's day present of sorts."

and as I was opening the door, he says, "oh my god, you did it again, didn't you?!" (referring to the last time he was out of town in FL, when I redid the kitchen).. and then he saw it. He followed up with a chorus of, "oh my god. wow. this looks so nice! holy cow!" and then, because it's my dad (you know you're supposed to paint the vents to match the walls? do you still have the paint? I can do that later."-- hahah...okay, dad.) Then he says, "Man, I was just thinking I needed to buy paint for this room."

So, needless to say, it went over well! I had plans to hang more artwork, but they got back sooner than I expected, so I ran out of time. Although, my dad has always been a HUGE baseball fan, so when my brother and I were poking around the basement looking for things we could add to the room, we found my dad has the newspapers, Sports Illustrated, Wheaties boxes, etc., from when the Minnesota Twins won the world series in 1987 and 1991. So, I have plans to buy some frames for those to add to his office!

Rollercoasters, dinosaurs, bruises and an office reveal

I survived.
I huffed more paint than any one person should, and endured my fair share of IKEA-furniture-assembly induced bruises, but I did it! I finished the office.
Well, a) I shouldn't say "I".. my brother was actually (surprisingly) quite helpful, and b) I have a few more pieces of art to acquire/add, but it's, for all intensive purposes (JUST KIDDING GUYS) donezo!
Also? I'm 100% convinced you don't know pain until you've painted a ceiling. Especially if you do 2 coats (how on earth the ceiling got so dirty, I'm not sure) and stand 5 foot 2. woof.

But before I show you the good stuff, I'll tell you a teensy bit about the brief portions of my weekend that did not involve paint and screws.

Friday night I met a friend for drinks and appetizers at Crave.
Saturday, I headed to my parents early to start moving furniture out of the office. Then, I did something I haven't done in approximately 8 years. I went to Valleyfair. Jess organizes her company picnic there every year, so they sent her some free passes to come tour the new exhibit ("Dinosaurs Alive") and sample the new picnic area menu.  SO, Lauren and I happily accompanied her. It looked a little like this:

Meeting the Peanuts gang, going on rides and alternating who the "odd duck out" was (Jess lost that one on the Scrambler), and sampling the new menu. I will say, it was some of the tastiest food I've had in a LONG time. Not what you think of when you typically think of amusement parks: prosciutto wrapped asparagus, brie, caprese spears, shrimp cocktail, etc. #nomnomnom. (P.s. I can't even tell you the amount of flak I've gotten for my distaste for the word "yummy" since the aforementioned blog post. Ya'll are a bunch of turds).

I then returned to my work on the office.
Without further adieu, I present to you (photos I'm practically embarrassed to share) the "before"

Oh, just kidding, when I wrote that part about being embarrassed I forgot that my brother and I had already cleared off the desk. That's really where the shame was. To put it mildly, my dad is a paper-pack rat. We were cleaning out his filing cabinet recently, and he had tax returns from the 90s. O_O.

Some progress....(paint on, using these guides to hang the curtains) 

I just realized I took no "in the middle" pictures.

aannnndddd FINALLY, the result:

(Lucky (aka "squish"), the cat model..)

(This is where the dresser used to be)

I am SO FLOORED with how it turned out. I think he will quite literally, crap his pants.
Annnnddd because I can't get enough of this handsome devil...

and because who doesn't love a good side-by-side:

I want to get some art for above the desk, but you get the idea. :)

And now, I spend the remainder of the week taking ice baths, because OMG SO SORE, and going to bed by 9:30. TJ is a little squirrely what with all the time away, so, he'll need some extra snuggles, too.

OK IF YOU INSIST, TJ.

You like?

Office redo: inspiration

Memorial Day weekend was a good one.

With the weather being cloudy, off and on rainy, and overall chilly (60s at best), I didn't feel the desire to take many pictures. M and I went to Bachelor Farmer here in Minneapolis on Friday and ate ourselves stupid (seriously, if you're in MN and have never been there: GO. Such a unique dining experience. All local food, very contemporary, with a Scandinavian twist!). Saturday..hmm.. what did we do. AH, I ran errands to get supplies for my dad's office redo..the actual topic of today's post! and Saturday night we went to the Happy Gnome in St. Paul to celebrate a friend's nursing school graduation. Sunday was a lazy day with the kitty, as was Monday. Monday night we went to my parents to grill, and I closed off the weekend with a viewing of the Bachelorette. I don't even want to hear it. It's trash, probably half fake, and I don't curr.

 

Moving on, since I took no real photos this weekend..

 

I casually mentioned a while ago that I wanted to redo my dad's office. 

A few years back, when my dad was in Florida, I surprised him by updating his kitchen. Nothing terribly fancy, but I painted the cabinets (they had this delightfully hideous sponge painted strawberry detailing), painted the walls, replaced all the hardware, and bought a shelf and some art. He was floored when he got home and saw it. 

Well, my mother... bless her... and her wheelchair, have destroyed the kitchen. She's run into the cabinets, scraped the walls, to the point where there's giant rivets gone in the wood, and the white cabinets are now incredibly dirty and stained. I don't even like talking about it because it bums me out so hard. I know it's not her fault, and now she doesn't really tool around in her wheelchair the way she used to, but it still makes me go "wahhh." 

The bonus with the office is: she never goes in there! Just kidding. But my dad has painted her room and mentioned wanting to paint and clean up the office, which was my childhood bedroom, before the wedding since one of his friends will be staying with them. That's when I realized that his upcoming trip to Canada with M would provide the perfect opportunity to surprise him with an office redo! 

I created a polyvore account (that people continue to "follow" me on, despite the fact that I've only created ONE board?) to mock up an inspiration board for the office. Here's what I came up with:

So yesterday I headed to Target to try to recreate this mood board. I picked up 4 window panels:

 

They were on sale for $13 a piece, and these curtain rods in a silver finish: 

 

Annnd I splurged on this mercury lamp base, that I wanted to keep for myself (although I think it was only $29.99 in store): 

 

and this lamp shade to top her off: 

I'm unsure if I'm going to go through with the rug.. I may sacrifice that for more art in the budget (he has some great old sports photos/memorabilia I may frame). I'm going to go scout desks at IKEA this week, which is where the desk in the inspiration board is from. Although, I may opt for a more plain "table" style desk, with no drawer. I'll have to see what they have in stock.

I'm planning on painting it something like this:

SO, stay tuned for some updates! We'll see how this goes. :P

Surprise Florida Trip: The "what"

[I'll be honest in saying I don't usually see a point in drawing out vacation posts, but, I have nothing else to blog about this week and after seeing how long this is getting after just sharing photos (hi, DSLR obsessed apparently...) of Friday and Saturday, I'm going to leave Sunday and Monday until tomorrow. Soooorryyy. Mah blog, Mah rules.]

Now that you know HOW I pulled it off, here's what we did!
Just for posterity, and honesty, it was 80 the day before we got to FL and 80 the day after we left. While we were there?
Friday was rainy
Saturday was windy
Sunday was chilly (for FL, that is. Still, 60 is better than a -20 in MN!)
Monday was juuuuustttt right (Goldilocks knew what she was talkin' about). It was 75, sunny, and a light breeze. This was actually the only day we hit the beach. The rest of the days were spent eating (a LOT), walking around, and just overall relaxing. If I'm being transparent, the weather coincidence before/after our trip made me a twee bit stabby, but, nothing I can do about it.

First of all: southern girls. How in the F do you carry on in the humidity without lookin' like a poodle every day of the week? seriously.
Below you can see the fuzz halo starting to form (and this was day 2 hair, just after waking up): 

I quickly abandoned any attempt at styling my hair, and just rocked the natural curls the other days. Which means my frizz-poof turned into this before dinner on Friday night:

It was less hipster than it was practical. Still, you can see a faint fuzz halo. Sigh.
M and I trucked up 5th street to McCabe's in a light rain for lunch.
You can also see my hair beginning to betray me.
(I realize how desperately vain I sound but it's hard (in the loosest sense of the word) to go on vacation to warm climates, want to take lots of photos, and then not feel pretty because you look like a poodle. Wahhh. Whine over.) 

Droooool.
We were pretty low key the rest of the day Friday, what with the rain.
We snuck in a nap, like any good senior citizen on vacation, and then ventured out for pizza with my aunt and uncle.

Saturday we hit 5th Street for "Cars on 5th": a bunch of ridiculously expensive and beautiful cars (Some of which that can be seen driving around Naples at any given moment. The MONEY, people. Oohhh the money in Naples, FL.)

So shiny, and pretty, and expensive.
Speaking of expensive, M and I went to grab a drink and an appetizer by the pier Saturday afternoon.
Apparently in Naples, when you order rather pricey egg rolls, that means 2 long skinny egg rolls. Annndd that's it.
This happened both times we ordered egg rolls and at 2 separate restaurants nonetheless. 

(M loves himself some Sangria. Yum)

We walked down to the pier afterwards, made it halfway, and the wind blew us back to land.

We headed to a Thai/Japanese place for dinner that night, and binged on curry.

(my aunt and uncle..and M)

Up tomorrow: Sunday and Monday.