New Tennis Courts

S's friend from next door C joined us for a walk down to check out the newly refinished tennis courts at the park down the street. We need to pick up some tennis rackets and take advantage of them being so close. It looks like there are also lines painted for pickleball, too!

 

Twins vs. Astros

JP was out of town so we took the opportunity to catch an evening Twins game. We took the bus downtown and hit Brit's Pub for some amazing fish & chips tailgating action. 

It was free umbrella hat night!!! 

Our seats were front row 3rd level and centered on home plate. We scored four runs - all of them were homers. It was perfect! 

...except for the Astros winning 6-4.

 

Hot

We had a warm streak of 9 days over 90°. We've done this before, but this was the earliest on record and we broke records on several days. This was the weekend that the N family came up. DN and I took the snow tubes and floated around in the lake for a couple hours.

 

Vegas Girls Weekend

JP went out to Vegas for a week to see KG and her new condo as they were getting some remodeling done. While she was there, a forest fire popped up just outside of town.

 

Old Neighbors

D & MN brought the family up for a warm weekend in Minneapolis. The boys explored downtown and hit a couple places for drinks & wings; it was noticeably empty and deserted.

No visit to the Cities would be complete without a stop at the falls.

 

Loving the Lake

We are really enjoying living by the lake. With the warm weather, JP takes S for a swim every day to cool off. He doesn't swim like a lab, but he loves it.

 

Memorial Day Hike

On Memorial Day, we cruised up to Banning State Park to show CP the Kettle River and all the cool things there. We got there at 9:30 and the parking lot was empty. By the time we left at noon it was overflowing.

 

Twins Win!

The "essential trips only" rule has been lifted from the metro bus lines, so we took one downtown at hit a Twins game on perhaps the most beautiful day of 2021 so far. The bus stop is 100 yards from the house and it goes straight downtown and has stops along Nicolet Mall. From there it's a pleasant walk to Target Field.

The stadium was still at 25% capacity, but it was hustling and bustling.

Our initial seats were right above home plate with a magnificent view of the city. When I bought the tickets, I figured they would be in the sun. Nope - there's a huge roof over the top level, so we were in the shade. After sitting through a few innings with 50° and wind, we moved out to the outfield and sat in the sun for the rest of the game. 

It was an excellent game and the Twins ended up beating the Royals 6-5

 

Scythe

CP got a new board game called Scythe. It's part Catan, part Risk, part Parcheesi and all strategy and fun. 

 

Patio Chairs

We scored some sweet chairs from Ikea for the patio. 

And then the maple decided to poop all over everything. It drops flowers and helicopters by the shovelfull. We will be glad when it's done dropping stuff.

 

Urban Birds

JP sees some sort of photo worthy wildlife every day on the dog walks. Eagles on the beach and in the trees as well as turkeys running loose in the neighborhood.

 

Coming Back to Life

For the last year our cafeteria has been devoid of chairs and tables. Social distancing meant there were only a quarter of the tables there and only one chair per table. This week all the tables and chairs came back and once again we could eat lunch and have conversations. 

 

Up a Creek

The robot with the tiger stripes was used at the zoo.

The coolest thing about Colorado is the Up A Creek FIRST robotics team that we sponsor. It's a group of world class high school kids that compete in the US FIRST robotics challenge. Every year there's a new challenge and they have six weeks to design and build a robot from scratch. The 2021 robot has four drive wheels that swivel around so that it can go in any direction as well as spin. It's a blast to drive! The video is real-time and is not sped up - that's how fast it really goes. There's a high school girl driving the robot with an xbox controller. I got to try it out - they made sure that I had the "GO SLOW" training feature engaged. 

This was my first trip since Feb. 2020 when I also went to Colorado. I got back from that trip at 4:00 and we went to the showing on what would be our new house at 6:00 the same day. It was exciting to see it as we came in to MSP. The view is from above Lake Harriet looking south down Penn Ave.

 

Top Golf

Hit some balls at Top Golf in Colorado for a social outing with our new robotics team there. I'm not a golfer, but I could do Top Golf every day. We were on the 3rd deck and it was a perfect evening.

 

Back to Normal

FINALLY!!! The end is in sight! Here's to the return of normality!

 

Congrats to the new EE!

The graduation ceremony was moved up an hour due to some inclement weather moving in. What started out as a picture-perfect day at the farmers market turned cold and blustery once we got to the stadium.

Tom Osborne gave the commencement address AFTER the kids had all walked. They wanted to make sure that everyone received their diploma before the rain and hail began. Later that night we had a pounding hailstorm. It was to the point that RK ran out and pulled his brand new truck in the garage.

Congrats to CP for earning his N for kNowledge. Nailing an electrical engineering degree in four years and maintaining a decent GPA is truly impressive!!

 

NE Weather

We set out for CP's graduation a couple days early to hang out with our old friends in the country.

The dark sky gave way to a double rainbow.

And then these guys showed up and dropped some crazy lightning and hail.

 

Graduation Celebration

Everybody came to Lincoln for CP's graduation. We ate and ate and ate.

 

Two Harbors

This small building in Two Harbors is the birthplace of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, a.k.a. 3M. It's a museum now; check it out here.

Two Harbors has some massive ore loading docks, a lighthouse, and a pretty park along the breakwater.

 

Split Rock Lighthouse

High on JP's list of things to see was Split Rock Lighthouse. It's an old lighthouse situated on top of a massive cliff of ancient anorthosite (similar to granite).

The lake was placid while we were there. I'd love to see it in action with storm-driven waves splashing up over the cliff top.

 

Adventure Dog

Now that the boys are grown and gone, the dog has become the center of our world. He absolutely loved exploring the north shore.

However, he HATES the tent. He does not want anything to do with it. JP got a new sleeping bag, and the dog burrowed down into it to stay warm with her.

 

Gooseberry Falls

We headed north last weekend up to the North Shore and camped at Gooseberry Falls State Park. It snowed the whole time and it was absolutely beautiful.

There are five falls and lots of rapids on the Gooseberry river as it descends to Lake Superior. We hiked the 5-mile loop from the campground to 5th falls. There was just enough snow coming down to frost the tips of the tree branches. The trail was wet, but not slippery. There are some spots above the river that would be spooky with an icy trail.

 

Back in the Saddle

Last week marked two weeks from my second COVID-19 vaccine shot. Celebrated with a shot of resposado and a beer INSIDE of Tinto Kitchen.

I returned to my office - the 2020 calendar on the wall says it all. We moved in and that was it. Haven't been back since.

 

Muddy Pawprints

We took S to Carver Park, west of town. There's a HUGE dog park there that is a paradise for dogs to run free and wild. Lots of brush to hide in and lots of mudholes to explore.