Shoes & Brews

The G's came up for a weekend of outdoor activities. On day 1, we did "Brews & Shoes" at the same brewpub that had the dogsled rides. For a few bucks, you get an hour of snowshoeing, 2 made-in-house beers, and a grilled cheese & soup lunch. 

On day 2, we just walked around the lake and soaked in the sun.

 

Dog Sledding

JP's late birthday present was a dogsled ride on Long Lake. A brewpub there hosted dogsled rides & brunch. 

JP got to ride on the runners and mush the dogs.

In addition to the dogs, there was a skating rink and an outdoor campfire overlooking the lake.

 

Ski Bunny

After getting back from Vegas, we both went thru Covid and it pretty much wiped out our January. Now that we're back on our feet, it's time to take advantage of winter before it's gone. I took off a Wednesday afternoon and we skied the trails at Hyland Hills in Bloomington. It was supposed to be cloudy and cold and windy, but it turned out to be warm and sunny. 

 

Calculus is Your Friend

It's not an everyday thing, but now and then calculus comes in handy to solve a problem such as finding the kinetic energy of a rotating mower blade.

 

Stillwater Friends

The N's came up for a chilly weekend. We drug them all over and had some fun in Stillwater on a weekday when it was not so crowded. JP finally got her German Christmas windmill.

 

Klondike Dog Derby

We made it out to Excelsior for the Minnetonka Klondike Dog Derby! We had been looking forward to this for the past two months. It's a 40 mile race around the shoreline of Lake Minnetonka. Last week more than a few of the 30 mushers completed various stages of the Beargrease race up on the North Shore.

The dogs were CRAZY at the starting line.

It was cold and windy for spectating. But I'm sure the dogs and mushers were not feeling it.

 

Robomower on Display

Seen on display in the lobby at Toro. Looks to be an autonomous mower.

 

International Snow Sculpting Competition

All week on the news, we've been watching the progress of the snow sculpting teams at the international snow sculpting championship in Stillwater. The main event was yesterday, but we did the kite festival instead. Today everything was still going strong, but without the big party feel.

The coolest sculpture was this one of a north woods canoe scene, complete with a reflection.

There were a couple ice sculptures, too.

There were international teams from Canada, Turkey, and Ecuador.

 

Kite Festival

This weekend was the Lake Harriet Kite Festival. All of the art shanties are still on the ice, but now there are also kites in the air. All sorts of shapes and sizes, from little normal diamonds up to a 30 foot manta ray.

The ice queen was strolling about with her polar bear.

It's only a mile walk across the lake, but walking thru the snow makes it feel a lot further. There were streams of people coming from all sides of the lake - it was a great turnout.

 

Ice Feathers

I've never seen anything like this - great big ice feathers. Each is about an inch long and they grew in the footprints and depressions out on the lake. We had a day of 40° and then it got cold (-15°) for the next few days. 

 

Art Shanties

Now that winter has set in, there are more things to do on the weekends than we can keep up with. This weekend it's the Art Shanty Project on Lake Harriet over by the bandshell. We walked across the lake to get there and back, and it burned a lot more calories than we thought it would. S had a blast!

The ice is now 12" thick and it was a perfect sunny no-wind 9° day. 

 

SKOL!

We got back from Vegas on Saturday and tested negative for COVID Sunday morning so that we could go to the Vikings game with our MN neighbors.

We bought the tickets at the beginning of the season for the last game of the regular season against the Bears. JP & DK wore their Chicago colors and cheered for the bears.

We were in the upper deck, but being on the 50 yard line made for some spectacular seats.

 

Vegas!

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) came back for 2022. JP tagged along and spent the week with the Gs at their condo. We all went out the night we arrived and had some fun.

 

New Year's Brunch

JP Thought ahead and got us reservations at Tilia for New Year's Day brunch. The first thing served was a green "elixir" that tasted much better than it looked. GP was not impressed. Everything on the menu was over the top and not to his liking. The rest of us enjoyed it all.

 

End of 2021

New Year's Eve 2021 was pretty uneventful. Half the family took a nap at 10 pm.

Hopefully 2022 will get us back to normal.

 

Ice Globes

One of our favorite things about winter is ice globes. Fill up a big water balloon, freeze it 24 hours and it comes out hollow with about a 3" shell. Drill a hole in the top and drop in a votive candle and they last several weeks outside.

 

Hard Water Season

Finally!! It has been cold enough that the lake is solid enough to play on. S loves it; he can run free.

 

Ski School

We took the boys to Theodore Wirth park for a cross country ski lesson. It snowed hard the whole time we were there and it was absolutely magical. The boys did well and had a fun time.

 

Snowballed

CP got out the snowblower to clean up the driveway. When he pulled the lever to make it throw snow, there was nothing. We discovered that the cable was pinched. When he pulled the lever again, it went. I was standing right next to it and caught all the snow that was in it.

 

Christmas in IL

We went to IL to Nana for Christmas. A hearty breakfast at the cafe got us ready for some landscaping work.

The same windstorm we had in MN also took out half of the pear tree.