The Great Outdoors

Today was a beautiful day, so we took advantage of the outdoors. We drove through downtown Wayzata to enjoy Lake Minnetonka. Then we cruised the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway (http://www.minneapolisparks.org/grandrounds/home.htm) via the Minnehaha Parkway in Minneapolis and stopped at Minnehaha Falls. Here are a few photos of our day.

Us at Lake Minnetonka, Port of Wayzata:

Stopping at Minnehaha Creek along the Minnehaha Parkway:

Minnehaha Falls:

Trip to Michigan

We visited our families in Michigan during the 2nd week in July. It was our first visit since moving to Minnesota, and we were really happy to see everyone we've been missing so much. We were also happy to be able to lend a hand for the 50th anniversary party of some dear family friends.

Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures while we were in MI. Here's a shot of us with Becca, Nick, & Madison:



It was hard to leave everyone again, and we look forward to our next visit back home.

A Taste of Minnesota

On the 4th of July, we went to Harriet Island in St. Paul to check out the Taste of Minnesota festival. We were expecting a good time with lots of entertainment, good food from local restaurants, and fireworks at night.

What we really encountered was an excellent people-watching opportunity and some very unhealthy carnival-type food. Hey, who doesn't love a good funnel cake? But we thought the ads for the festival were a bit misleading. The group of old guys (we're talking late 70s) trying to belt out Patsy Cline songs on stage weren't really capturing our attention.

Here are a few pictures from our Taste of Minnesota experience:

The unhealthy food options:

Us:

Stillwater, MN

We decided to visit Stillwater, MN (www.ci.stillwater.mn.us) in late June. Stillwater is a town on the St. Croix River, bordering Wisconsin, often referred to as the birthplace of Minnesota. We heard that a visit to Stillwater was a popular day trip for tourists from the Twin Cities. It's only about 45 minutes outside of Minneapolis, with great shopping and restaurants. Here are a few shots from our visit.

Sitting along the riverfront:

Watching the boats go under the lift bridge:

And best of all, Josh's awesome find in an antique shop:

This beauty is one of a set of two. We're going to assume they're still available. Any takers at $3K for the set?

Musical Apartments

When our temporary living arrangements in downtown Minneapolis expired in early June, we needed to move somewhere reasonably priced with two bedrooms. The new place needed to accept these guys



and it also needed to have a washer and dryer in the unit. We chose a place in Plymouth, MN, which was just rated the best place to live in the United States by Money Magazine (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/). Neat, huh? Unfortunately, we don't really love it in Plymouth. It probably has something to do with the fact that we don't love our current apartment.

We had our household goods (from MI) delivered to our Plymouth apartment in early June. Right now, there's stuff everywhere! We are using our 2nd bedroom as our storage unit, as well as our 2nd bathroom. We even had to use our extra space in our kitchen for storage. There's stuff stored in the living room, too. There's just nowhere to put anything.

We look forward to the day when we can move on to something that feels a little more like home.

A Little Background Info

We started this blog in August, but should probably go backwards a few months to catch you up on how we got here. We relocated from Detroit to the Twin Cities in April 2008. The hardest part was leaving behind our family, friends, and our home.

We were fortunate to have a couple months of temporary living arrangements when we first arrived in Minneapolis. We lived in downtown Minneapolis, in the Loring Park area.

The city center was right outside our front door,

with access to lots of parks, lakes, restaurants, and shopping.

We were also within walking distance of the Metrodome, where we took in a Tigers vs. Twins game in early May.

We visited St. Paul to check out the Cathedral of St. Paul (http://www.cathedralstpaul.org/),

and Summit Hill.

We had to move along to our next place in early June, which was a whole new world compared to our great first months in Minneapolis...

Welcome to Our Blog!

We decided to start a blog to update our family and friends on what’s going on in our lives now that we’re living in the Twin Cities. We intend to share our experiences here and add photos to the blog for easy sharing. We’ll do our best to add frequent updates, and also to take suggestions on what you want to read about. Welcome to our blog!