Friday, July 22, 2011

Minnesota trip: Day 1

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the pictures I downloaded from my phone. There were a lot, so make sure when you get to the bottom of the page, you hit "older entries" to see all of them!

I have such short windows of time to get anything done lately (it seems) that I will post this in spurts, 1) to save me the time of a lengthy post and 2) so you have something to look forward to (ha!).

So, a couple weeks ago we headed up to MN for the regionals track meet. We drove up Friday afternoon and checked into the Embassy Suites in St. Paul. After we got settled, we drove to the University of St. Thomas for a little work out. It was gorgeous running along Summit, and there was a great track at the college that Gavin ran some intervals on.

There was also a soccer team practicing in the field, and they were so nice. As Sam and I were doing a lap, the ball was kicked on to the lane and one of the guys let Sam kick it back on to the field. As Gavin was on the last stretch of an interval, the guys would cheer him along, yelling "finish strong!" and clapping.

On the way back to the car, we had a blast racing Gavin to the next light pole....until Sam decided to have a meltdown. We waited while Gav and Chad went to get the car and by the time they got back, Gavin was whining about having to stretch. Life with boys! I'm not sure what area of the country they have this saying "if you don't like the weather, just wait ten minutes"....actually I'm not sure that's a saying anywhere - it just sounds familiar! At any rate, that seems to be life with the boys lately, they go from great to non-great in a flash.

As we drove back to the hotel and pondered dinner, we passed a Thai place that Chad remembered as being awesome. I went in and ordered take out and had an interesting discussion with the owner when I asked for "just a side of beef". All the dishes had meat options: tofu, beef, chicken, pork, salmon, catfish, etc. Sam, oddly enough, insisted on catfish! Gavin just wanted beef and an egg roll. The owner insisted I need an entree and I asked if he couldn't just cook some beef? No, they can't do that! Well, if I order an entree, can you just put the beef on top or on the side?

He scampered off to the kitchen and told me they could steam some beef, and I agreed. It didn't turn out great (but I was able to turn it into an awesome meal for the next day - stay tuned!). But the rest of the food was fantastic - except the coconut soup. Fortunately we had a fridge in our room so we were able to save the leftovers for the next night.

And that sums up Friday, July 8th, 2011 - or day 1 of our MN trip!

2 comments:

NovelTeaMommy said...

The weather saying...is about Iowa ; ) I've always heard it as 5 minutes though!

Aren't kids and their moods wonderful? There are many days I just want to throw my hands up and walk away. Wait, I actually do that!

Anonymous said...

I have to say, it's the same way with girls. My husband always said that if grown-ups behaved like kids, they would be medicated and even institutionalized. The mood swings are so severe!