Memorial Day Weekend

Ah Yes, Memorial Day at the cabin. Full of flea market shopping, dock installations and overall funny times. Below are a few fun photos from the weekend. Enjoy!

Back To The Marshland

With stress taking over my body, last weekend Aaron and I decided to head out to Two Harbors to get away from it all. We spent two days hiking, scrabbling, relaxing and eating in a lakeside cottage. It was heaven.

Our cottage was a few feet from Lake Superior and went spent most of the day with the fireplace burning and the windows open--that way we could hear the sound of the water crashing on the rocks.

In the morning, I made french toast and coffee and we ate next to the window, wrapped in blankets. Then we went to Gooseberry Falls and hiked for an hour. We saw a family of deer and a woodpecker. We hiked past huge waterfalls and made it to Superior's shore. Once we got there, we sat in a little inlet full of perfectly smooth black rocks and gazed down the rocky coast. If it were California's coast line, the bluffs would have been littered with houses. But not here. The cliffs were perfectly preserved...with trees and jagged boulders. After our hike we came back to the cottage, ate lunch and took a nap.

At night, we took our glasses of wine down to the water and sat in Adirondack chairs. It was perfection.

Yesterday our escape came to an end and we checked back into reality around 10 a.m. The marsh just isn't the same as a lake that looks like an ocean...

Next life goal: to live by the water...can I commute from Duluth to work?

Shark Camo

As some of you know, there was a fatal shark attack in my home town. A group of triathletes were swimming in Fletcher's Cove and one man was attacked by a Great White Shark.

The attack was so severe, he died once he was carried to the beach.

Maybe, for those who don't care about sharks in the ocean (Dad...Alex...) you should invest in Shark Camo--an innovative wetsuit/surfboard lined with black and white stripes that mimic the look of pilot fish.

Apparently Great White Sharks co-habitate with little pilot fish and, therefore, the stripes won't be mistaken for tasty seals.

Music Of The Night

I love American Idol. And this season, I especially love David Cook. Did you see what he did with "Billy Jean?" C'mon, what's not to love.

Last week, Cook sang "Music of the Night." It was basically amazing. I mean, the lyrics of that song alone are enough to make you cry. And he didn't do it all rocker like. He actually sang it with this beautiful Broadway voice. Without control I yelled out to the screen, "David Cook, I love you!"

Aaron just looked at me and responded: "That really hurt my feelings."

The lesson here? You can look, but you can't touch... or talk.

My Balcony Night

A few nights ago, it was 70 degrees and amazingly sunny. Of course, since I have been deprived of warm weather for like....ever...I made Aaron promise to eat dinner with me on our balcony.

We have a nice balcony. It looks over this pretty marsh land and we see deer and hear crickets all day long. Also, thanks to Aaron's parents, we have an outdoor couch with weather-proof cushions. Doesn't sound too shabby, right?

So the work day rolls on and the sun is shining and a Corona Light with lime is totally calling my name. After work, I stopped by target to get groceries and pick up two TV trays to eat with outside (since we are still table less).

I get home and pop open a beer and assemble the beef kabobs. While the kabobs are cooking, I set up the TV trays outside, each with their own little place mat and silverware. I bring out some chips and salsa and grab Aaron a beer and we're set!

So far...so good....

We get outside and sit down and the blazing sun is shining directly into both of our eyes. OK...not so bad and still worth enjoying the weather. Then, the air conditioning in our apartment turns on and makes the loudest noise possible on our balcony while we are eating. Slightly annoying. So I wiggle around my TV tray to turn the AC off. I sit down again and the rumble of the freeway really starts to bug me. Then, I get totally freaked out because it dawns on me that we live on a Marsh. Marshes are full of bugs. Bugs are on my couch!!!!!!

At this point, I'm a little freaked out, so we finish up eating and head back inside. I never actually saw a bug, but I know that some are on that couch.

So the lovely dinner on the balcony idea wasn't too hot.

THEN! Last night, it was raining outside and I opened the balcony door to get a good whiff of spring rain (rain smells much better in Minnesota than in California). As I open the door, crazy Bengal head Roxy sprints under out couch. In an attempt to catch her before she leaps into the bug-filled marsh, Aaron pulls the couch away from the wall. Low and behold, A HUGE SPIDER falls from the couch. I covered my mouth, screamed, and ran inside.

Current thought: Balcony couch that harvests bugs and spiders=trash. New patio furniture that we need to buy that won't be home to marsh bugs=a must.

Treadmill Tribulations

Why is running on the treadmill so difficult? It doesn't make any sense to me because running outside is blissfully easy compared to running on the treadmill. When I'm outside I don't start giving into my pain until my nifty GPS dealy on my wrist says that I've ran 10 miles. When I'm inside, its a different story.

This morning Sarah and I agreed to run 8 miles because 16 miles outside in the snow, sleet, rain and wind did not sound like a fun wake up call. So we switched our schedule to run our 16 miles on Tuesday when it is supposed to be a lovely 70 degrees out (Patrick Hammer said so). We began our indoor run at 6 am this morning. Since Aaron and I seem to be the only people in our entire apartment who use the gym, I brought the best movie of all time to watch while we suffer. Dumb and Dumber, of course.

The first two miles were OK...we chatted and laughed at Jim Carrey's ridiculousness. "We have no money. We have no food. Our pet's HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!"

Once three miles came we wanted to make it to four. Because if we could just make it to four miles then we would be half way done. Well, four miles came and went, Sarah almost fell off the treadmill a few times, I was dripping sweat, we had to turn the fan on, and slowly but surely our treadmill laughs became fewer and fewer.

By 6 miles Sarah was positive that her uterus was going to fall out and I was just trying to keep my strides long enough to stay upright.

Finally, we reached 8 miles right around the part where Loyd says to Mary, "I desperately want to make love to a school boy." Hilarious.

If it is hard to complete 8 miles, then it would seem impossible to run 26 miles. But oddly enough, our outside runs are so wonderful! Just the other weekend 10 miles felt like a warm up.

I'm going to be like every other Minnesotan and chalk up any loss in spirit, attitude or work out shape to the weather.

Seriously?

It is supposed to snow 7 inches tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the day that I am supposed to run 16 miles. That means that I will be running at 5 a.m. in almost a foot of snow for three hours. Hooray!

In other news, last night I went to happy hour at the Hopkins Tavern with the usual Sarah and Adam crowd. The Tavern is kind of one of its own. We are always the youngest ones there by a good 25 years. But we don't mind. Their happy hour starts at 3 and goes 'til 7. And aside from the fact that every appetizer is fried (but so good), we can't get enough of their 2 dollar drinks. So anyway, we go to the Tavern and K102 is there! And after my second diet coke and rum with grenadine, Donna, Muss and Fish ask if they can ask us a few questions that they'll air in the morning. Since we were feeling pretty good, Sarah and I agreed!

The questions started out pretty innocently. Fish (why is his name Fish?) asked me what food I would like to eat at the new Twins stadium. Tater tot casserole. Then he asked me what the number one love life ruiner was. Slightly inappropriate. Video games of course. Then he asked me if I could have a extra body part, what would it be? Hugely inappropriate! No answer.

So the night rolls on and they are playing country music at the bar and happy hour comes to an end. Then this morning I turn on K102 and I hear our answers on air! It was the funniest thing ever. When they got to the part about the love-life ruiner, here was one man's answer (I quote because this is exactly what he said) :

"Our big panther cat! He's so cuddly that he likes to jump right in between us in bed!"

Wow. Roxy and Ruby, do not get any ideas.