Monday, January 11, 2010

Nelson Christmas

The Nelsons finally got together to celebrate Christmas this last weekend. Jeremy and I got to LaCrosse on Saturday around 2pm and Kristi had a bunch of fun activities planned for us. We mostly shopped, but it was fun to just bum around town with them.


Matt and Tessa got delayed milking cows, so that gave us an excellent chance to do some errands that we needed to do before the party on Sunday. We had to pick up some appetizer stuff at Festival Foods and they actually had an expectant mother parking spot...and Jeremy didn't use it!! We have been looking for one of these spots for the past 5.5 months and have never been able to find one. Do they have any in Minneapolis??

Festival also had the new throwback Pepsi and Mt. Dew packs. I took a picture just because I thought they looked cool all stacked up together.

We met for supper at around 6:30pm, but by the time we got to the restaurant, it was already dark, so I didn't take any pictures. Kristi had heard great things about a new place called Boot Hill Pub. I tried to see if they had a webpage, but it looks like they only have a fan page on Facebook. Boot Hill Pub (it looks like today's special is beef stroganoff for $5.95) The prices were crazy cheap and tasted great! We all got steak and none of our meals were over $10. I got the Prime Rib and it came with soup and salad bar, potato, vegetable and a roll. It was $8.95. By the end of the meal, which included 2 orders of gigantic cheese curds as appetizers, we were all stuffed. We went back to the house and watched a little bit of tv and then went to bed...or fell into bed.

Sunday morning we went to church and then out for brunch. I think LaCrosse must have the best independent restaurants of almost anywhere in the country! We went to the LaCrosse Family Restaurant (no website), which was also really cheap and really good! I ended up getting the Belgium waffle with apples and whipped cream. (I am really going to miss not being able to eat all of these yummy things without feeling super guilty)

After eating, Jeremy dropped me off at Olive Juice Quilts which is a fabric store that opened up right next to their church. I had been planning in my head on what kind of a theme/colors that I wanted to go with for the baby's room. WoW! This place would impress anyone! Even if you aren't a sewer, this place would inspire you to become one. The colors and patterns that attack you as you walk in the door are amazing. I had a hard time coming up with just one color scheme because there were so many different lines to choose from. I think that place might be a regular stopping spot when we come to LaCrosse.


These are the fabrics I ended up getting. I have a specific pattern for the quilt in mind and I still need to pick up a couple more (less expensive) pieces that will match. I am hoping to have enough fabric to do all of the linens for the nursery. If I don't have enough, it looks like we will need to make another trip to LaCrosse!



I am disappointed that I didn't get more pictures of the actual Christmas party. We met in the afternoon and Katie skyped in for awhile, but the connection wasn't very good and we kept getting dropped. I think I kind of forgot about my camera during the present opening time. It was fun to have Macy and Anna there to get excited about their gifts. They are so goofy and fun!

This is Matt and Katie talking.

Matt and Tessa


Kristi made an awesome meal and we stayed until about 7:00 and then headed back to the Cities. It would have been really nice to be able to stay another day to get to hang out with the girls, but we had to get back for work. It was a great weekend and a lot of fun to see everyone.

Kristi and Jerry are going to come help us get the nursery together sometime in February, so it looks like we have a lot to do before then! It will be good to have their help.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Tampa Twins Trip

Two weekends ago we took our annual Twins trip to Tampa. So far we have gone to:
  • Milwaukee
  • Kansas City
  • Chicago
  • and now Tampa

Tampa has been our furthest trip from home and we had a great time! We decided on Tampa because the airfare turned out to be the cheapest and Eric and Sara could use their frequent flyer miles. We also found a great condo almost right on the beach that was a wonderful deal! (You can see The Waves Condo No. 1 Here) Eric turned out to be a super sleuth and checked on car rentals every day and we ended up with a super rate on that too!

We flew out early Friday morning and checked into the condo and then went to the game. The Rays play in a dome just like the Twins, but the Trop seems to be a bit nicer than the good old Metrodome.

Sara, Eric, Jeremy, Melissa, Ruth





The Twins ended up losing the game on Friday night. Bummer!

On Saturday we took the whole day for sight-seeing and just hanging out and having fun. We drove around to different beaches, towns and parks. It turned out to be very warm and muggy, so we sought shade and ice cream most of the day. Only on vacation can you justify eating ice cream 3 times a day! (We enjoyed the Twisty Treat twice)




Towards the end of the day we ended up at the St. Petersburg Pier. It wasn't time to eat, so we paid .25 to ride the Looper around the town while they gave a narrative of the history of the area. The breeze from the trolley felt good!


After our ride around town we at at Captain Al's where we all ordered some sort of seafood. Jeremy and Eric got crab legs.




On Sunday afternoon we went to the Twins game again. They won! There was also a promotion going where if the visiting team struck out 10 times everyone with a ticket would receive a free Papa John's pizza. In the 9th inning the Twins did make it to 10 strike outs so we got pizza...7 small pizzas! (I found a ticket on the ground going out of the stadium) It made for a pretty cheap meal!

Monday morning I slept in while the others went to the beach. After showering and packing we headed to Centro Ybor to investigate. I appeared to us that most of the attractions were closed or out of business. We did have a fantastic Cuban meal at Carmine's. A couple of us had Cuban's and I ordered an awesome Spanish bean soup.

From there we headed straight to the airport and boarded our flight home. After a wonderful weekend, it was tough to get back to reality!

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Nature Photos

These are just some recent shots from our trip to Colorado and from around our yard. I will post some of the photos from our recent trip to Florida soon! Once again, sorry for the long blogging absence!











Some Recent Creations

Just a couple paper creations that I've made recently.












Monday, April 20, 2009

Foodgawker/Craftgawker

After a long time...I'm back. This is a short post today, but I do have some fun stuff to post soon.

Not much to say right now, but wanted to share this fun site that I stumbled upon called Craftgawker. It is the spin-off of the popular Foodgawker gallery. It appears that the site is new, but the quality of the photos on the site is spectacular. All photos on the website and chosen and not everyone's photos are chosen. I submitted a couple, so we will have to wait and see if they make it!

I have heard of Foodgawker, but I never browsed the site. The talent there is huge! Not only are all of the dishes delicious looking. the photography is stunning as well. If you click on the photos it brings you to the chef's website with the recipes.