touring MN in red, white & blue

This weekend we had a fun, fast-paced schedule as Clay, Parker & I showed friends from Nashville, Terra & Allen, around the Twin Cities. Friday, we started out early to the Overlook at Fort Snelling & then to the Mall of America for fun adventures. We then went driving to Lake Nokomis for a quick view of one of the "10,000 lakes," & next to hiking at Minnehaha Falls where we trailed down to sit by the banks of the MS River. On the way home, we caught a quick tour of Grand & Summit Ave in St. Paul & the Cathedral, & lastly, had dinner at our place. Whew...I get tired just writing about it!!!

Saturday, we ventured out just as early to park at the MSP airport to catch the train downtown. We rode the Light Rail for about a half an hour until we reached downtown Minneapolis, where we walked down the streets & stopped in a couple of stores. At lunchtime, we stopped to eat at the Newsroom - a popular downtown eatery. With full & happy tummies, we strolled on towards the stadium for the Twins game. They gave us these for free!!!

Allen had gotten us great seats in the home run section down at the bottom, but we found that Parker needed more space than allotted down there, so we moved here after a couple of innings. ...much more space...it worked out great!
In the middle of the 9th inning, we knew the victory was ours so we hightailed it to the light rail station to try & fight the mobs & snag a spot on the train. Boy, were we glad we got there early!! Just leaving that few minutes early saved us hours!!! We were in Apple Valley in less than 45 minutes from the time we left the game!

Of course, what would July 4th be with a baseball game & no hot dogs or hamburgers...so for dinner we cooked these at the apartment. So yummy!!! By the time we finished whoofing our dogs down, it was time for the Apple Valley fireworks. We were hoping to get the same spot as last year, but the police had it blocked off as being illegal to park there this year. Boo. Clay handled it like a pro though & snagged us great spots in the main parking lot! We put down the tailgate to "Old Trouble," turned on K102 & waited a half an hour for the lights to begin! We joked over how in Grenada at Thunder on Water, every truck & every jeep & every car would have their radios blaring on the same station...yeah, that's not how they do it here! Clay's truck out of several hundred, was the ONLY vehicle who's radio was on. Oh well, hope our neighbors beside us liked watching the fireworks "country music" style! It was like mad-dash-at-the-mall-on- the-night-before-Christmas trying to get out of there, but so worth it!

Terra & Allen, thanks for coming to visit us up North! Next, it's our turn...if Parker has a say in it, we'll be down next weekend! :) (Parker adored these two the whole weekend...especially Allen...I think he cried his first real tears the whole weekend when we dropped them off at the airport this morning!)