Montreal Day Trip

On Saturday we trekked up to Montreal for the day to explore the beautiful city and its offerings. Our first stop was the Biodome. This is the coolest interactive museum! It showcases four real ecosystems with all the animals and plants that live in them all inside the enormous museum. We saw the plants and animals of the tropical rainforest, a maple forest that looked very much like Vermont, the underwater ecosystem of the Saint Lawrence Gulf, and a very chilly sub polar ecosystem complete with some very entertaining penguins. Kevin was the photographer and captured some nice pictures. See if you can find the Lynx (looks like a LARGE cat) in the pictures below. Along with getting some nice shots of the ecosystems, he also captured my growing ecosystem!

After exploring the biodome, we walked the streets of the city, and enjoyed the hot sun and lots of yummy treats. We found a chocolate shop where we indulged on some rich, delicious, and beautiful hand made chocolates. We also went to our favorite Spanish tapas restaurant, La Sala Rosa and ate and ate and ate!

Enjoy the pictures below and come visit us and Montreal!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

This year's Saint Patrick's Day dinner was a tribute to green!

As I walked down the aisles of our local grocery store this week I stumbled upon the corned beef and cabbage section. You know how grocery stores devote a portion of the store to any up coming holidays on the calendar? I think that is just so helpful. Especially for me at this time in my life when I can't seem to remember anything, let alone an Irish drinking holiday. Anyway, as I walked past the Easter section into the corned beef and cabbage section, the vision of red raw meat seared my eyes. I nearly lost my lunch as I stood gazing at the stacks and piles of uncooked corned beef. It was right then and there that I decided that our St. Patty's Day dinner would be a tribute to green- minus the meat this year...

I immediately hauled shopping cart over to the produce section (a much less gross section of the grocery store if you ask me). I bought every green thing possible and never gave another thought to the traditional Patty's Day fare.

Our vegetarian dinner consisted of Spinach tortellini and various other green non-meat things. Here are some pictures of our delicious dinner-

Back in Action... All Three of Us!

So it's been awhile since we wrote and it's been an action filled "awhile". Rather than back-posting, we're just going to charge ahead. Last time we wrote, it was just two of us and our incredibly lazy dog, Norma Jean. Now we're beyond happy to introduce the latest member of our family....!!!

Our little friend is scheduled to arrive on August 9th! We have our 20 week ultrasound scheduled for Monday 3/21 and we're so excited to find out if we'll be having a boy or a girl. From this picture, we already feel like we're going to have quite a handsome little baby (that's what proud parents always say while they force their friends and family to look at black and white grainy pictures of blobs on a screen).

Tonight we took a drive north to explore the small town of St. Albans and also have dinner at a great little restaurant called Chow Bella. We talked about our baby and tried to think up baby names the whole time. We have a couple good ideas for girls names, but are having some trouble with boy names! Any ideas would be appreciated! When we got home, we found a letter in our mailbox from Kevin's mom with a baby picture of Kevin inside! It was taken the day he was born. We put it next to a baby picture of Melinda and tried to imagine what our new friend will look like....

The one flashing gang signs on the left is Melinda. That's such an awesome picture! Kevin on the other hand is praying quietly. I'm sure our baby will be a mix of both!

We'll do our best to keep the blog updated with news from our journey toward parenthood!

The Great Seattle Coffee Taste Test

At the end of my work trip, I ended up in Seattle for 2 quick days. I had a few free hours one morning, so I decided to set out on foot and do a massive taste test of different coffee all across the city. Since Seattle is so well known for it's coffee, I was very excited to see how it tasted and see how my home roasted coffee stacked up. I hopped online at the hotel, picked out 4 different roasters, drew up a quick map, and headed out on my tour. I was like a giddy little kid on Christmas morning as I headed hustled down the street. The four roasters I chose were Caffe Vita, Espresso Vivace, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, and Victrola Coffee Roasters.

They were all unique in their own way --

Caffe Vita was the first stop and ended up being my favorite. The espresso was the thickest espresso I've ever had and tasted incredible. It was very comfortable inside and had a large window where I could see into the large roasting room and watch the people working. What I would've given to go into that room! I was pretty envious. I've since found out that they give home roasting classes. Maybe next time I'll happen to schedule a trip around one of them...


Next stop was Espresso Vivace, which was the one I was most looking forward to as I'd heard good things and had tasted their coffee before. Their espresso was excellent, but their location wasn't nearly as comfortable as Caffe Vita. It felt more like a retail store b/c they were really pushing the sales of their t-shirts, mugs, etc.


Next came Stumptown Coffee Roasters which was great. VERY good espresso and pretty comfortable. I was in Portland prior to Seattle and stopped in a Stumptown there and bought a bag of roasted beans to take home. They were such flavorful and strong beans. I'm not sure how they get them to taste that way, but I want to learn!


Last stop was Victrola Coffee Roasters which was also very, very good. It was a great location and very comfortable. They also have a big glassed-in room for roasting as well as a separate glassed-in room for cupping and tastings. It was fun (and made me envious!) to watch the roasters working on the other side of the glass.


Someday I'll be on that side of the glass...

More Burnsville

Here are pics of our backyard and our side sledding hill...

Back to Burnsville!

A couple weeks ago I got to go back to Minnesota for a work trip and was so excited as I hadn't been back since probably 8th grade. I was only there for 2 quick days, but I still managed a trip down memory lane through our old neighborhood. The neighborhood looked great and our house looked good too, even though it was now red instead of blue. It is the perfect neighborhood and I had such an amazing childhood growing up there. Here are some pics I took...

The first 2 are of our old house. My room was the window on the far right.




And this is the mall where my friends and I used to always hang out

Feast of our Farms

Last night we went on a double date to our favorite place on the planet, The Inn at Baldwin Creek. Our date night began with a beautiful fall drive to the picturesque Inn. When we arrived we were all happily surprised at the magnitude of the massive production that Inn owners Doug and Linda put on.

Feast of our Farms is an annual fall celebration of all the local farmers and food producers in the area. Mary's, the restaurant at the Inn only uses local food, and last night the best of the best was on display. Over 40 farmers set up camp in a rustic barn and served their food to 2oo guests. A local band provided some great old timey fiddle music and we ate and ate and ate!

Along with our massive consumption of delicious food, we chatted with farmers, cheese makers, beer, wine, and coffee makers, and some really nice folks who shared a table with us. We plan to make a tradition of this delicious night!

Here is a view of the tent and barn (where the festivities occurred) from the front porch of the Inn.

Posing for a last minute picture with our friends Erik and Hillary