The Survivor...and us

Here we are...with Les Stroud. He was pretty interesting to listen to. Mike and I were impressed with how much he talked! We waited in line for an hour before he came out, another hour of standing in line listening to him talk (and a little Q&A session), and then another 1/2 hour waiting for his autograph. My feet still hurt - I should have worn better shoes!

Survivor Man

This weekend we are heading over to the M.O.A. (for all you non-MN folk, M.O.A. = Mall of America) to see Mike's hero. The Suvivor Man, Les Stroud will be doing a meet and greet on Saturday. Les is Canadian so I'm looking forward to hearing his o's. You know, instead of saying the word 'about' - they say 'aboot'. Cracks me up everytime.

For all of you who don't know, Les Stroud (Suvivor Man) goes out into the wilderness and records himself. He basically is teaching you how to survive if you find yourself in the same predicament that he has willingly put himself in. He doesn't have anyone else with him (no camera crew). Each show is usually 2 nights and one full day of taping then he makes it to his specific pick-up area.

When I was seaching for an image of him I came across this picture to use and the site was talking about how good looking he is.

Never thought of you that way suvivor man, sorry. I'm more of a 'Man vs. Wild', Bear Grylls fan.

There's a big controversy over Man vs. Wild. Bear Grylls does the same basic show as Les Stroud with a few minor differences. Bear has a camera crew with him and sleeps in a hotel every night (they don't portray it that way - but he's been busted recently). All of his shows have the same 'story line' too. Wherever he is Bear always eats a snake -or an equally gross thing, takes off his shirt, and tells a story about how a hiker recently died right where he was. Even if Bear is a fake - I'd still rather watch him.

Finally, pictures from the Keys!

After many, many requests to post some pictures from Florida here they are!

This is where I spent 7 days straight, just sitting in the water. We tried the pool one morning - but it didn't even compare to the view I had from this chair.

We went with friends Ben and Kallie - it was great to have other people there because Mike would NEVER just sit in the water and relax. So Ben and Mike entertained each other while Kallie and I just kicked it in our lounge chairs!

This is what Ben and Mike did most days in our little bay - snorkeling!
and finding things like this - hermit crabs!
We drove down to Key West one day while we were there. It's 95 miles from Key Largo to Key West, but since there's only one road to get there, and you can only go either 45 or 55 mph...it took us a while to get there!

Here are a few pics from the drive...

Here's Mike and I at the end of Key West - Only 90 miles to Cuba!

This is Mike at Sloppy Joe's, we had lunch there and found out it's famous for being a place that Ernest Hemingway used to hang out at.

A few years after he died someone found a back room at Sloppy Joe's that had a ton of his writings in it. Hemingway would go on drinking binges there and stay for days just frantically writing at the bar and I guess who ever was working there would just pick up all his papers and put them in a storage room. Random, I know.
After walking around the tourist-y area of Key West (which Kallie and I compared to Mexico - the same stores on each block all selling the same crappy stuff, oh except there was a Coach outlet which we did go into and it was wonderful!) we asked our waitress at Sloppy Joe's where a good beach to go to was - her response? "Key West is known for the water - not the beaches." What? Key West is an island...are you serious? So She told us to go check out a state park that had the best beach in town. Here's the obligatory 'foot with scenery' pic...
The water was pretty choppy and the beach was really rocky (not sandy) so it was tough for the guys to snorkel and us girls to sit on the beach. One day while we we're back at our hotel beach doing our normal routine (boys snorkeling, girls lounging) Kallie and I noticed a mom and her two kids on the dock pointing into the water and looking at something. We had heard that there were manatees there sometimes, so Kallie and I ran up to the dock to see what they were looking at. There were 4 manatees, and a baby one!
We started yelling at the boys to get their attention cause they still had thier heads in the water. Eventually they heard us and came over to check out what we were yelling at them for!

The baby one!

Mike and I are both fans of the ocean and of all the cool things living in it - we wanted to jump in and swim with the manatees so bad. On this trip I got the nickname Hannatee, but that's another story.

On the drive to Key west we saw a cool beach just on the side of the highway. We decided later in the week we would go check it out. Here is a picture of Kallie and I being the supermodels that we are... I got sun burned on the top of my head the day before - that's why I have Mike's hat on.

And one of Mike and I...

I have more pictures but I really better get back to work...I promise to post more soon!

The grass is always greener...two doors down.

So far this spring Mike has been working really hard to make our yard nice. The previous owner didn't do much yard work besides mowing. We have patches of no grass, patches of just weeds, and patches of sand/dirt that just won't grow grass. Last summer was kind of a trial and error for us - Mike tried a few different grass seeds and a few different weed killers. He even tried the 'weed and feed' which is supposed to kill the weeds but fertilize the grass. Not so much. It just burned up even more patches of grass for us to fill in again this year. So now we have figured out what works and we have tiny little blades of grass growing!!
The thing about yard work is that it is never an immediate gratification like my generation wants. We talked about this with our next door neighbors Travis and Erica, they are the same age as us, getting married soon, and are first time homeowners also! They do yard work just as much as we do and it's nice to be able to share tools like leaf blowers and hedge trimmers without having to go buy everything!
So here's the reason I titled my post the way I did... Two doors down from us (next to Travis and Erica) live Ed and Shirley (a very, very nice older couple). They have the most immaculate yard in the neighborhood. The grass is a perfect 'grass color' green, the hedges are alwyas trimmed perfectly, and the flowers seems to always be in bloom. Granted they have lived there somehwere between 20 and 30 years and they are retired so they have had the time to do it. This is where the whole instant gratification thing would be nice. Ed has had years to get his lawn and yard they way it is, and this is Mike's second summer. We can count last years trial by error year - even though it was practice.
(I'm sure you noticed how I referred to Mike doing the yard work...yeah, he does it all. I've potted some plants and flowers, and I help rake in the fall - but that's about it. )

Swine flu strikes again!

Well not really, but we did have to cancel our vacation to Mexico beacuse of it. So frustraing. Mike and I were supposed to leave this coming Monday with our good friends Ben and Kallie. They were going to use his parents time share and invited us along to join in the fun. Since it was a time share the whole trip was super cheap - great hotel for $180 a week - split between 2 couples - come on, $90 for a hotel for the week? In Mexico? With fun times people? How could we say no to that? In comes swine flu, and whatever the hell stage 5 from the WHO means. Threw a little wrench in our plans to say the least.
Ben spent a good majority of the day Wednesday trying to switch our destination with the time share company (Thanks Benny!) but so was everyone else in the world who had planned on vacationing in Mexico that week. He tried and tried to get us on a beach anywhere in the world - literally, we were considering the Canary Islands for a minute -but the time share company had booked every place they had on a beach. So since we had flights (luckily with no cancellation fees due to the swine flu) we knew we had to go somewhere. We started looking for hotels in southern Florida that had a decent rate. Randomly Kallie and I found a resort on Key Largo that I had looked into for a destination wedding for Mike and I! AND it was only $99 a night - and it was beautiful and right on the beach! SWEET! Done and done. Kallie booked the hotel, switched thier flights, I booked a rental car, switched our flights and here we are.
New vacation, a little more expensive, but we're still going somewhere on the ocean! I have never been to the Keys before so I am looking forward to doing a bit of sightseeing in the area and addition to a bunch of nothing but lounging in the sun!

Engaged!

I know this entry is well over due...well, 5 days over due. Mike and I are engaged! He asked me on Friday night while we were on the rooftop of my parents building overlooking Minneapolis and St. Paul.

He had it all planned out with out me knowing a thing! He bought the ring on Wednesday, and made the call to both my parents to let them know of his intentions, ask for their blessing, and get them in on his plans. My mom called me on Wednesday afternoon while I was at work and asked me if Mike and I could come over on Friday after work to help them move furniture and then they'd take us out to eat. They got a new flat screen TV and were moving the living room furniture and a couple large bookcases...I knew they were doing this so it was no surprise to me that they were asking for our help. So I called Mike and told him that my mom called and asked for our help and he said 'ok sure'.

So Friday rolls around and I get out of bed, throw my hair in a pony tail (without showering) put on the jeans I wore the day before and a t-shirt and head to work (my office is super casual). I left work a little early and when I got home Mike and his dad, Bill were outside talking. They told me that they wanted to go look at the ring I picked out with Mike's mom the following Monday. That's when I said "No more ring talk! You know what I like, I think about it everyday...and it's getting a bit anti-climactic!" So they just laughed at me and said ok. Bill left and Mike went in to take a shower before going over to my parents place.

When he got out he looked at me and here was our conversation:

M: Don't you want to change clothes?

H: No, we're going to move furniture.

M: Yeah but they are taking us out for sushi afterwards, don't you want to look kind of nice?

H: Uh, ok.

So I changed clothes but still didn't shower.

We get over to my parents building and shopped around in the global market on the first floor before going up to their place. When we went up to the loft, there was a note left on the table that said "We're up on the roof with drinks! Come up!" This is no suprise to me, it's a very typical thing for my parents to do. So we head up there and have some pear martini's and chat for a while. Mike and Pat went inside to 'fill up' and I guess hatch the plan. They came out and a little while later my mom and Pat went inside and that's when it happened! Mike said "You know earlier today when you were talking about this being anti-climactic?" And he pulled out the ring! My parents were inside taking pictures of the whole thing.

My parents got out the champagne and I called my sister and grandparents while Mike called his 3 siblings. I'm not really that much taller than Mike...but when he forced me to dress up I had to have the appropriate shoes!

So here we are now, trying to plan a wedding sometime within the next year, and hopefully it will be in either Mexico or Florida!

Snow on April 5th.

After waking up to snow yesterday morning, I think this kid has a good idea.

Boy to his mother: Well, why don’t all Minnesotans get in a circle, link hands and sing “Here Comes the Sun!” THEN MAYBE IT’LL GET WARMER AND I’LL CHEER THE FUDGE UP.

This is from overheardinminneapolis.com