Friday, August 5, 2011

Bouncing between St. Cloud and Up North

No luck going fishing on Monday morning for Matt and Diana but they did run over and visit the Lost Forty and a friend who lives nearby.  What are the chances that one of their friends end up about 10 miles away from our cabin...weird!  Bill and I went over to the resort and tried to pick raspberries.  Unfortunately, it appeared birds and bears had gotten there ahead of us so we didn't get very many...bummer for us...good for the birds and bears!  Since we had a late breakfast, we had a late lunch fish fry...Yum, Yum!!  Matt and Diana headed back to St. Cloud by late afternoon.  It was great to have time to hang out with them!

So, last weekend I figured out that I had totally messed up our schedule as I thought the inner city kid camps started this week and ran for 2 weeks.  Well, turns out they start next week and run for 2 weeks.  Since Bill was planning to come back to St. Cloud the week of August 15 to do some printing, we suddenly had to re-arrange our schedule.  Bill was going to head back without me but since I was pretty much caught up at the resort, I thought I would head along down and enjoy a visit with Minnow (grand daughter, AKA Ja'Leyah).  Unfortunately, it turned out that she is still in Chicago with her dad due to the storms that delayed flights...bummer!

We headed for St. Cloud on Tuesday in the late afternoon and stopped at Bites in Pine River (http://bitesgrill.com/).  I had the TBA sandwich (Turkey, Bacon, and Avocado on multigrain bread) and Bill had the Italian Meat Loaf sandwich (open faced with marinara and mozzarella).  Both were excellent and we would definitely recommend this restaurant.  Very nice atmosphere although it was a little loud when we walked in as there was a very large group of older people who all talked very loud.  Things quieted down once that group left and we really enjoyed the experience. 

You know, as much as I blog about food, maybe Bill and I should just become food critics...visit different restaurants and do write ups!!

Anyway, Bill did his giclee printing and I worked from home on Wednesday.  I ran some errands in the afternoon including delivering a small "congratulations, you're a grandma" jewelry gift to my sister, Mary.  She has been requesting grandchildren for Christmas for several years so she is pretty excited that her son and daughter in law have announced that they are pregnant.  Congratulations, Lane and Nikki!!

We met some friends, Mike and Char, and went with them to the Summertime By George event(http://summertimebygeorge.com/).  I know that I have plugged this several times but here goes again as it is really cool that something like this is going on in St. Cloud.  The music by Willie West was excellent!!  He is an older blues and soul singer from New Orleans who has played with many famous artists and he did an awesome job!  In addition, the food was great.  I recommend trying the chicken kabobs from a wonderful couple from Ghana and Bill had an awesome burger melt at a stand from Cold Spring.  Obviously, we are not very good at noticing the names of the vendors!!  Besides food, there are also other vendors and Bill got cucumbers to make refrigerator pickles and I got a couple of pairs of earrings to match some cool fused glass necklaces that Chelsey had given to me!  There is something for everyone...splash pad for the kids, wine/beer garden for those who want a cool beverage, etc.  As always, I ran into plenty of friends and family and enjoyed visiting with everyone.

On Thursday, my aunt and uncle (Jan and Damian) arrived from Kentucky in the afternoon.  It was great to see them and to be able to give them a tour of the house and help them to get settled in.  They are not sure how long they are staying but Damian did seem pretty sure that they would be gone before we are scheduled to come back in October!!  :-)

We stopped at the Bridge Tavern in Crosby on our way back up (http://www.bridgetavernmn.com/) as the place always seems to be busy.  I have to say that I was not impressed with the atmosphere or the food.  It is a older bar which needs some upkeep and the food was okay but not excellent.  We will cross that one off of our list of restaurants to try.  Appeared to be a busy biker bar if that is what you are into!

So here we are back up north and we don't plan to have another trip to St. Cloud until the week of August 29th.  We are busy getting ready for the kids next week.  Bill, D, and K put up the tents in the morning.  I made up beds in 4 cabins this afternoon, will clean and make up beds in 2 tomorrow and do the last one on Sunday (as the kids arrive on Sunday afternoon).  We helped serve one breakfast to the first group last year and are looking forward to more interaction this year. 

This afternoon, Bill managed to resurrect the deep fryer that was pulled out of storage after about 30 years!  He is a truly incredible man of many talents and this is just one more thing to add to his list of accomplishments.  Tomorrow, we are planning to have deep fried zucchini and sliders on the flat top (which he also got going and cleaned up earlier).

Life is good!!

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