A trip to Ames for a birthday weekend celebration.

After a week straight of birthday festivities each night after work, and a weekend long birthday party, you'd think I was all birthday'd out. Wrong! I still had to celebrate in Ames with Nic and my FIJI friends, not to mention more FIJI birthdays, and most importantly, my little brother turned 21 three days after my birthday!

I was SO excited to celebrate Kevin's birthday with him, and that it was his 21st birthday was even more of a big deal! I just had to get him an appropriate gift. So, I gave him a monogramed beer mug - perfect for a newly 21 year old. There are so many great stories from the weekend, but I figured I'd at least share some pictures from the highlights...

When it was midnight...Kevin came out to join us at our favorite bar in Ames!
 

The MINUTE Kevy turned 21!



Happy birthday! Love, the roommates.

 Naturally, Nic wanted to get Kevin one of his first drinks!

Smile for mom! 

I picked the most beautiful weekend to visit Ames this spring! We had solid sun, 80 degrees all weekend, it was just absolutely beautiful! After Nic and I went on one of the longest walks we have ever taken (we just couldn't get enough of the great weather and the company), we had some fun at a friend's house all day. I of course was the only girl, but while they were "bro-ing" out, I didn't mind sitting back and relaxing!



Sips!



Hard not to love the pastels...



Always with the point...



 All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and I had so much fun - like I always do in Ames! Now we just have to prepare ourselves for VEISHEA in three weeks....

 

Love him!!!





I turn 24...

Birthdays are wonderful days. They hold so much anticipation, excitement and are so much fun. It is basically your personal Christmas! Every year I look forward to my birthday. I celebrate my half birthday in September, a tradition we started in college after an accidental late night out on a Monday, which happened to be my half birthday, we started with one drink...and ended up with a 6 am bedtime.

This year, my birthday is bittersweet. I am turning 24, sick. There is absolutely nothing exciting about this age. When you turn 21, you get to have your big 2-1 birthday at the bars with all of your friends. When you turn 22, it’s your last birthday in college and you're seniors. When you turn 23, it’s your first birthday as a grown up. It kind of stinks to work on your birthday, but it’s also really fun in my office because we make birthdays a really big deal. But when you turn 24…you realize, man, I have to work on my birthday almost every year, and it’s a constant reminder that you are further and further away from your glory days in college.

Luckily, I still pretend I am in college with my friends! We have themed bar crawls, still have fake birthdays at the bars, have the same pre-bar rituals of Lifetime movies, kitchen dance parties, doing our nails and getting ready together, all after we went shopping for our outfits for that night of course. This year, my birthday theme was neon.



Enough said.

Well, last weekend was my birthday celebration! I was so excited because one of my very, VERY best friends was coming into town for my special weekend! Bridget flew in from Chicago on Friday morning so I took the day off from work. After a car ride of singing and dancing to some of our favorite oldies, we headed to the Mall of America to hunt for the perfect neon birthday outfits.

…Bridget bought a black dress. My roommate wore a black dress…Our friend Amy wore a black dress…whatever!

Sadly, finding neon was a lot more difficult than we thought. And after four hours in the MOA (who does that??? You only really need 90 minutes tops), we were exhausted. We found our dresses in the last store, Urban Outfitters, and I got the world’s best and cutest birthday wedges from Nordstroms, broke the bank and budget a bit on these, but hey, they are multicolored and will match literally anything and everything I would wear! Plus, it’s my birthday!!



Apartment #11 girls are finally reunited again.



We have to do this picture at every reunion...



Girlfriends!



Love my Steveo.

The birthday party was FABULOUS! We had a little pregame at my house before we hit the bars, and what pregame is complete without some turquoise cupcakes made especially by Paige? Of course these cupcakes were funfetti, and of course they had leopard print cupcake tins, and of course we had pink napkins, PLUS “Keep Calm and Birthday On” napkins. Classic.

After many pictures, a few drinks and sweets, my lovely parents came to take us to the bars. We were READY! I had such a fun night and was so happy to be reunited with Bridget and my friends.

 

Mom and dad!

Girls at Drink in Uptown

Friday night left us pretty tired and with the realization that we are getting old. We spent our Saturday watching Lifetime movies in our pajamas and napping…juuuuust like college. Our nap time was certainly not as rejuvenating as we hoped…we didn’t even make it out for St. Patty’s day...


Breaking into my annual DARK double chocolate birthday cake made from scratch by dad!



Bridget left on Sunday morning. L I was so sad to see her go, but only five weeks to go until we are reunited again at our friend Andrew’s wedding!

Finally, it was my birthday week at work! I received a lovely surprise from my little brother, Kevin, such a sweet boy. Kevin had flowers delivered to my office, this was quite the surprise! I later got flowers delivered from Nic and a second (mistake) delivery of the same bouquet Kevin sent me earlier in the week...aka my cubicle looked like a scary flower shop.


Flowers from two of my three favorite men :)

 Much to my dismay, my coworkers found out about my deeply-rooted, childhood FEAR of ET. Yes, I am absolutely terrified of ET. I can honestly, and sadly, admit that even before my birthday this year, I still have been having ET nightmares. I am still that person who runs full-speed down the hallway with a major fear that ET is behind me or will pop out from around the corner. Damn the friendly aliens, right?! So when I came into work and saw how my cubicle was tastefully trashed and festively decorated, I noticed the multiple copies of ET pictures everywhere. Not only did they print out all of these pictures, but they photoshoped me into them! SCARY! Now I can admit, on my 24th birthday, I had nightmares about ET.


After some birthday decoration cleaning, this is what I was left with...



If this won't give you nightmares...I don't know what will...I was speechless.

My coworkers are amazing!! Even after all the decorations, taking me to lunch and cupcake presents, they had a special cake delivered to the office from "Queen of Cakes" in Edina. Sadly...this is how they view me...cupcake crazed :)

In the end, turning 24 wasn't that bad. I had an amazing girls dinner for my birthday with all of my closest friends, and new friends too! It was a blast! I am so touched to have such wonderful friends, some who drove almost 2 hours just for the dinner! I can't help but be excited for their birthdays now too!!

A weekend at Lutsen Mountains.

This winter seemed to be the winter of snowboarding for me. After my trip to Colorado and finally getting down how to turn and complete a run without falling down resulting in a body covered in bruises, I have become obsessed with snowboarding. Granted, there are always those days or those runs that just simply do not work out in your favor and make you question your decision to try this crazy sport in the first place, it’s those runs where you have surprised yourself with better transitions, tighter turns, greater speed, and of course the days with solid sun that make each and every bruise worthwhile.

Our weekend at Lutsen was two of those perfect kind of days.

We had beautiful weather the whole weekend, the temperatures were in the 50s and 60s, which is unheard of for northern Minnesota (fairly close to Canada) in the beginning of March. The sun was big and bright all weekend, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the winds were calm. It was perfect.



Beautiful early morning on the mountain, overlooking Lake Superior



It has become a bit of a tradition with a group of my friends to go to Buck Hill for a “Sunday Shred” on Sunday nights. Yes, it’s a little wacky to go skiing or snowboarding on a Sunday night and not even get home until 11:00 pm, and then expect to be able to fall asleep right after your “shredding high” and still be able to get up for work the next morning, but let me tell you, each and every one of those Sunday nights was worth it. So after a few of these Sunday Buck Hill trips, we decided we wanted something bigger, longer, and better. That’s really not much to ask, considering Buck Hill is a teeny-tiny ski hill literally on the side of I-35 just 30 minutes south of us, but still, we wanted more.

So after some deliberation, we decided on Lutsen Mountains up north. This was such a wonderful decision. We stayed at the AmericInn in Tofte, Minn., just seven miles south of Lutsen. And it was a great location…just came with a lot of rednecks, small town folk, a few dirty people, and a lot of snowmobilers. But we didn’t care, we just wanted to shred!

After a brutally slow week at work in anticipation for the weekend, Friday finally rolled around and we were all ready for the day to be over. We met at my house, figured out how to pack up the SUV with all of our luggage, skis, poles and snowboards, and started our 4.5 hour drive north.

If you're this old and still skiing...you would stretch too!

We were so happy to be outside and to enjoy the powdery, fluffy, NATURAL snow on Saturday. None of that fake snow we’ve been stuck with all season! Luckily, Lutsen got about 20 inches of snow the week before our trip, so we were able to enjoy that winter storm…for about 5 hours. After lunch on our first day, it became so hot outside, the snow became slushy and kind of gross. Some of the runs even were missing snow on parts of them, littered with dirt, mud, and visible rocks, sticks and boulders. But who cares, that’s why I have white snowpants isn’t it?!



Me and Paige...ready to shred!



Our first day out.



Picture requested from the frat bros - of course they had to enjoy a little whiskey on the slopes!



Derek...D-man...It's a great day for a great ski!

I can happily say, I was able to do quite a few black diamond runs during our trip! Even though I turned into a “heel hero” on the steep parts of the run and took my sweet time, I challenged myself to one solid ‘S’ turn on the steepest part of the black and succeeded! Sure, it’s not the same as a black diamond in Colorado, but maybe I’ll challenge myself to that during my CO trip next year! …Safely of course.



Taking the gondola to explore the other side of the mountain.



After a long day of shredding, there’s nothing like a hotel party…and we certainly relived our “youthful” years with some tunes, hotel deck of cards, classic college drinking games, and of course some embarrassing stories. It was so much fun to hang out and enjoy some quality time with some of my closest friends.

Beautiful day!

We only got to enjoy half a day on the slopes on Sunday, the temperature was so warm, the snow was literally turning into soup. It made for some more difficult runs, definitely slower with all of that heavy slush, but we were able to enjoy the day without our coats and cold weather gear.



Sad to drive home



Before we knew it, it was time to drive back home L I wish our trip would have lasted a couple days longer, but we all had jobs to go to…except Ryan...who flew the Florida the next morning for a week long spring break trip. Ahhh…to be jobless.

Lots of fun!

Lately, life has been hectic. Lots of birthdays, traveling, visitors, wedding planning for my best friend, and so much more! My "Sunday Shredding" friends and I are heading up to Lutsen Mountains tonight for a weekend of epic shredding. While we are keeping our fingers crossed for cold weather and lots of fluffy snow, it is hard to remain optimistic when my dad told me it's supposed to be 50 degrees tomorrow in Grand Marais! Looks like I'll be snowboarding on melted snow and brown, dirty grass!
 
A couple weekends ago, I got to dogsit for my friend Nicole. She has an adorable 4 year old Maltese Poodle, Lilly. Sweetest, most excited dog you will ever meet! We had fun walking around my neighborhood, playing with kids, and introducing Lilly to our neighbor's Great Dane, Prima. Prima is just 2 years old, almost full grown, yet as tall as me! Lilly wasn't really sure what to make of Prima, she stood there like a statue while Prima jumped over Lilly multiple times trying to play. Lilly thought she was too good to play with Prima, but they did become friends eventually. Nothing like seeing a teeny, tiny 6 pound dog next to a HORSE of a dog!

Meet Lilly, my friend Nicole's adorable little dog.



So excited to be in the car and see so many new things!

 The weekend after I got to play with Lilly, Nic came to visit! We had fun doing nothing at all. Correction: I had fun shopping while Nic was forced to follow me around the mall. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team Nic! It was fun just to be all together again with some of our best college friends!

I also volunteered with the Junior League - seems to be a multiple-times-a-week occurrence for me lately. This time, it was volunteering at the actual American Girl Doll Fashion Show. Never thought I'd see so many excited little girls, or that I would be so envious that I couldn't buy a new American Girl doll for my collection! *sigh*

More exciting things today at the office! It's my coworker Anne's birthday!! Anne is a very big Packer's fan, a rather shall we say, strange for lack for a nicer word, quality of hers. Our office came together, blew up almost 40 balloons, and respectfully "decorated" her cube with Packers memorabilia, streamers, Easter grass, random birthday trinkets, signs and even a personalized sign from Ryan Braun - which Anne hesitantly accepted.

Happy Birthday Anne! Thanks for being born so we could do this to your cube!

Well, we're off to Lutsen for more exciting adventures! Cheers!

All aboard the "Jag Train" - Paige turns 24!

"Happy Birthday dear Paige, happy birthday to you...choo choo!"

It's Paige's birthday week! To celebrate, we rang in her "new year" the best way we know how...a bar crawl in Uptown! Naturally, we had to begin the bar crawl with a little pregame consisting of Jägermeister, lots of friends...and funfetti cupcakes!

What's a birthday without funfetti cupcakes, home-dyed neon pink frosting and zebra print cupcake tins? Definitely NOT Paige's birthday!!! Sadly, cleaning up this neon pink frosting was a bit of a hassle! Much to our amusement, my hands were stained pink...not all of the dish soap or nail polish remover in the world could take care of these bad boys.



Surely, you can make many friends at a bar with neon pink hands...

On Sunday, after a day of recovery, cleaning our cars and organizing our lives, we celebrated yet again at Paige's mom's house for her family birthday dinner. We had some delicious fajitas, and OF COURSE yummy funfetti! Paige and I were lucky enough to take home tons of leftovers and the rest of the cake. You can never have too much funfetti or too many desserts at your house!!

Blowing out her candles after taking 5 minutes to decide on her wish!

Happy Birthday Paiger!! You're the best Jäg-Train conductor I know...choo choo!

I love you Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day was very special this year. Since graduating from ISU almost two years ago (that's a crazy thing to say!), a side effect of  a long distance relationship is not being able to see each other on special holidays like Valentine's Day and Birthdays. Last year, I was all about the girls' night with wine and junk food, but this year I was able to see Nic! It was a very sweet gesture for Nic to drive up after his class on Valentine's Day to come to dinner. Although it was a short-lived visit, ending this morning with Nic dropping me off at the office downtown, it was so nice to have dinner and to see each other briefly.

I made my first lasagna, yes sad to admit I hadn't gotten around to making one until now, but it was SO good! Not to toot my own horn, but toot toot, that lasagna was delicious! And of course...for dessert I made a Carrot Cake - my favorite!!!

Valentine's Day carrot cakes!

Thoughts and prayers for Father Arnold's burial

Our Catholic community will once and for all say goodbye to a beautiful and talented priest. Today is Father Arnold's funeral at St. John's Abbey. What a better day to put a tired body to rest than on St. Valentine's Day, the patron saint of love.


Father Arnold Weber



Thankfully, our church, Holy Name of Jesus Wayzata, published Father Arnold's most impactful and memorable homilies from mass during his 20 years as our pastor. If you are looking for some religious inspiration, I highly recommend Homilies for the Active Christian. I absolutely love this book and remember a lot of these homilies during my first 16 years as a member of this church.



We love you Father Arnold, you will forever be in our hearts.