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.



God Bless Father Arnold Weber.

"His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy." - Matthew 25:23

When I returned to work after my lunch this afternoon, I was immediately panged with sadness as I discovered that my childhood priest, Father Arnold, passed away yesterday.

Father Arnold was our priest at Holy Name of Jesus Wayzata, he gave me my first communion and first reconciliation. He was the most God-loving and selfless priests I have ever had the privilege to meet. Father Arnold used to come to our religious education classes on Wednesdays, to watch us play games, listen to our thoughts, or just to give a warm hello. He was always there for you and always had a smile on his face.

I have never met someone who truly loved what they did every second of their day like Father Arnold did. When the time came for Father Arnold to retire, he moved to St. John's Abbey Church to enjoy the rest of his days.

Father Arnold's Christian leadership, hospitality, dedication to education and heart for serving others has made an everlasting impression on the community and on my life. I can speak for the catholic community when I say that we are overjoyed for him to finally have been able to make the journey home to Heaven and to be with the Lord.

"Of all the wonderful things of God, people are the most beautiful." - Fr. Arnold

Thank you Fr. Arnold for being such an inspiration and encouraging us to always do what is right and to be good to people.

Blankets for little miracles.

"Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future." - JFK

Some of you may have heard the story about my miracle little cousin, Conner Shay. I have posted about him before and have shared the story about how his mom, my wonderful cousin Lindsey, has started to create a non-profit organization, Our Miracle Babies, with other NICU moms who have had micro-premie babies.

Well, Our Miracle Babies sent out an email this morning to the non-profit members, they will be working on sending care packages to families and babies in the NICU. Lindsey went on to describe how a little fleece blanket for Conner is special and important to their family, and a keepsake they can share with Conner when he is older to see the blanket that kept him warm. The organization is looking for members to volunteer their time and talent to make little fleece tie blankets to include in the packages.

As I was reading this email, I immediately became excited and I started to come up with a million ideas to help! Right away, I emailed some friends, thought that this would be a great time to host a blanket party, of course involving some yummy wine and gossip, to make blankets for these babies and their families!

If anyone is interested in this, please feel free to email me. We would love to have you!

Much needed family time.

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."  - Desmond Tutu

Well, my family certainly was a gift to me on Monday. My little cousin Beth invited me to a dinner at Restaurant Alma in Minneapolis with our other cousin Leah. Beth recently graduated from Le Courdon Bleu in Minneapolis and is a phenomenal chef at the Nordstrom's Cafe. She is truly talented and loves what she does - despite the crazy hours! Leah is a junior at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and has an exciting internship at General Mills this summer...can you tell I'm proud of them?!

We come from a HUGE family, my dad is one of 9...so we have many cousins, and barely know some of them. Beth and Leah both live so close to me but we never made concrete plans to see each other until this week, and it was so much fun and so good to see them, that I am hoping we can make it a regular thing.

So, back to our dinner experience. I had never been to Restaurant Alma but my friend Gina and her design company designed the interior of the place, and I've always wanted to go, so I jumped at the opportunity to come when Beth asked me. Beth's friend is a chef at Alma's and offered a complimentary meal for her and friends. Well, we took full advantage! Being from a family that doesn't always order unique dishes like rabbit, duck or mussels (unique in my mind!), we were all excited and slightly nervous to try new things. The restaurant manager gave us just about every single dish on the menu, we all tried everything! Leah had her first experience eating rabbit, and I tried duck for the first time. Definitely not a meat I will choose to order again, but an experience nonetheless.

Leah and her rabbit!

After a very large assortment of courses, and of course dessert, we were stuffed! I would definitely recommend Alma's again and am so thankful for the generosity of Beth's friend for taking us to such a great dinner! 


My darling cousins Leah and Beth at our dinner.

A weekend of happiness.

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy" - Anne Frank

There is nothing that I love more than having those refreshing weekends where you lack any definite plans other than spending a lot of time with friends and family you love. And that I did! It's always necessary to have nights with some of my favorite FIJI men and great friends. On Friday night, a group of us raced out to the Uptown bars, excited, dressed up, and ready for a good time. Our Uptown adventures certainly exceed our expectations every time Paige and I venture out together. Needless to say, we had a blast! 



                                       

                                                    Two of my favorite FIJI men out at Stella's Fish Cafe. Love them!



Saturday consisted of another trip to the Wedding Shoppe for a dress fitting with my best friend Mary. Oh how I WISH that I could include some of the memories made on these trips in my Maid of Honor speech, but some things are better left unsaid and kept secret. :) The Wedding Shoppe is an interesting place, in one room you find the nervous bride, indecisive on her choice of a wedding dress, trying to please the different personalities she chose to accompany her. In the next room, you can find a "diva bride," looking to dominate any and all conversations, make the day completely about her and demand unnecessary things from her bridal party and family members. Then you can find the happy, yet slightly (and reasonably) overwhelmed bride. She's excited and giddy to be there and to marry the man of her dreams, focused on the little details of her dress and her experience, knows what she wants and how to get it, yet always thinking about what is left to do before the wedding - that's my best friend! And she's fabulous!!

After getting my "wedding fix," my friend Nicole and I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon volunteering for the Junior League of Minneapolis to recruit little models for the American Girl Doll Fashion Show.

We had some nostalgic moments as we "shopped" around the store, looking at the new dolls of the year, admiring the classic dolls, and learning that our favorites like Samantha and Kirsten were now becoming retired dolls. Sometimes I wish I could be 8 years old again, taking Girls Day trips with my mom to the American Girl store - especially now that they have the new baby grand piano for your doll! That quite possibly could have been the best gift I would have received when I was younger. Despite the prices and often over-the-top perceptions of the American Girl dolls, I think they are special gifts and one that will remain special to every girl who is lucky enough to get one - or three!

"Every American Girl doll encourages hours of imagination and play—from dreaming up adventures to styling hair to sharing every little secret. Whether her doll is from America’s past or present day, there’s a friend for your favorite girl to love and learn from." - The American Girls

The weekend certainly wasn't complete without a shred session with our "Sunday Shredders" gang! A Snowboarding-on-Sundays obsession has officially been born. Some friends and I have been out to little Buck Hill on Sunday nights for their Sunday night special, even the Sunday morning special on some weekends. It's the best way to end any weekend and a great way to start off the week!

Derek, Paige and me - Sunday night shredding!

With that, take the Dalai Lama's words on happiness as inspiration, and do one nice thing for a stranger today. Spread the love! - Dalai Lama

"It is very important to generate a good attitude, and a good heart, as much as possible.

From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and

others will come."