MN Thompson's

Whew! We’re back. Three weeks on the road! Amazing trip. We started the trip by stopping for an hour or so in Rochester, IN to see Grandma T. Actually, our first stop was to pick up Giordanno’s pizza to-go outside of Chicago. We do that frequently on these trips – and then the fun part is trying to eat a slice of Chicago-style stuffed pizza while driving in Chicago traffic! Whil we were with Grandma T we went through pictures that we brought and then I tried to turn on the auto-photo frame on her desk. It wasn’t going through pictures so after pushing lots of buttons it started showing pictures. And of course it started with pictures of Katherine mixed in with our family. The pictures were great, just sometimes I’m caught off guard seeing Katherine. A month or two ago Eric posted pictures on Facebook that had come from Katherine’s phone. The pictures were great and the kids were always laughing and smiling, but then all of a sudden a picture popped up with Katherine in it – totally caught me off guard. Starting in northern Indiana there was no power to the traffic lights (I would argue that there shouldn’t be traffic lights on a HIGHWAY anyway but Indiana doesn’t quite understand that yet). As we pulled into Rochester we noticed huge trees down or uprooted and branches & leaves everywhere. Found out we just missed a huge storm. The plan was to stay the night in Fort Wayne…we got there a few hours later and our hotel there didn’t have power (so we found a hotel that did!). From Rochester all the way into Ohio as we drove through small towns there were huge trees down everywhere and no Burger King or McDonald with power (amazing we survived). I’ve always loved driving through small town Indiana while listening to John Cougar Mellencamp…seeing everyone out and working on cleaning up their small towns while JC was playing added to that ambiance.

Next stop on the way to MA was Howe Caverns. We did Mammoth Cave in KY the year before and the kids really liked it. These caves were cool too for a quick stop – neat that first you take an elevator way down into the ground. A stream follows you throughout the path and you even take a boat ride 200’ underground. In KY the year before they were very concerned about bats dying from white nose syndrome (you had to walk through this soapy mixture before/after going into the caves). At Howe Caverns they said all the bats were already dead and they weren’t taking any precautions anymore – bummer.

So…next stop was Eric’s place. We stayed there a few nights and got to play with Sara and Rose and hang out with Eric. It was a great stop and was nice to catch up on stuff. The girls are awesome and fun and full of energy and never stop and are chatty and creative and we enjoyed mini-golfing and hippo-tubbing and zip-lining (now my kids really want one!) and bouncy-castling and fort making and arting it up and playing all sorts of games and toys. At the same time it was tough being there – memories everywhere…pictures, her car in the drive, picturing her looking out the window in their kitchen, the memory box on the wall, etc – good memories but that’s the most time we’ve spent in their house and like I said – it was tough at times. But good. So glad we went there and spent time there with Eric and the girls and getting to know the area better and talk. And maybe next trip we’ll even figure out ways to capture Sara in pictures too (she runs as soon as that camera comes up – grrrrrr! 🙂 ).

And the next stop was NH. We spent a few days there with just my parent’s and then a few days later Sara and Rose joined us. We sure kept busy…ice cream and bumper boats and ice cream and Rockport, MA and ice cream and a clam bake with one of Beth’s high school friends and ice cream and blue berry picking and ice cream and moving mulch in the yard and building a wall and edging and ice cream and playing badminton and ice cream and a Revolution game and ice cream and bopping each other with the inflatable hammer and ice cream and candlepin bowling and ice cream and King Kone and ice cream and riding in the cougar and ice cream and celebrated birthdays and ice cream and pie and veggie lasagna and found the secret room and ice cream and played ping pong and ice cream and raced cars in basement and ice cream and watched tv and watched tv and watched tv and ice cream. It was a great trip – lots of fun with the kids and seeing mom & dad, and Dan & Jackie with the kids (and congratulations again!!!), and lots of time to talk and catch up on things. Very glad we came out and saw everybody and could stay a bit longer. It wasn’t always easy but we’re doing ok. Things seemed to work out great and fall into place right when we needed them too. Great weather and an amazing trip. It’s so hard to sum up all our feelings and emotions in a mini blog post (so I didn’t really try ) – love you all and always thinking of you.

After NH we headed to St. Louis with a quick detour in NYC. I hadn’t been there since before 9-11 so it had been a LONG time. I love the city – and the people and the sites and the energy and the pace. We only spent 1 night there but somehow the stars aligned and we saw everything (and more) than we had planned – everything was fantastic about the trip – Empire State Building, FAO (kids loved the candy section of the store), M&M store, Times Square, just walking around, seeing street performers doing music and also street dancing, subway singers got on our subway car, 9-11 memorial, pretzels from street vendors, Sony store (kids had a blast playing and experimenting (amazing that this was free!),great food everywhere we stopped, riding a train, the Statue of Liberty and ferry ride, and of course zooming through Beautiful Bayonne and seeing what’s left of the old army base and eating a real Italian ice. We stayed at a friend/coworker’s house the night before NYC and the night after NYC (and then got up at 5:00 a.m. and hit the road early the next morning and drove 16 hours straight to St. Louis. It was also great to see them and just hang out a bit and unwind. A whirlwind of a trip but it worked out perfectly. We are blessed to have such a strong family and support network. We are getting through all this – still have our days and will for a long time but it’s so important to have each other and keep talking and sharing.

Dad’s trip up north seemed super fast – for me anyway 🙂 Glad to hear everything is going great now – way to go! I can’t remember if I shared a quote from Steve Job’s on this blog last month. I posted a quote from his Standford commencement speech at work last month and now that speech is getting tons of hits. Click here if you haven’t listened to it before – he brings home the importance of living life in the present and not having any regrets. Speaking of which, let’s start planning that trip to Grand Marais for next August – put your arm in training now for rock skipping, get your legs ready for some great hikes, and get your belly ready for great food at New Scenic Cafe, Sven and Ole’s, Angry Trout, Crooked Spoon, Gun Flint Tavern, and the World’s Best Donuts. Hopefully we can all pull that trip off and make some great memories of relaxing days and nights up in the peaceful middle of nowhere.

I had a great (but quick) trip to Chicago and Purdue last weekend. It’s crazy to believe that I already have been there and back. It always gives me a great feeling to be in Chicago and to drive through Wisconsin and into Indiana – fantastic memories. And of course it’s great catching up with E and Wen and having some great times. Here we are walking out of Harry’s Chocolate Shop. That place hasn’t changed a bit in 20 years!

There’s some new construction that will bring roundabouts to Eden Prairie. This has been an ongoing topic in the paper and people are concerned about not knowing how to use them. So…the paper this week had an article saying there is some upcoming roundabout training that will feature golf carts that you can take for a test drive around a mock course. That’s awesome – this is affirmation that even though I’m 40 I’m not officially old yet!

There was also an article today about how fire poles are coming back (along with more two-story fire stations). We don’t have any stations in the city that could use a fire pole but that would be cool. The article also mentioned that there is no longer any tolerance for some of the hazing that used to go on such as greasing the fire pole before a rookie tried to slide down it (yikes!).

Only a few more games left for both Christopher and Megan. I thought this picture on the bench was great. This is Christopher along with one of his best friends JT.

It was going to cost $175 for the dentist to remove one of Megan’s teeth. Zowy! What a racket! I told her I’d pay her $150 if she got it out herself (yah, right). Beth got the pliers out this week and the two of them worked on that tooth for several nights. And finally…success! Here is a photo just before it came out – looks fine to me 🙂

We were greeters in church this morning at both services. Why they scheduled us the day after Purdue played Minnesota I don’t know (Purdue whooped them yesterday by almost 30 points), but I got a lot of mileage out of my tie this morning 🙂

As I’ve done before, here is a warning that you’re about to be hit with a whole lotta randomness…here goes…

Can you believe the iu football team is so crappy that Bucky Badger had to do 573 push-ups last Saturday when they played??? 573!!! Wow.

The tooth fairy is going broke in our neighborhood. Colleen lost a tooth and Megan lost another one this week. Megan has no bottom center teeth now – she fits in with all of the hockey players up here.

We survived another Halloween. The week after Halloween a local dentist was paying $1 per pound of candy that you turned into him. Christopher gave it some serious thought but changed his mind at the last minute.

Guess which one of our cute kids made the puking pumpkin? Christopher? Nope. Megan? Nope. Colleen? Yep. It took you all three guesses, didn’t it?

They are both so sweet when they are sleeping, huh? Hard to believe either of them ever stay this still – especially not at the same time.

We got at least 8″ of wet, heavy, super-sticky snow this past Saturday. It was so heavy that we had over 30 fire calls on Saturday – morning to night it kept me very busy. Probably half a dozen calls of trees on fire (because the power lines would dip so low) and many power lines down on roads and sidewalks. I thought it would only last a day and then I’d be able to finish my fall chores…4 days later and it’s still white everywhere 🙂 I was up early that day and it was so cool watching the kids come down the stairs. They each woke up on their own, yet all had the same reaction as they turned the corner and came down the stairs. It was the same look as they have on Christmas morning – their eyes would get bigger, they would get a huge smile and yell something like “awesome” or “so cool” – they love the snow and spent several hours sledding and playing outside each day this weekend.

We also started paying the kids allowance last week. $6 for Colleen, $5 for Christopher, and $3 for Megan. They get this regardless of doing chores (although, if they don’t want to do their chores they can pay someone else to do them for them). But now they are responsible for paying for offering at church, putting a portion in savings, helping pay for their school lunch and books and birthday gifts…we’ll see how it goes. I can’t remember whether I got allowance or money for chores growing up, what age that started and stopped, and how much I got…somebody help me with my poor memory and clue me in please.

I started taking an art class at Eden Prairie’s Art Center. I had an item on my dream list related to making something artistic for the house so I looked through the catalog last Tuesday and found only one class that I could still sign up for in 2010. I signed up for it and the first of three classes was that same night. Beggars can’t be choosers – I’ve now taken two soldering classes and am becoming quite the jewelry maker 🙂 Oh yah, who’s getting excited to see what I’m making them for Christmas??? I’m glad I signed up – let’s me dabble with my creative side a bit.

While I’m on the topic…how are everybody else’s dream lists coming? Has anyone read the Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly yet? What are you waiting for – go get it and start dreaming!!!

Last Thursday for fire training they jammed us in a semi trailer loaded up with wood and other combustibles and lit it up. We got to crouch down as low as we could get and watch the flames dance over our heads for 10 minutes through the thick smoke, hoping we wouldn’t get to see a flashover first hand. It was pretty cool training – there aren’t many opportunities in a real fire to pause and watch the flames and fire behavior. The dancing flames and fire fingers are mesmorizing – way cool. Now if only we could do that without getting our gear completely saturated with smoke and soot that would be perfect.

Beth and I had a really, really great time in Chicago for our anniversary. Writing this down will be as much for me as it will be for anyone else. It was so good to get away and talk to each other and have a bit of freedom (yes, we still love you kids – don’t worry). It was an amazing feeling as we drove away from Minnesota and realized we could stop whenever and wherever we wanted for dinner and stay as long as wanted and talk about whatever we wanted. Wow – it’s been a while 🙂 Although I knew I wanted to eat at several great spots in Chicago, we only had one reservation planned in advance for the entire trip. It was at Alinea and was our big anniversary dinner. Alinea is ranked as the #1 restaurant in North America . I can’t even begin to describe our experience there – truly amazing – everything about the restaurant was incredible – taste, sights, smells, wine, presentation, atmosphere, and service – like nowhere we’ve ever been. Here are some pictures that I’m sure will make you think we wasted a ton of money…I am so glad that we went there. This was on my Dream List and made for a very special evening. Dinner lasted over 3 hours and we had 5 or 6 people waiting on us not to mention an army of people in the kitchen.

Here’s the picture I got scolded for taking (stupid flash on the iPhone) 🙂

And here are some representative pictures from their web site – this isn’t exactly what we had on our 20-course menu but it is close enough.

Oops. Although I’m sure your amateur eyes didn’t catch it – that last one didn’t come from Alinea. That’s Beth’s award-winning cake for Christopher’s cub scout cake raffle this year!!! Two years in a row. Maybe opening a bakery is in our future.

We also hit Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill a few times. Great atmosphere and amazing Mexican food. Super yummy. Every year I get older I love and crave Mexican food more (maybe that’s my taste buds dying off and this is the only food I can taste anymore – hope not!). Or maybe it’s just the margaritas! It was so fun to be able to go out and not care when our table was ready and saddle up to the bar and just hang out and chat with the bartender. We had forgotten what that was like and really enjoyed that lifestyle again.

And of course Cafe Iberico for some great Spanish tapas and sangria. They know how to make authentic Spanish food which seems to be a rarity with all of the crappy tapas places these days.

And we hung out with all of the pretty people that Saturday night while eating some great new Asian-fusion at Sunda – sushi, sake and so much more. The Chicago nightlife is amazing – we had a special card from our concierge that I presented to the hostess lady at about 9:30 p.m. She said it was still a 2-hour wait but that the card I gave her would drop that to an hour and half. We waited and drank and stared and drooled at the pretty people (Beth gave me permission) and then ate funky food until after midnight and walked home. That’s another thing we loved – walking everywhere!!! I miss Chicago. We miss Chicago. Someday maybe we’ll move back – or at least spend more vacations there. We also saw Billy Elliot (Beth really enjoyed that) and went to see a comedy show at 2nd City. We got there early enough that we sat in the front row – which we had never done before. I won’t go into details but let’s just say I got a special dance by the hottest new female rap group – “Bitches-n-Gravy”. Beth still starts giggling picture that skit. I’ll forget where we stayed so I’m going to document it here for future trips…we stayed at the Talbott and loved it – great smaller hotel with an outstanding staff and service. They knew it was our anniversary and put us on the top floor like I asked for – made for the perfect trip.

Ok, enough about Chicago…I’m hungry now and have to go snack on something!