Traveling Mercies

(collage by Groovy Girl: G.G. with her super cute cousins)

We spent three days last week in Minneapolis, one of my favorite cities. I lived there for years while I went to college the first time and loved it. Lucky for me I still have family there so it is easy to drive the 3 1/2 hours north to see some of my favorite people.  Sadly I don't make it as much as I'd like to but this time our purpose was to see our new niece born August 13th.  You'd think  (because of my deep love of babies) I would have made the journey before now except that was just about the time school started for me and then it seems that pretty much every weekend after that was filled to the brim with activities.

Somewhere in October I vowed not to fill November weekends up just so we could head north and it worked.  I persuaded my husband to journey with us and he complied by finding a Bluegrass show to sweeten the deal. The show just happened to be on Thursday night so I took a day off from work (oh, so rare) and we headed to Harriet's Brewery after dropping Groovy Girl at my (step)sister Robin's new house.  Her family of four just moved to the Minnehaha neighborhood after living in South Chicago for about 6 years and they are so excited about this move.

Greg and I enjoyed music by The Last Revel at the brewery.  They were fantastic and I would head out of town again to hear them play.  The second band was good also but I can't remember their name.

This was a perfect toe-tapping band and the guys were equally as nice by they way they tolerated chatting with my husband several times about music.

I was a wreck that night for some reason. I got carded coming through the door into the steamy brewery and I could NOT find my driver's license anywhere in my bag.  While I was desperately searching my glasses dropped out of my hand because I'd taken them off due to that steaminess.  They snapped in half and were completely unwearable.  So I couldn't drink the delicious brewed beer or truly see the band.  It was a mess and I still managed to enjoy the evening.  Now I have to buy new glasses and I wasn't ready to do that and I still don't know where my ID is.

(Upside down cousins)

The rest of the weekend was spent at my (step) sister Autumn's home in Eden Prairie.  We walked even though it was chilly. We ate delicious pizza and generally lazed around the house holding her little one. My hope was to give my sister time to sleep and rejuvenate.  Maybe it worked. Sometimes just visiting with each other can make the day solid.  We also had a delicious lunch at a diner in their neighborhood with Robin and family on Saturday before we left town.  I had the best fish sandwich ever. The coleslaw had cranberries in it and the fish had perfect crunch.

Thank you for the alignment of the stars to bring us all together on one weekend even though my glasses and ID decided to jump ship.

We also checked out the construction of my brother's new house.  We can't wait for a return trip in December or January to see the finished product.

(new house)

This picture is all about the cookie.  Groovy Girl wanted to show the size; it is bigger than my face.  My husband is behind me hoping I'm not going to eat that cookie. My glasses in the photo have been super-glued.  That trick only lasted two days.