Weekend Recap: Christmas Tree, Tagine and Trans Siberian Orchestra

Tomorrow I shall finish my Florida trip recap, but today I'll share about our weekend.

I was feeling sick all last week, and finally started feeling better on Friday. With this new found ambition, we worked on putting up the Christmas tree. We put it up in a different location than in the past. Now it's in the front entry. I'm really liking it so far!

Adam putting some ornaments up

Chester really wanted to help us. Unfortunately, his help included eating the pine needles that fell off the fake tree as we adjusted the branches. Eventually, we had to just block him off from the area which led to a lot of whining. Poor Chester. I put him in his little Santa outfit, which he hates, so he was extra pathetic.

Santa Chester

"Can I help you mom?!"

Saturday, I dropped Adam off at the St. Paul Ice Fishing & Winter Sports Show for a few hours. Back at home, I did some housework and laundry. How exciting...

It started snowing a lot in the afternoon and continued most of the night. We ventured out in it to meet Adam's parents, brother and Grandma for dinner to celebrate her birthday. Luckily, we didn't have far to go as the roads were a bit slick. We met at FACES Mears Park in downtown St. Paul.

We had a great meal together. I had a hard time deciding what to get. When the waitress said the chef specialized in Moroccan flavors, I decided on a tagine. I've never had tagine before, so this was a new adventure for me. I had the spicy seafood tagine and it was awesome! Adam and his dad had tagines as well which they both enjoyed.

My spicy seafood tagine

Adam's kafta tagine

 The chef, David Fhima, came out and talked to us a few times which was interesting. He said they were calling us the "tagine table" back in the kitchen. For dessert, Adam and I split a delicious order of tiramisu.

After dinner, everyone stopped by our house. Adam's Grandma had never seen it before, so it was nice to have them over.

By our tree after dinner

 I slept in Sunday (thanks husband), which was awesome. Adam and Chester snuggled/napped while we watched the train wreck Vikings game.

My snuggly boys

 Then, we headed over to the Xcel to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra. We attended the 3:30 pm matinee show. I'm glad that's the show we went to because it was 2 1/2 hours long (with no intermission)! We mostly enjoyed it, but I have no desire to ever see them again.

There was lots of flashing lights - my mom would have hated it!

Something about them just bothered me. It was like you play Christmas music. It has a bit of rock to it, but it's CHRISTMAS MUSIC. I'm sitting next to a 60-year old. Head banging to Christmas music is just weird. It made me laugh a lot. They just took themselves way too seriously. It was bizarre. And some of their slower songs with singing were just plain boring. I wish they would have played Christmas Eve/Sarajevo about 10 times. I definitely prefer Mannheim though and I would see them again for sure.

The other annoying part was all these hardcore fans around us. Almost everyone around us had seen them multiple times. Really? We had pretty good seats - floor, row 13, so maybe that was part of it. I don't know. There was also this SUPER annoying family right in front of us. The mom took at least 10 photos per song with her crappy camera. Her 2 kids were also taking tons of photos with their phones. And it wasn't discreet either. It was putting the camera up in the air and blocking the view of everyone behind you. It was absolutely ridiculous.

After the show, we went over to Cossetta's for dinner. The line was super long, but it was worth it. We haven't been there together in a while. At the little market we bought some of their red sauce and gnocchi. I'm excited to make it sometime this week!

Back at home, I worked on our Christmas cards. I can't wait to get them done and in the mail.

It was a fun weekend, but busy busy busy!