Our First Twins Game of the Year

Last Thursday was our first Twins game of the season. It was fishing lure night, which is our new "must attend" game per Adam. Of course it always happens in cold April!

 The temperature at game time was pretty nice, but it got chilly quickly. I was glad I wore two layers of paints and brought gloves.

This time, we were in the lower level behind home plate (but a ways up). Seats were good though.

Adam tried the new goat burger from AZ Grille and really enjoyed it. I did not enjoy the bite I tried of it.

When it started to get dark, I wandered around the stadium to get a few photos from the outfield.

And then I came back with hot chocolate.

We a got a kick out of this fun fact about Doumit. Hilarious.

I was a little preoccupied towards the end of the game because it was NFL DRAFT NIGHT. I was refreshing my phone like a maniac to see who the Vikings took!

When we got home after 11, we had to pack and load up the car to head down to my parent's for the weekend. Chester was all kinds of confused and stressed. We let him sleep in bed with us though so he was a happy boy!

More Darn Snow

It snowed yet again last night. As the snow fell, I enjoyed a hot chocolate with RumChata. It was delicious and almost made me not care that it was snowing in April yet again...

We ended up with about 3-4" which was much better than the 6-9" that were in the forecast.

It was fluffy heavy snow, which looked beautiful on the trees,

and even made our disaster of a backyard look pretty!

 Since it's suppose to warm up, Adam opted not to snowblow the driveway (good choice), and decide we'll just take the Terrain until it melts.

Weekend Recap: Painting + MN Swarm Game

We had a busy and productive weekend! On Friday after work we ran to Home Depot to get me my first ever power tool - a detail sander! I can't believe I didn't take a photo with it! Then we were off to Sam's Club for a few things before heading home.

At home, I did some spackling in the new guest room upstairs, and then made Sriracha caramel corn. Delicious!!! I was a little nervous how it would taste, but we both loved it. It wasn't too spicy either; just really great flavor. Recipe here

Saturday, we slept in and then started our upstairs project. I used the sander on the walls - there were lots of random bumps and of course, all my spackle to smooth out.

I even uncovered some hideous bright blue paint. Can you imagine this room was once that color?

After a quick lunch, it was time to get painting. Goodbye lovely (NOT) rose / orangey-in-certain-light walls!

Chester was a good boy and hung out in the hallway.

BEFORE

AFTER

I love the light grey in there, it really brightens up the room and has a calming effect!

We got cleaned up, discovering paint in interesting places like my hair and Adam's elbow, and then we were off downtown for the Swarm game. First, we picked up our tickets at Will Call. I bought them BOGO through a CrowdCut, so I was really surprised to find that we were fourth row off the glass (only lower level seats were promised).

Our original plan was to go to Cossetta's for dinner, but it was packed, so we went to Burger Moe's instead. The service wasn't the best because it was super crowded, but the burgers were great! I had a yummy bison burger with onion straws and BBQ, while Adam had a jucy lucy (not as good as his own, of course).

We got to the game 20 minutes before it started, and made our way down to our seats.

 They were excellent, but we were surrounded by a lot of season ticket holder crazies. I had no idea professional lacrosse had such a following?

There was even a grown man wearing face paint and a dyed beard (far right). Scary.

And then there were the three loud obnoxious guys behind us. Who for as big of fans as they seemed to be, would not shut up the entire game.
It was a fun night out though, and we didn't even care that the Swarm lost!

Sunday morning we headed to Target for a few things. Poor Adam got dragged along because they were handing out a free sample bag for Earth Day (and so he could restrain me from my random Target purchases).

We watched a movie, Anna Karenina, and then rearranged upstairs. Adam did an excellent job taking apart the futon and moving it into the new Guest Room #2 while I took photos of Chester.

When the futon was put back together, I had fun putting on all the accessories I bought for it. Like a new (wrinkly) comforter, throw, and lots of throw pillows.

The walls look bare (I have ideas to help that), but it's coming along. Also, I'm waiting to paint the radiator until I decide what I want to do. Probably white so it doesn't have to be repainted again if we (or future owners) ever repaint the room.

Yes, that's a pug pillow. I ordered the cover online! It's from the same artist (Gemma Carroll) as my favorite "Pugs Not Drugs" shirt from John, Nicolle & Carolina.

My new office across the hall needs some work though... It'll get there!

April (Snow) Showers

More Blasted Snow!

It all began yesterday morning with some April showers, that turned into sleet, and then snow shower by 1 PM. The commute home was painful.

I took Chester for a walk, but instead of making it around the block, he decided to turn around just down the street. Fine by me!

 

"Let's go home, mom!"

This morning, Adam woke me up early to take care of Chester while he did some snowblowing of the driveway so we could get out. He was not a happy camper.

Chester was not impressed by the snow either. He raced down the steps, took one look at it, and made a beeline for the backyard (instead of going down the driveway to go for a walk).

We ended up getting 6-8 inches. Delightful.

An expensive lesson

Adam and I had noticed the Grand Prix seemed to be "off" in the back, but we chalked it up to icy roads and maybe needing new tires.

And then I had my oil changed at work 2 weeks ago, and the tech had me come look at my rear tires. It wasn't pretty. They were down to the cord in the rear, but it was on the inside so it wasn't noticeable until up on the hoist. He suggested that I not taking it on any long drives until they were replaced. He also thought it should have an alignment. Lovely. Had I ever rotated them? No? Oh....

See that line on the inside? That's not supposed to be there, it should be smooth -

Unfortunately for me, the Pirellis on the car were discontinued, so it made sense to replace all 4 (even though the front 2 weren't bad). Apparently they were a non-standard size, so they were kind of expensive. $600+ later...

Now I have shiny new tires! And a properly aligned car! (I guess it was REALLY bad and that's what caused the strange wear on the tire)  And I will get my new tires rotated every other oil change! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(In case you're wondering why I have photos of my car like this, it's because I was taking photos of the alignment for our next coupon)

Weekend Recap: Painting Upstairs

We had a busy weekend full of painting upstairs. On Friday we painted, on Saturday we painted, and on Sunday we rested.

I was at a convention for work on Friday, so I got home at a decent time. Adam ended up working later than planned though. So by the time we felt like painting, it was dark out. Our original plan was start on the main guest room. However, surveying the walls I noticed a lot of bumps that I wanted to sand along with scratches and tiny little holes. I grabbed some spackle and my little tool and went to town on those walls.

Since the guest room wasn't going to be ready, we decided to tackle the hallway. The hallway was still painted yellow from when our main floor was yellow. I think we ran out of steam originally, so it's remained yellow for a few years - out of sight, out of mind.

Since we had paint supplies spread out in the guest room, the only way Chester could be up by us was if he was in his kennel. He actually was very well behaved and napped in there while we painted.

Here's the before,

during,

and after.

On Saturday, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of corned beef hash + runny egg courtesy of Adam. Then I sanded down the spackle, we got Chester's run ready in the hallway, and we were ready to paint.

This fun project took most of the day. As usual, I did all the cutting in and Adam did the rolling.

We had painted this room right before moving in, but I wanted to move in a different direction. Here's what it looked like before -

and after -

The color turned out a bit different than I thought, but I like it. And obviously I still need to style the room! I have a new comforter and other things to put in there.

We got done around 3, so relaxed a bit before we got ready and went out to a movie. We went to 42 which just hit theaters and is about Jackie Robinson. It was a little cheesy at times, but we both enjoyed it. And we stuffed our faces with popcorn. Okay maybe it was just me... Yum!

By the time it was Sunday, we were over painting, so we decided to finish the rest next weekend and spent a lot of time on the couch/man chair. I did do some touch-ups on the guest room though so it wasn't a completely paint-free day. We also watched Trouble with the Curve that came in the mail from Netflix. Again, it was a bit cheesy but cute. I got our meal plan and grocery list done for the week, so I wasn't completely worthless. It was a miserable day outside with rain and sleet, this I discovered firsthand walking Chester around the block, so I didn't feel too bad that we did nothing.