It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Well again, my good friend Chelsea reminded me to get back to my blog.  I'll back up a little bit and discuss our Thanksgiving weekend before we get to December.  David and I were fortunate enough to get to go to Searcy for Thanksgiving.  It was very relaxing, and I was able to catch up with all my family.  We enjoyed shopping and eating, and catching up with folks.  We came back Sunday night and got back to work.

David then left on the 28th to head out on a crazy 12 day tour!  He started in Fayetteville, AR, where my good girlfriend Ashton got to see him perform as well as my cousin Lorie, and some other Harding surprises. 

Thanks Ash for sending me this picure!

The next day David was on his way to Connecticut, then DC for a couple of days (you should ask him about the private tours they got to go on!), then on to Denver and three stops in California.  He got home Monday night, the 10th, the day after our 10 inch snow storm (I dont' know if it was a snow storm, but that's what I'm calling it!). 

I woke up Sunday morning, looked out the window and considered my 30 minute commute to church, and promptly got back in bed after I saw this:

Thankfully, I did not have to get out at all yesterday, and I was really nervous about driving in the snow Monday morning.  I made it work just fine, and then picked David up from the airport Monday after work.

I should start this next section with a preface:  Since Saturday night at midnight when the snow started until Monday morning commutes to work there were 600 car accidents reported, and over 1000 cars slipped off the road, stalled, etc. Now to our story....which has a happy ending!

We had a close call on the way home from the airport, when my car decided to go ice skating on the solid sheet of ice that was 7th avenue.  We fishtailed to the right, and thankfully the cars behind me were far enough back that they stopped and waited for me to quit slip-sliding.  We ended up in the turn lane and came within 6 inches of hitting the car coming towards us.  Our brakes were locked up and we just waited to quit sliding.  Uffda!  God was definitely watching out for us.  I know I'm not used to driving in snow, but snow is a lot easier to drive in than ice rinks.  We are home safe and warm and thankful we were not standing outside in 3 degrees (feels like -8) having to deal with police and accident reports.  (And no, I'm not worried about speaking too soon, even though it's the first day of snow for me)


That's all for now!

New knitting projects

I've recently taken some knitting orders to support my habit of going to The Yarnery and buying beautiful yarn.  I've got 6 orders right now, and I've just finished the first one.  It's a baby hat that my friend Emily ordered for a Xmas gift.  It has ear flaps which I was really excited to learn how to do.  I like how the hat ended up and I LOVE the yarn!!  It's died in kettles in Uruguay. Beautiful yarn!

The other is a scarf that I knit a while ago, but just recently have been getting to wear it since it's cooled down a little bit up here.

Enjoy!

Weekend with the Fam/Cousin's wedding

Last weekend I was able to fly to Fayetteville, AR, for my cousin Lorie's wedding.  I flew out Friday morning and got to Fayetteville about noon.  My parents, sister and Nick, brother and his friend Emily picked me up at the airport at noon.  We went to the Crystal Bridges museum and ate lunch there.  The museum is free (Thanks to Wal-Mart), and it was a very cool, rainy day for early October in AR, so the museum was packed!  After the museum we got to the retreat center that we were staying in for the weekend and it was also where all of the wedding festivities were going to be.

We ate dinner Friday night at James at the Mill in Johnson, AR, with my family plus my cousin Jared (bride's brother) and his parents.  The food was absolutely delicious.  After dinner we got to our lodging for the weekend.  We were in one house with 9 bedrooms. 

Saturday morning, my mom, sister, aunt Betty, and I hosted the bridesmaid's luncheon at an Inn on the U of A's campus.  Once the luncheon was over, we went back to Mount Sequoyah to start setting up for the rehearsal dinner.  Olive Garden was catered for the dinner.  After the dinner my fam started decorating for the reception.  Oh yea, I forgot to tell you...the wedding was planned for Sunday morning at sunrise!  Well it happened to be the coldest weekend ever!  So Lorie decided to move the ceremony back to 8:00 am.  We finished decorating late Saturday night, and then went to bed.  We woke up Saturday morning and drove over to the ceremony site with our toe warmers, gloves, jackets, and blankets.  The ceremony was so pretty!  It was perfect and it was 34 degrees...but wasn't that bad!   The reception was a breakfast reception with biscuits and gravy, quiche, hashbrowns, fruits, tea, coffee, doughnuts for the grooms cake and a cake for the bride's cake. 

Sunday afternoon my family dropped me off at Ashton's to hang out with her for the afternoon before I flew out.  She took me to the airport. 

I can't even describe how excited I was to get to be with my family.  I haven't been to AR since Easter.  It was so much fun!!! We didn't sleep much because we were having fun with each, but it was totally worth it!   Here are a few pictures. 

Labor Day and a Nashville concert

Labor Day weekend David and I flew to Nashville to hang out with his family and some friends.  We had not been to Nashville since New Year's, and Lynn had moved into a new house in June.  We were so excited to get down there and see her new house!  We got there Friday night, and David's friend Denny, picked us up from the airport and took us to David's house. 

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast with David's dad at Cracker Barrel (satisfied a craving....mmm biscuits!!) and then went back to David's house to hang out with his Aunt Sandy, Suzann, his cousin Terri, Jarrod Turbeville, and another friend Vicki.  That night we met Dave and Jenn at Wild Ginger for sushi and then played a game at Jenn's house after dinner. 

Sunday morning we went to church then hung out at his Uncle Ken's house with both of his uncle's families and played volleyball in the pool.  We ate Mexican food that night with David's friend Chase.  Monday morning we woke up at ate some breakfast, then went to the mall to shop just a little bit before we went to NEWKS!!!!! for lunch that afternoon.  Those of you that know me well know how much I absolutely LOVE Newk's and how much I've missed it since we left Oxford. 

We had to leave Monday night, so it was a quick trip, but as always it was wonderful!!!


A couple of weeks after Labor Day, David was actually back in Nashville for a concert with Cantus at Lipscomb Academy.  He got to fly down a couple of days early which was great.  They had a great day at LA and had a great concert that night.  We were excited that so many HU friends were able to make it to the concert.  Nashville was the first stop on that tour.  They also went to Chicago, Purdue, and Alliance, OH. 

State Fair: Round 2

David and I went to the Minnesota State Fair on the Saturday, August 25th.  The weather had been really hot, so we were very lucky that day because it had been raining and rained a little bit while we were there.  The rain didn't dampen our activities though, we just hung out in the barns with the animals while it rained.

The first stop we made was the Andrew Zimmern booth where he was introducing his Food Truck the AZ canteen.  David is a big fan of AZ, and since he's from the Twin Cities we walked over to check out his booth.  We walked into the tent where they had multiple TVs up and they were playing some of AZ's most bizarre foods that he's tried on Bizarre Foods.

They had a table where you could vote on your favorite (grossest) food.  David told me after we walked out of the room that the man with the TV video camera was on my face the whole time we were in there.  I was literally gagging at some of the foods he had tried (scrambled pig brains, cow placenta, etc.).  We walked out of the tent and this man asked us if we would be interviewed for his new episode of Bizarre Foods.

The lady had us tell them which one was our favorite food....I told them that the pig brains grossed me out and made me think of Hannibel Lector.  I also said that I worry about Andrew eating all of this weird stuff, because I can't imagine it's ok for him.  After the interview, the lady had us sign a waiver to be on TV and then Patrick the producer came up to me and said, "Rebecca, I want you to come back at 1:00 because Andrew will be here and he will have some of his bizarre foods for you to try. I want you to come back, and I will WAIT for you!!!"

A couple of hours later, David and I went back to the AZ canteen.  Andrew was serving up pig souse (leftover pig parts ground into a loaf....blah).  We found Patrick and he took us to the front of the line and had us meet Andrew and try some of the pig sous.  The cameras were rolling on us, and I took a bite, but I wasn't a fan.  David liked it, and ate his and mine.  Then Andrew gave me some stinky cheese since I didn't like it.

I don't know if we'll be on TV or not but his Twin Cities episode of Bizarre Foods is January 23, 2013 according to IMDB.  We don't get that channel, so someone DVR it for us in case we're on there!!!

It was hilarious!!!!

4th of July/Anniversary

Here's the rundown for July....

My parents came up here on the 4th and we ate dinner at Rosa Mexicano that night and watched fireworks downtown.

We went to Stillwater, MN, and Hudson, WI on Thursday while David was rehearsing.  We shopped and had fun around Uptown on Friday.  We took David to the airport on Saturday after we dropped David off at the airport.  He was flying to Vail, CO, for 10 days for the Vail Music Festival where Cantus was artists in residence.

While David was in Vail, it was our 1st anniversary, so I flew out to Vail for the weekend to hang out with him.  We had a great time.  We took the monorail?? up to the top of hte mountain and hung out up there.  We went to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra at the outside ampitheater in Vail on Saturday night and had dinner at Sweet Basil's for our Anniversary dinner.  We even got to take home a copy of the menu that had Happy Anniversary printed at the top!!

The middle picture is at the Governor's Residence in Colorado where Cantus had a concert on that Friday night when I arrived in Denver. 

At the very end of July, David and I had some very special visitors from Oxford, MS, come up to visit us!!  Nathan, Carla, and Henley Murray came up for a long weekend.  We got to go to the zoo, the MOA, and had some delicious takeout.  it was so good to see them, and it was so much fun to show them some of our favorite things about the Twin Cities!  thanks for coming up here!!!

Way Behind...not my fault

I am way behind on my blog.  This summer I began having trouble with my blog website. It would not save my progress and allow me to post pictures. I'm hoping it is fixed and I will try to update everyone on what's been going on up here since the beginning of July.

Anyone have any advice on how to fix this issue? I try to click save and it will not save!

Dave's sister come to visit

Two weeks after David's mom came to visit us in St. Paul, his sister, Jennifer and her husband Dave, came to visit us.  We picked them up from the airport Friday afternoon and headed to The Nuk for bowling and juicy lucys.  Saturday morning we went out for breakfast at the Louisiana Cafe and then went to the Mall of America.  We rode some rides and shopped for a while.  Saturday night we went to Downtown Minneapolis and ate dinner at Hell's Kitchen.  Sunday morning we went to church, had lunch at Cafe Latte, rode bikes, hung out at the pool and had some friends over for a cookout by the pool.  Monday morning, David had to go to work, so Jenn and Dave and I went to Uptown and shopped at Calhoun Square.  We picked David up from rehearsal and went to the Twins Baseball game that night.  The weather was perfect. 

Tuesday morning I had to go to work, so David took them to the airport.  We had so much fun, and we were so glad they finally got to see a little bit of our life up here!  Hope you can come back soon!!!

Covers with Lynn

Lynn (David's mom) arrived on Thursday afternoon, June 7th, for a combination trip.  Cantus was having their 5th annual Covers: A Pops Concert the 7th-10th at the Cowles Center in downtown Minneapolis.  David's birthday is June 9th, so she wanted to be here for that too.  David had a show Thursday night, so Lynn and I just hung out at the apartment and had dinner.  After the show we went down to Rosa Mexicano (across the street from the venue) and met up with the Cantus guys and the administration staff of the group for a going away party for Erin.  Erin was the audience development associate, and she moved to Colorado.  She will be missed.

I went to work on Friday, and David took Lynn to Sculpture Garden, Lake Calhoun, Mill City Museum, and lunch at Joe's Garage.


 














That night Lynn and I met 5 of my coworkers downtown at The News Room for dinner before the Cover's show.  The show was fabulous!! They sang a variety songs such as:   "Listen to the Music", "All Night Long", Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", John Lennon's "Baby, I'm Amazed", Mark Broussard's "Home", an acappella version of "Hallelujah", and many more.  It was so much fun.  They had a band on stage with them consisting of 2 percussionists, a keyboard player, cellist, and sitar/guitar player (amazing).  They sang a couple acappella songs, but the majority of the songs were accompanied by the band.  I can't wait for next year's Covers concert. 

Saturday morning we ate breakfast at the Louisiana Cafe, went to the Farmer's Market, and went to the pool at the apartment for the afternoon.  That night one of my coworkers came with me and Lynn to the show.  David's birthday was Saturday, so after the show we met some of the Cantus guys at Brit's Pub in downtown Minneapolis.  


Sunday morning we went to church and had lunch at Punch pizza on Grand Ave.  That night was the last Covers show, and Lynn and I stayed home after going on a walk and grocery shopping.  We watched Sneakers on Netflix and sat through a torrential downpour.

Monday morning I went to work, and David took his mom to Stillwater, MN, and Hudson, WI, for lunch and the afternoon.