Fun Weekend with Family

We finished off May by having our first of 3 summer visitors.  My mom, dad, brother, and his girlfriend Emily made a trip up here for the weekend.  I picked up M&D at the airport Thursday night and we made a stop at the Yarnery and grabbed some dinner at Brasa where we were able to get some to-go food so Bobby, Emily and David would have some food when they got here/home.  Bob and Em got here later Thursday night.  David was at rehearsal until 10:30. 

Friday morning we woke up and ate breakfast at Egg & I then headed towards Prospect Park for a view of Minneapolis.  After that we headed to the Sculpture Gardens and then let Bob and Emily go to the Mill City Museum while we walked along the Stone Arch Bridge.  

We headed back to the apartment to get ready for David’s Covers concert that night.  We ate dinner at Ike’s Food & Cocktails and walked across the street for the concert in Downtown Minneapolis.  The concert was wonderful.   

 

Saturday morning we headed to downtown St. Paul to do a little shopping and exploring then to the Cathedral.  We then ate lunch at my favorite place, Café Latte.  (where we take everyone that comes here) After lunch we shopped on Grand Ave and then went to the Swedish Institute, which was really cool.  Saturday night, David had another concert, so while he was there we ate dinner at Ngon a delicious Vietnamese bistro.  We had picked up some cheese at the St. Paul Cheese shop, so we enjoyed some cheese and bread after David got home and played Ticket to Ride. 

Sunday morning we went to church and then ate lunch at Cosetta’s Italian market before heading to the airport.  We dropped M&D off then took B&E to the Mall of America.  They rode some of the rides and shopped a little before we dropped them off at the airport.  It was a great trip, and we were so glad they came.

Memorial Day Trip

We decided to take advantage of the 4-day weekend and headed to Madison, WI, and Chicago.  We left Friday afternoon and stayed in a hotel in the heart of Madison.  We got there late Friday night, so we waited until Saturday to explore the city.  We ate a delicious breakfast at Sunroom Café.  David has told me that Madison is the Austin, TX, of the North, and he was correct.  Across the street from our breakfast restaurant was a store called Sunshine Daydream full of flowy, tie-dyed broom skirts, peace signs, and colorful headbands.   

We walked through UW’s campus, which was beautiful and then headed down State St towards the Capitol building.  We took some tips from a book that Rachel and Nick gave David for Christmas called 36 Hours, which goes through cities throughout the US and Canada and what to do on a weekend trip there.  We headed towards Monona Terrace, which is a community events center that Frank Lloyd Wright designed but was not build until after he died.  We walked through the farmer’s market that is around the Capitol building and tried some cheese.  We ate lunch at Old Fashioned (another tip from our book) and enjoyed delicious brats, cheese curds, and local beer which were all delicious.

 

 The kegs at UW's Union Terrace right next to one of the lakes that borders Madison.  All of the students favorite place to hang out on campus.

 Of course, you can't go to Madison without a protest....this one was about Monsanto.

On a dock next to Monona Terrace. (on the other lake that borders Madison)

We loaded up the car and headed down the Interstate towards Chicago.  We checked into our hotel (Hotel Allegro…another 36 Hours tip) and walked around Chicago until our dinner reservations Saturday night.  We woke up Sunday, grabbed breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and walked to Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower).  We beat the crowd which was great, so we made our way to the top and had a great view of the city since the weather was perfect.  

 We then walked over towards Michigan avenue and decided to visit the Planetarium.  We’ve both been to Chicago multiple times, so we enjoyed doing things neither of us had done before.  We finished at the Planetarium and made our way up the Magnificent Mile and had dinner at Lou Malnati’s for some Chicago-style pizza.  We then headed towards Millenium Park for a free concert that night and then walked to Navy Pier since David had not been there.  I got my Garrett’s popcorn and we made our way back to the hotel. We walked 10 miles on Sunday and saw the movie Divergent being filmed. 

Monday morning we woke up at headed out of the city towards Logan Square and had breakfast at Longman & Eagle (36 Hours) where David enjoyed chick and waffles with sweet potato and pork belly hash and I ate smoke salmon eggs benedict on pumpernickel bread with thousand island hollandaise sauce.  It was AMAZING!

It was a great finish to the weekend.  We drove back to St. Paul Monday afternoon. 

It was a great finish to the weekend.  We drove back to St. Paul Monday afternoon.

 

Stripes and Pom Poms

I wanted to learn how to stripe a hat....I also wanted to learn how to do a pom-pom. So naturally, I learned how to do both.

I also made a very warm and thick hat for David.

David and I drove to Mankato, MN, with Ryan and Regan to watch HU play in the NCAA Div 2 tournament.  They won the first round game (for the 1st time), so we thought we should make the 1 1/2 hr trek down there. I got to see my friend Lauren Woods and enjoyed the game, even though we lost.  The sad part...I had to call our friends at church in Woodbury to borrow an HU shirt!!!!  

Happy Birthday To Me!

I had an absolutely fabulous birthday this year.  It started with a birthday cake at Life Group on Tuesday (Thanks Regan, it was delicious!) 

I felt very loved from the banner at work (I don't care that we put it up for everyone's bday) to the awesome packages in the mail.  

My mom does love to wrap gifts, and she loves to do bows.  

David also woke up at 5:30 to make breakfast for me.

We finished the night by eating dinner at Broder's Pasta Bar, which has been on my 'want-to-eat-list' since last June. It did not disappoint. 

I took my tiramasu to go, but the waiter did stick the candle in there for us.  

Thanks everyone for the wonderful birthday!

Meeting Dylan

David and I flew out on February 28th which also happened to be Lynn's birthday.  We got there around noon and headed to Jenn's house to meet baby Dylan! We were very excited.  I pretty much held him the entire weekend.  I figured I had the right to, since I won't see him for a while.  

 

That night we ate dinner at Jenn's house and passed Dylan around.  Friday afternoon we ran some errands with Jenn and ate dinner for Lynn's birthday at The Red Pony in Franklin, TN, which was absolutely delicious.

Family photo at The Red Pony....sorry Dylan we caught you mid-yawn. 

Saturday morning, David's uncles and their families came over to Lynn's house (Jenn, Dave, and baby Dylan spent the night at Lynn's too) for breakfast.  We just hung around the house that day and picked up pizza and watched a movie that night.  We flew out mid-morning on Sunday.  We were so excited that we were able to get down there to meet Dylan before he gets too big!  We've enjoyed facetiming with him since then.

A Fun-Filled February

Our February started out with the birth of our sweet nephew Dylan Thomas Agee, born on February 9th.  David and I bought plane tickets for the last weekend of February to go to Nashville to meet our new nephew.  We were selfishly excited that Dylan was over a week late because that meant he was going to be even "fresher" (David's words) when met him.

In the meantime, David was on tour for a lot of February, making stops in Kansas City, Notre Dame (the school), and Fort Worth.  David got to hang out with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandma in Fort Worth.

While David was on tour, my mom flew up here for a quick weekend.  The snow cancelled her flights for Thursday night, but she made it here Friday am.  We enjoyed our weekend together by shopping at MOA, lunch at Salut, shopping on Grand Ave, which of course includes a stop at The Yarnery.  Mom picked up a couple of knitting projects, and I picked up some yarn for a hat since I had just finished my new infinity scarf which I love!!!!

We ate dinner at the Mall then picked up some yummy salted caramel ice cream from Izzy's on the way home.  Saturday we shopped some more and worked on our knitting projects a little bit then grabbed a bite to eat on Grand then came home to watch a movie and knit.  We went out for pizza at Pizza Luce and mom got a delicious pizza with garlic mashed potatoes as the "sauce".  It was delicious!

Sunday morning we went to church and then had lunch at our favorite place, Cafe Latte before heading to the airport.  It was a quick trip, but I was so glad she could come.

Post Christmas (kind of a pun)

I feel like J.Cliff will like the name of this post.

David and I were fortunate enough to get to go home for Christmas.  I flew to Dallas on the 21st and met my family there for a couple of days while David still had two shows here.  We had a great time in Dallas.  We went to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science which just opened in December.  It was an excellent way to spend our afternoon.  The museum had some fun exhibits.  We got to experience a 9.0 earthquake and tried to pick up a bowling ball on earth, the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.  If you're going to Dallas or live there, I suggest going to the museum.

I was pretty excited because I go to hang out with Hampton, Fletcher, and SammyJo (Emily's dog) all weekend.  No I was not sick like I look in this picture, this was my bed since we have 9 people at Grandma's. 

Sunday morning (the 23rd) after church I flew to Nashville to meet David and his family for Christmas.  We had a great time there.  It was very relaxing and we got to see Les Mis, which (forgive me, JCG) I loved.  Of course I was excited to open presents, but I was also very excited to finally give Jennifer the sweater and hat I made for Baby Agee.

I can't wait to see it on my niece or nephew.  Jenn is due Feb 1st, so we are keeping our phones close by at all times!!!

We rented a car and drove to Searcy on the 27th.  We returned the car at the airport, and Robert's girlfriend, Emily, was flying into Little Rock when we arrived, so Rachel and Nick picked us up and we made it to our house in time for our Searcy Christmas!  The next couple of days we went shopping, relaxed and played A LOT of board games.  We rotated between Ticket to Ride, Dominion, Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and the classic Scrabble.

Robert and Emily had to leave on Saturday, and Rachel and Nick had to go to Dallas for a wedding (they were gone for barely over 24 hours).  So Friday night Emily had the idea to go bowling.  Neither mom or dad have ever been in the Searcy bowling alley.  It was pretty hilarious.  Mom started out struggling, and then in the next game got a strike!!!!!

 New Year's Eve:  Mom, Rachel, and I were running errands and we went to the grocery store to get some stuff for dinner.  We walked in and ran into 4 fun people that I was so excited to get to see.  I think I'm going to have to make Harp's part of my list when I'm home because you will undoubtedly run into someone.  It made my day to run into those people, and what was so hilarious is that Lauren Wood's baby was wearing the hat that I knitted for him!!!! 

David and I flew back to MSP on New Year's Day, and I started back to work the next day.  David had another week off, so he used his time wisely guitar shopping.  He got some money for Christmas to put towards his new guitar, and he was quite excited when he found the one he wanted.

Not a very good picture, but you get the idea.  He's pretty much been playing it every day since Christmas.  We had a wonderful Christmas break, but I know I'm happy here because I was actually ready to come back home (MSP) and get back to our routine.  I've decided we will probably have a lot of places that we will call 'home' over the years.  Very thankful for the friends and memories that are made in each place!


Happy New Year Ya'll!!!