minnesota!

i have neglected the blog. it is somewhat boring to upload photos, so by the end of all that i just want to get away from the computer and do something else! hence, not enough blogging. but photos are better than words anyway.

i had a great time running back to minnesota last weekend, although my time there was really fleeting. i think i woke up about 2:45 am friday morning in order to get ready, drink lots of coffee and drive to el paso for a 6 am flight to minneapolis via denver. the plane to denver was teeny tiny, with only one stewardess and about 14 rows of seats. that was kinda weird. but the flight(s) went well. i met an army guy and hung out with him on my layover in denver, he had a double whisky at 8am! he was just so excited because he was going home to be with his wife who was about to have a baby. anyways it's funny who you meet on planes. on the way to san diego, joe and i were talking to this guy who joe swears was ray manzarek from the doors. i dont think so, but he was certainly a weird character.

back to the story...my mom picked me up at the airport and we went directly to International Falls. I literally went from one border to the other...jaurez, mexico is right next to el paso, and i could see canada across the river from the hotel we stayed at in IF. We got there at 6:30 pm friday, just in time to shower and go to the groom’s dinner at a resort where andy used to work. that’s where i took the photos of the houseboats. after dinner, which included wild rice....yea, minnesota! we went to a bonfire at andy’s dad’s place on rainy lake. i was exhausted by this point so my mom and i went back to go to bed early-ish.

the wedding was saturday at 6. it was a good size, and was outside in the gardens overlooking rainy river. the ceremony was short, sweet and simple, and luckily it didn’t rain at all (i know the rest of minnesota got lots of rain last weekend but we were so far north it missed us.) the reception was fun, with good food...even enough meatless options for me. i drank more than my fair share of gin and tonics, and danced a lot with my relatives, which doesn’t happen often enough. my cousin kim’s daughter, emily, stole the show though....she was dancing like crazy. a total diva...it was really cute. i posted one photo of emily and her brothers by the flowers outside. it was so nice to see everyone, and especially nice to hang out with my mom so much. and reece, he’s super well behaved too so it’s really fun to have him around. too bad joe couldn’t make it, but the flights were so dang expensive.


*reece is always this happy...which is why i just had to post this photo!

sunday we got up early again, ate breakfast and hit the road for the loooonng drive back to minneapolis. we stopped at the wellstone memorial on the way back, which is right by the place their plane went down...i think just outside evelyth. i posted pics of that too. i thought they did a great job with it, very tasteful. it reminded me of when it happened; we went to the memorial service at the U of M (the controversial one) but that was such a crazy thing that happened...it was really upsetting, right before the elections. my mom and i were big fans of wellstone, so that was a great thing to see. so then back on to my mom’s house...we watched ‘transamerica’, which was pretty good, then went to bed only to get up at 4:30 am to catch my flight back to NM. when i got in to el paso, joe was waiting in the parking lot nearby, but the jeep wouldn’t start. so we had to get a jump. good thing we brought jumper cables down here with us! by that time, i was ready to get home and take a nap.

so that’s that. i’ve been working overtime all week, trying to make up the hours i missed on friday. think i’ll be doing overtime for awhile. we spent three hours last night clearing the crazy weeds out of our driveway. some were literally 8 feet tall. there is a weed ordinance in the city right now because they are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and they give people allergies or something. west nile is a big issue right now down here. the rain makes it almost as bad as minnesota mosquito-wise. there are literally people on weed patrol giving people citations. so we figured we’d better do it. that’s when we found 2 praying mantises (manti?) in the weeds. that was super weird and we were really excited about it, hence the photos. but apparently they are normal here or something.

other than that, i have been working after school with elementary kids, which is a nice change of pace. i’ll write more about details about my job soon, it’ll take a lot of explaining. we’re going on another hike this sunday, so i’m sure i’ll have another photo album up soon!

a bientot