We Interrupt This Tribute to 80's Music Videos...

...for a quick blog entry on Amy's visit!

She arrived on Thursday morning, bright and early. We headed almost IMMEDIATELY to the new location of Haupt Antieks. They are now located in a strip mall in Apple Valley. The shop is still nice, but was REALLY crowded (first day open), and the place lacks the charm it had when it was in the old house and back shed in Rosemount.

After the antique store, we went to the General Store on highway 7 (NO IDEA which suburb it's in...). I found a few fun things...hadn't been there in ages, so it was nice to see what they had (during the non-Christmas season!).

I spent the afternoon at home catching up on stuff (and NOT working on my Gilbert & Sullivan music...as I SHOULD have!), then went back over to Robin and Dave's. We went to Fuji-Ya on Lake Street for Japanese food, and then to Cafe Latte for dessert after that.

Friday, we met EARLY (again...what's up with that??!!) to drive to Camp Lebanon to pick up Emilie after a week at jr. high church camp. It's a LONG drive to Camp Lebanon (St. Cloud is HALF WAY THERE!).

After the closing camp rally, we headed back to St. Cloud, and had lunch at Granite City (where my bad restaurant karma CONTINUED...they had to remake my lunch because the first attempt at the flatbread pizza didn't work...or something like that...).
After lunch, we headed to the big craft outlet store (I found some stuff to decoupage for the Christmas "travel tree" I'm working on), and made a BRIEF stop at the outlet mall in Albertville.
Friday night, Duane and I took Amy to Cosetta's for Italian food (the Nordhues hosted their dinner group that night), and then went to the Titanic exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota. I've always been FASCINATED by the sinking of the Titanic, and the exhibit and IMAX movie were AMAZING.

It seems so BIZARRE to me that things like a pair of pants, socks, crystal water vases, suitcases, shoes, and glass dishes can be recovered from a ship that slammed into the ocean floor at about 50 miles an hour, THOUSANDS of feet below the surface of the ocean, after 90 years, and these things are still intact and look like you could pick them up and use them.

The exhibit was REALLY well done. As you enter, you get a "boarding pass" which lists a passenger on the ship. As you go through the displays, you try to figure out if you survived the sinking. My character was male, and in 2nd class, so I was fairly certain I/he was a goner. Sure enough...he didn't survive. I think of the three of us, Amy's was the only passenger to survive...very sobering, very interesting, very well done...

The Nordhues dinner party was still in "full swing" when we got back to the house, so Amy and I sat on the sun porch and chatted for awhile, then I came home to go to bed...it was a LONG day!

Saturday, we headed to the farmers market (not QUITE so bright and early, and, in fact, an hour later than planned. Robin called at 11:15 Friday night to say that her dinner guests had just left, and that instead of going at 8:00, we'd be going at 9:00. Earlier in the evening, I'd asked Duane if he wanted to go, and he thought NOT, because of the early hour, but, left it that if he DID manage to get up, he'd come over. After getting Robin's late call, I left a note on my door, with the time change, in case he got up. Well...OF COURSE he did, and wasn't TOO HAPPY that we'd changed the time, when he'd managed to get up, get dressed, and get out the door...oops!).

Anyway...we LOVE to take visitors to the Minneapolis farmers market, because it's such a cool place to go! The food is awesome (we ALWAYS start with a breakfast sausage at the Tollefson Family Meat stand, then work our way through pastries, coffee, and the olive stand as well! I found some rhubarb that still looked pretty good, and hope to make a rhubarb cream pie later today...we'll see if THAT happens! I also found a GORGEOUS bunch of summer flowers for $5.00...what a deal!

Oh those farmer's market breakfast sausages...YUM!!!

Duane found coffee cake!

Awww...Davey sharing his corn!

Posing by the big chicken!

Nice, Davey...

That's better!

After the farmers market, Duane and I came back to Eagan. I went to the grocery store to pick up stuff to make dinner. Found a recipe for Chicken Alfredo Lasagna (from that AWESOME "9X13: The Pan that Can" cookbook). It's definitely going into the 2nd edition of FLAIR (although I'm afraid it's not going to be a published work, as FLAIR I is...the website on which I created it seems to no longer be functional. I'm hoping it's a temporary glitch, but their e-mail links aren't working either, so I'm fearing the worst...!).

Everyone came over around 5:00, and we had a GREAT evening chatting and eating! To complete our evening, Duane and I even went out after everyone left, in the Riviera, to cruise the strip in front of Porky's Drive In on University Avenue. APPARENTLY, it's the thing to do if you own a classic car. There's a car show in town this weekend, so there were even more classics than usual on the strip. People were lined up, sitting in lawn chairs, all up and down the street...CRAZY!!!

Today, we met up LATE (finally!), and headed over to the Midtown Global Market to look around, and have lunch. I was unhappy to find that the oriental market I used to shop at is no longer in business, but I DID found some AWESOME Jamaican pocket sandwiches at one of the booths. The girls had pasta from the Italian stand. Dave, Robin, and Amy had seafood tacos from one of the Mexican booths. (Dave, ever the food adventurer, had octopus tacos...mmmmmm....).






After the Midtown, we went back to Robin and Daves for awhile. Amy left for the airport around 1:30, and now I'm back home catching up on laundry, and all the other stuff that I haven't managed to get to yet this weekend.

Hope YOU had a weekend full of fun and friends too!