Weekend Recap

We had a great weekend - I hope you did too!

On Friday, Linnea and Jeromy picked me up from the train station after work, and we headed down to our friends' the Retkas' house. They are friends we met at church. They have since moved, and no longer go to Immanuel, so we've been trying to be good about getting together with them.

Linnea, and their girls Myah and Ani, had a great time playing. We had pizza for dinner, and enjoyed catching up. The evening went too fast! Here's hoping that we can do it again soon! We headed home, got Linnea to bed, and spent the rest of the night relaxing.

On Saturday we woke up to rain, which was particularly disappointing, given that Linnea and I had an outside playdate planned with some co-worker friends and their kiddos. Thankfully we thought ahead, and had a back-up plan set-up just in case. So instead, Linnea and I went to my co-worker Lindsay's house. In total there were 10 kiddos (all under 4) there, with their mamas - so it was definitely a full and busy house! They played well together, and we all had a great time. The kiddos had a quick lunch of mac and cheese, fruit, and chicken nuggets, and then we headed home.

7 of the 10...not pictured are the 3 babies. Impressed that we got everyone looking!

When we got home, I put Linnea down for a nap, and Jeromy and I had a nice lunch. He had gone out geocaching while Linnea and I were play-dating, and stumbled across a good BBQ place. It was nice to have a quiet lunch with him - we don't get to do that very often.

I took a little snooze while Linnea napped. Thankfully, Linnea's been taking better naps since switching to her big girl bed, which has been nice for everyone.

We ran out quick for a couple errands, including some groceries for a dinner cooked by ME! This is a rare occasion. I'm quite lucky in that Jeromy is pretty much exclusively the cook in our house. And a good one at that. But I try to challenge myself, and cook on my own every once in a while, since it's not a forte of mine. An item on my 14 in 2014 list is to make 20 new recipes - for this meal, I used 2! BAM! I made an Italian meatloaf, and a creamy orzo dish. Everything turned out well! Woo hoo!

After dinner, I scooted out and met Kirstyn, Jackie, and Sarah at the movie theatre to watch The Fault in Our Stars. As I've said before, I'm a HUGE fan of this book, and its author, John Green. I thought the movie was well done. It's always hard when favorite books are made into movies, because they never quite compare. Like I said, they did a good job being true to the book, and it was well done. Man, it's a tear jerker. I am not a movie crier, but I cried a lot. Such a beautiful, heartbreaking story, If you plan to see the movie, just do me a favor...read the book first.

On Sunday we got up and went to church. After church we stopped for a couple geocaches (it was beautiful outside!), hit the playground, and then swung through Costco for a few things. We got home, had lunch, and put Linnea down for a nap. I got a couple things done around the house, and managed to relax a bit too.

When Linnea got up from her nap, we got our stuff together, and headed out to Rib Fest in Eden Prairie. Rib Fest is an annual event hosted by the EP Noon Rotary, of which my dad is a member. It's an awesome event - a huge rib feed (and they are seriously some of the very best ribs ever), with some great jazz music on the side.

My mom and Linnea enjoying Rib Fest

Typically we hang out for a couple hours, and feast on ribs. This year was a bit different because on Saturday my cousin's wife messaged us to invite us to a soft opening of my cousin's new restaurant! My cousin T.J. is a chef, and he has been working hard on opening Tiny Diner, which has been getting a lot of buzz in the Twin Cities. This was definitely not something we wanted to pass up!

So after an hour or so at Rib Fest, and stashing our ribs in a cooler, we headed over to the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis. My cousin's wife Sarah, and their girls, along with my cousin Mike (T.J.'s brother), and his wife Cathy, and their daughter Evelyn were there - such a fun group! It was great to see them, and so fun to try all the tasty dishes Tiny Diner had to offer. The food was GREAT - my favorites were the onion rings, beef tenderloins, lamb chops, and carrot cake. Oh man, the carrot cake. We had a really great time!

I'm so proud of my awesome cousin. He's worked really hard, and really made a name for himself in a really competitive foodie city. Yay, T.J.! Everyone should check out Tiny Diner when it opens on Wednesday. And give your compliments to Chef T.J.!

We got home from dinner, and got Linnea to bed, and got ourselves ready for the week. It was a great weekend! We've got a short work week and long weekend coming up! Woo hoo!