Jerseylicious

For the long Memorial Day weekend, our friends Mike and Dana flew in to visit from the great state of New Jersey.  I decided that's the way to enjoy Memorial Day - stay home and have friends come to you.  We focused on having a good time all weekend and showing our friends all that Minneapolis has to offer.  Other years we either travel (exhausing) or spend the time running errands and doing projects (also exhausting.)  We tossed around some Snooki jokes and a few "you betcha's" and ended up having an absolute blast exploring our new home state with the Repka's.

Turns out that "having a drink" is a great way to catch up and explore different areas of town ... so, here are a few group shots of the four of us ... drinking our way through Minneapolis. 

Rooftop bar of a swanky new place in Uptown ...

Patio on Lake Minnetonka ...

Bar in the 'burbs with live music ... (Kyle's favorite)

Dive bar by our house ... notice the caboose in the background ... classy ... (Tracie's favorite, so I must be classy as well)

And even at the movies ... we were seeing The Hangover Two so it was a requirement that we were drinking ... 

 

For the parents and adult readers ... keep in mind that there were THREE days in the weekend, so the drinks were responsibily spread out over the course of time.  For the friends and younger (but over 21 readers) ... you know you want to visit now - we'll show you a good time!
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We even found time to catch the horse races at Canterbury Park.

Beautiful horses ...

 ... and cute asses.  Dana and I enjoyed the show.

We ended the weekend with a great home cooked meal and S'mores by the fire as we christened our fire pit.  It really felt like we were camping rather than hanging out in our own backyard - love it!

 

Paisley fell in love with our guests, as she tends to do.






"Mom, can't they stay?!"

You know the weekend is a success when one day later, you've already booked a second trip to hang out again.  Thanks for making the trip, Mike and Dana, and see you in Wisconsin in October!

Watch Out World

Last weekend, Kyle and I were in Madison for his cousin Nate's graduation.  I have to admit, it was a little touch and go there for a while ... but Nate turned things around and surprised all of us by earning a college degree in only 4 years.  He followed in his cousin's footsteps and will be working for Coyote Logistics in Chicago, starting this July.  We are so proud.  If he excels as a logistics professional (which I'm sure he will) Kyle and I plan to take full credit.  If he falls on his face, we had nothing to do with it.  ;)

Congratulations, Nate!  And, welcome to the real world!  You will soon learn that it's not nearly as fun as college life.  But, it'll have to do.

Death and Destruction

Yes, she looks sweet ... but our little Paisley has unleashed her inner "animal" on her toys - pun intended. 

Here she is with what used to be her stuffed dog, Hopkins.  Paisley had been using Hopkins as her pillow since she joined our family, always being gentle with him.  Apparently, she wasn't sleeping as well as she wanted to so she took it out on her pillow.

Poor Hopkins, scattered around Paisley's crate ...

The headless chicken, which you are all familiar with from a previous blog ...

Here's what's left of her bear, her very first toy.  She pulled a Dahmer and ate his face ...

Her Princess did not get the royal treatment ...

She broke her alligators neck within the first 5 minutes ...

And, while we all know most toys are made in China these days, no joke, we found a chopstick inside of this one ... I guess you could say Paisley has a secret love of Chinese food ...

She is still a sweet little puppy, just very passionate about playing.  We're just thankful she hasn't waged war on our furniture ... yet.  :)

I mean, look at this face ... she can basically get away with anything ... and she knows it.