Category: Travels

Duluth Tall Ships- August 2016

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In June this year, I bought tickets for us to go to the Duluth Tall Ships Festival, it had been a few years since the ships had been Up North, I really wanted tickets for the event in August. There were about 8 ships that came into the harbor. On Thursday, they had the Parade of Sails, where we got to see all the ships come into the harbor under the  Aerial Lift Bridge with their sails open. We got down to the lift bridge around 10am and waited until about 3:00pm. It was a hot day, but towards the end, the weather was starting to change and a storm was rolling in. Some of the ships you could tour or sail on. I bought the fast pass tickets to be able to tour the ships. We got to tour 3 of the ships, one of ships was so popular that some people waited hours to see it-glad we had fast pass tickets!

Here are a handful of photos. You couldn’t get a “great” photo as there was so many people, lightening and using a iPhone played a role.

We did get to see all the ships and everything we wanted in Thursday and Friday. So Saturday was a free day for us to explore Duluth.

 

Grab Your Spoon & Fork

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Here a few recipes that we have made in the last month or so.

img_0818 This was chicken and lime soup. This was good, but to give more substance to the soup, I added rice. Carl did say, next time if I make it, I have to thicken the sauce a little more. It was fresh and light tasting.

This recipe is from Budget Bytes, I love her blog, I have cooked other recipes from there before.

Budget Bytes-Chicken and Lime Soup

 

img_1128Last week, I found this recipe on Pinterest. Carl really likes orange chicken, this was easy, made a lot and I made it gluten free. I liked that the sauce was only 3-ingredients. I did use the whole jar of orange marmalade, I didn’t want a strong BBQ sauce taste. This is from the Blog Crafty Morning, I haven’t cooked from there before.

Crafty Morning-3-Ingredient Orange Chicken Sauce Recipe

 

I had to share these photos from August when my family got together at my parents house up north! So all my sisters are amazing cooks and I love when they share that with us. 🙂 She made us homemade individual pizzas.

 

They were good, she used roasted tomatoes, sausage, fresh goat and mozzarella cheese, fig spread and arugula!

We love eating! 😀

North Shore Sunshine…

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The last weekend of July, Carl and I went to Duluth-North Shore to snap a few photos. I am looking for photos to hang in the basement and possibly a 3-piece canvas upstairs in the kitchen. I mentioned going to the places where we did our First Look photos on our wedding. We got to Duluth early, we weren’t prepared for what we saw. I knew a few weeks before they had a big storm with at least 100mph winds. But when we got to the park where we started our photos. large trees where down so we didn’t get some of the photos we wanted. The first photo below shows the first spot we saw each other, there is a large tree down in the spot where we stood. We worked our way around Duluth and Lake Superior for the day! We had beautiful weather!

Here are some of the cell phone photos I snapped. the good photos Carl took are on the laptop and my brother let us use his camera, which was awesome!

 

I know if you follow my Blog, I have a handful of posts from Duluth-North Shore. I love going to the North Shore, It makes me so happy, relaxed and makes me forget the fast pace of life for a short period of time. I have so many childhood memories that I will never forget and it has become a great place that Carl and I have made memories. It really does have a special place in my heart!

We are heading back to Duluth this week for the Tall Ships to sail in! Can’t wait!

Sunshine and Smiles!

Cheers!

-Blondie!

 

 

Summertime Sunshine

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Here are a few photos and adventures that we have had since summer has started!

Wedding Season-East Coast

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The weekend after our housewarming/surprise birthday party and Carl’s actual birthday, we flew out to North Carolina-Blowing Rock for my sister-in-laws wedding. It was a quick trip there and back but was good to see Carl’s sister get married, all of the family and get out to the east coast.

The wedding was at the Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock, NC. It was about a 2hr drive north of Charolette. The drive up there was pretty cool with the green lush mountains. There was some road construction that made us feel like we were back in the Midwest.

On Friday night, everyone was hungry and needed a drink, so we ventured to town and hung out at the Blowing Rock Brewery. It was a pretty neat place because we sat outside and it was good for people watching.

On Saturday, Carl and I went into town to grab lunch and we stumbled upon this place- Rustique  the food was fantastic. In the picture above I had a Trout Reuben- it was cornmeal crusted with gruyere, sauce, coleslaw and pancetta and Carl had pulled pork! It was so good, Carl tried my trout and said it was pretty good.

The centerpieces are part from my friend Teri’s wedding and Carl’s sister bought some from her so they made the trip from MN to WI all the way to NC.

I love the photos of Carl and I, we don’t always get photos of us so these turned out great. My dress was a coral color and Carl’s tie was a navy color, we coordinated pretty well. And a surprise to Carl’s family- he was dancing and they were surprised. Oh yes! Carl dances and we may have shut down a few wedding dances before! 🙂

It was a good weekend and wedding full of memories, family, love and laughter!

When we woke up on Sunday morning, it was so chilly, we felt like we were back in the Midwest! It was cold!

Cheers!!!

-Blondie!

Carl’s 30th Birthday!

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Carl’s birthday was on a Tuesday and I found a cool place to take him too that we haven’t been to before. I heard on the radio about a place in the metro that is replicated after the speakeasy’s. In order to get in, you have to find the “red door”!

The place is called the Volstead House, the atmosphere was really neat, they even dressed from the era as well.

 

Later that week, we met my friend Teri because it was her birthday over the weekend and we weren’t going to be in town.

I was super excited to see her and was super excited to get mussels!

IMG_0476 I love me some seafood!

It was a busy weekend/week/next weekend! But all fun!

I have some special people who have B-Days!!

A Little Of This… A Little Of That…

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Here are some photos over the last month or so. We have been pretty busy with house stuff and needing to be places. We had sisters weekend, our annual dinner with our friends and did a few house projects.

Entry Decore

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We finally have started looking for a few decorating items. With our main floor living space being kind of small we wanted a nice mirror to make the room look bigger. We found a 6ft mirror from Kirkland’s we brought it home and the style looked weird; however, we knew the size was right for the space.

Here are the photos of what we decided on!

 

When I did research on the mirror, the size we wanted was running about $400-$500 and believe you, me we were not going to spend that. So I found the one in the pictures from Kirkand’s for $85 for sale. Super awesome find!

Only in the Midwest

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This last week was a crazy week, I put on a lot of miles for work and hand way too much windshield time. The weather was crazy too, which is expected in the midwest. I was wearing a t-shirt and capris on Sunday and then Wednesday I spent almost 2hrs and 40mins in the car in a blizzard trying to get home from south of the metro. It was miserable! Then Thursday I sat in the car for 6hrs for a work presentation. Needless to say I was ready for Friday and my brain felt mushy.

Here is the evidence of my Wednesday drive.

 

This past week we got to experience some fun Midwestern past times.

On Friday night we met my best friend and her husband for meat raffle. We were sitting at a hot table because we won three times for meat and a handful of times for free drinks too! It was fun!

IMG_0147 we won one package of steaks

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On Monday night we met with my sister for burgers and a little bingo. We weren’t so successful there but it was fun!

 

Only in the Midwest!

 

Feeling A Little Shaggy

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A few weeks ago we ordered a area rug from Overstock. I got an email an hour later saying that there was an inventory error and they didn’t have the rug. Which stinks because it was our first purchase for the house. I put the name of the rug into google and it popped up on amazon. So we ordered it from there. I was anxious to get it.

IMG_0129 IMG_0130 IMG_0176

We love the rug! Its nice and soft and fits in the area perfectly. Arie did not like laying on the hard floor but loves the rug! Little by little it’s coming along.

Two Saturdays ago, we went to go see my father-in-law as he is retiring and closing the family jewelry store. It is bittersweet for the family; however, a great adventure is ahead of my in-laws now that they both will be retired. We went Friday so we could see him and then went back Saturday with my sister and friend so they could check it out and we helped with customers. After, Carl, Me, my sister and mother-in-law went out for dinner and went to the local winery! That was a lot of fun and the wine was good! Carl and I had pizza, my sister had a panini and my mother-in-law had oven baked parmesan what was amazing and I am still trying to find a way to re-create it! I am drooling just thinking of it.

Dancing Dragonfly Winery

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We had a beautiful day!