Our week

This week we explored Bush Lake (just a little because it only had a beach, not a trail), then moved on to Hyland Lake and went for a jog around the lake.




It was beautiful


and we talked about Shubh's interview that he had earlier that day for an Assistant GM with Appleby's. The downside? This is the first lake we've encountered mosquitoes.

Last night we hit the art crawl in downtown St. Paul. We started off at a local bar to celebrate Shubh's job offer from Arby's as a GM (yay!) and the fact that he talked the guy up an extra $5K and still hasn't accepted yet since he'd prefer the Appleby's job. The bar had 1/2 price drinks and free popcorn for happy hour, 4-9, and we had a nice visit with some cyclist who gave us the low-down on the ski hills in MN. Found out we'll have to drive 4.5 hours each way to get to a decent ski bump.

Once we hit the first stop on the art crawl we realized it wasn't just an art gallery in the building, it was the entire building! It's in an area where artists live or have their studios, and everyone opens their doors. The first and third buildings we stopped in each had 5 floors, the second building had 8, and they were all old historic buildings. We only hit 3 of the 14 or so stops on the map!

The first person we talked to on our first stop is a frame-maker (yes, feel free to correct me if you know what he would really be called) and he gave us a personal tour of the back of the shop, where they do all the work. It was beautiful stuff, and they restore old frames AND paintings. Very neat to see and hear his stories. The rest of the tour got a little weird as far as the art was concerned, but we did meet a woman who is married to a professional poker player and she was sharing her studio with an 8 year old who was displaying some of her own paintings--and they weren't half bad compared to some of the stuff we saw. This art crawl is a semi-annual thing, and the little girl asked the big girl who could be an artist, and who could display stuff. Big woman said anyone can. Then they worked out a deal where big girl would give little girl space, but they didn't keep in touch til little girl's dad called big girl 2 nights before the crawl. Rambling...



We finished off the night with THE MOST incredible indian food we've had in the states. Almost orgasmic...incredible. http://indiahousesaintpaul.com/


BEST news? We have warmer temps here this weekend than you do at home!! We're in the 80s and you only get 60s and 70s. Yay, finally a bright spot! (even if it is only 2 days out of 365 1/4)