Our Christmas Tree

So Mags and I finally erected our 9-foot Christmas tree. Did y'all know that 9-feet of Christmas tree is an awful lot of tree? We did not. Now we do. We only have 1/2 the necessary lights and ornaments, but luckily we've backed it into a corner so you can't tell. It looks fabulous!

Here's our Christmas tree, full of presents!

Now here's a picture to give some scale to the above photo.

Merry Christmas!!

The Twin Cities.....but in Half the Pictures!

So recently, grizzled Brian the scruffy lumberjack, which I'm assuming is Mobile Brian's midwest alter-ego, stopped over for a weekend in Minneapolis in between weeks spent in the Dakotas, America's Arctic. Mags and I have never seen Minneapolis/St. Paul, so we headed over to meet Brian and play around in the Twin Cities.

St. Paul

It was a whirlwind weekend trip, but fun was had by all. On Friday, we attempted to see just how long it takes someone to freeze to death. Quickly getting bored, we headed back to the hotel, taking note along the way that Target apparently owns all of Minneapolis.

Saturday morning we went to Hell's Kitchen for breakfast, a place recommended by at least two people I know, which makes it practically famous! We felt like rock-stars, except of course, that we were awake at 8am on a Saturday morning. Still, breakfast was delicious. It was fun to actually descend into Hell's Kitchen where the waiters/waitresses were all pajama clad. I believe Brain ate Bison Benedict for breakfast, which may be the first time I've seen anyone eat Bison for breakfast. Kudos to Brian.

We then headed to the Mall of America....for four and a half hours. Wow. What a place. I dont even think we did any shopping....we just walked, ate, and rode multiple roller coasters inside the mall. Yes, inside the mall. These weren't fair rides. They were real theme-park style rides. They even had a log ride. Amazing.

Mall of America Theme Park

When we finished there, we headed back toward St. Paul to see the cathedral. It was quite pretty and pretty big in its own right.

St. Paul Cathedral

We then left St. Paul and headed back to Minneapolis. We went out to eat and watched a parade go by called the Holidazzle Parade. Really and truly, it's a few floats and a lot of people all covered in Christmas lights. It was pretty neat. We then went swimming back at the hotel and called it a night. Sunday morning we went to church at a basilica near by, dropped Brian off at the airport, and headed home.

Twin Cities? Check.

Time to Decorate for Christmas!

Yeah, ok, so I realize Christmas is only five days away, but this post has been coming for weeks, I promise. We decorated right after Thanksgiving, minus the tree (to be featured in a later, less time-lapsed post).

To give some context on these lights, I put them up while it was snowing cats and dogs (frozen cats and dogs, of course). But, I wanted to get them up before we had snow everywhere and ice was causing problems. Of course, being the bright guy I am, I did not think to check and make sure that they all worked. At about 10:30pm I "finished" and realized that two strings didnt work. I called it quits until the next day, by which time there was a solid sheet of ice over the strings I had to replace. So, I had to chip away at ice chunks to unhook the lights. Again, being the smart guy I am, I did not realize that I could just replace the fuses. Well, I'll chalk this year up to experience. Either way, the lights are up and they look great!

We went festive inside too!

Here's our Nativity set.

And what post would be complete without a picture of our snow-covered courtyard?

This, my friends, is a foot and a half-long icicle hanging off our balcony. Pretty awesome, huh?