Kitchen Remodel

This summer we finally went ahead with remodeling a portion of our kitchen. After a long process of picking out material for a new counter top we decided on a gray granite from Virginia. The stone slab was from Cold Spring Granite and the fabricator we used was Stonemaster & Sons in Edina.
For this project I removed our old counter top and added a 3/4 inch filler strip to give more clearance for a new dishwasher. I also had to replace some plumbing and the shutoff as galvanic corrosion had near plugged off the line to the dishwasher.
Stone masters measured kitchen and cut the stone at their shop. It ending up fitting perfect and looking great. We now have a new dishwasher as well. The next part is to paint the walls. I will post a few pictures after the painting is finished.

Big Lake Triathlon

On Saturday August 4th Sue and I competed in the Granite Man Big Lake Triathlon. This was our first time at this triathlon. After an early wakeup time we drove up to Big Lake and met a few friends who were also competing in the race. The weather was perfect for the race. We both finished the race with good race times. It was a fun event and we hope to do it again next year.

Little Log House Antique Power Show

On Saturday July 28th I went with my dad to the Little Log House Antique Power Show. He brought two tractors a Farmall Cub and a Super W-6. He also brought my Simplicity Broadmoar 728.
We both drove our tractors in the parade, me on the Simplicity and my dad on the W-6. I am pretty sure that my Simplicity was the loudest tractor at the show, even though it has a muffler. I need to get a new muffler before next year.
It was a beautiful day weather wise, which made it great for walking around and seeing the sights. We had gone to the show for several years, but had never toured the area on the grounds with the stone quarry, spiral bridge and army camps. This year we got on the Little Log House tractor hay ride and saw the whole grounds.
We had a great time and hope to be back again next year.

Summer is flying by

It is hard to believe it is already the 3rd weekend of July! This is of course the Aquatennial week in Minneapolis and since it is saturday night it is fireworks!

We came to Minneapolis over the fourth and watched them from Sue's client Libby's condo right on the river. They were great.

For the Aquatennial we picked our annual spot in the grass by the Gutherie and Mill ruins park. It looks like a great spot and all the people love firework know that these are the best firework around. I will add a few more pictures from the night as the festivities progress.

Fargo Half Marathon

On Saturday May 19th Sue and I ran and completed the Fargo half marathon. This was my first ever half marathon and Sue's third half marathon. We had set a goal of finishing in less than 3 hours and we beat the goal. We finished in 2:42:50! If we would have had another month of training we probably would have finished around 2:30:00.
The Fargo marathon weekend was a fun weekend spent with my family. The event headquarters was split between Russ and Jewell's house in Moorhead and Rhet's house in Fargo. I hadn't seen my cousins TJ and Liv since 1999 so it was great to see everybody again.

Hermosa Beach

Last week for work I was out at a site in El Segundo, California. The work consisted of performing a couple of tracer tests at a remediation well. It was a long process to get everything ready to conduct the tests which made it rewarding too finally complete the task.
I worked with three others guys from AMEC and another guy from who happened to be from my previous employer Arcadis.
After some field engineering we were able to get the work off smoothly. The weather of southern California was excellent during the project making the work more enjoyable.
All the work didn't allow for much free time, but I was able to get out for a run in the Strand along the beach. It was a nice morning just as the sun was coming up.

Spring in Paris

We arrived in Paris Saturday morning about 30 minutes early. This gave us a little time to get some money before the shuttle picked us up to bring us to the hotel. We are staying at the Hotel Sezz which is in the 16th arrondissement, a half a block from the Seine and about 2 blocks from a metro station.

The weather has been typical for this time of year. A mix of sun and clouds with scattered showers. A light coat and an umbrella a perfect for walking around.

This morning we went for an hour run along the Seine and then under the Eiffel tower and through the Champs de Mars. We timed it perfect getting back just before it started raining. There were a lot of people out running this morning.

We spent the afternoon walking from the hotel on our way to the Musee de Orsay. After admiring the impressionist paintings we to the metro to the Bastille station were we had a wonderful French dinner with ile flottante for dessert. The might be nothing better!

Posole with Venison

Tonight we thought we would try something new for dinner and since it was cold today, soup sounded good. We thought we would make a posole but with a twist.  The twist being venison as the meat.  I started with a bag of dried hominy from our trip to New Mexico last September.  First I soaked the hominy all day in water to re-hydrate.

After the hominy soaked, I then boiled it for about two hours.  While it was boiling I roasted five Anaheim chili peppers with the broiler.   After roasting I peeled the skins, de-seeded the peppers.  The next step was to add the meat to the hominy, followed by chopped roasted peppers, 1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano, a couple pinches of salt, a couple minced garlic cloves, four dried chili peppers, a bay leaf and juice from half a lime.

This now simmered covered for another hour and was ready for eating.  I served mine with some fresh cilantro, cheese, a spoonful of salsa and tortilla.  A great dinner for a couple of nights.

Barn Quilts

Apparently the hottest trend in the rural mid-west is to decorate a barn with a quilt.  Here are some barn quilts at http://www.barnquilts.com/ that have been put up across the US.  The quilts are actually plywood that are painted in quilt patterns.  This past winter my mom and dad worked many hours on three separate blocks.  So after all the their work making the plywood blocks, we spent yesterday actually hanging the two that were finished.  The barn quilts were made for my dad's tractor shed and my Grandpa's tin shed in Waseca.

My dad I started putting up the barn quilt on the tin shed.  It was a 4'x4' piece with a pattern that is on point.  This one was definately the more difficult one to put up.  It took us about 3 hours total time to hang.  We did have to install some backing material for mount, which took more time.

The second one we put on the tractor shed.  It was a 4'x4' piece as well called "Farmer's Daughter".  This one was put up square and we didn't have to put up any additional backing material.  Both ended up looking really good and just may be the talk of the town.

Here is the slide show of the whole process for both quilts.

Signs of Spring

Yesterday, upon arriving home from work I saw my first robin of the season walking across the yard.  Yesterday's temperature was only in the 30's but it had been warmer earlier in week.  This week it really has felt like spring and with the fore casted high in the 50's for the weekend it will be like spring.

Final Weekend of 2012 WCHA Games for UMD

This past weekend I went and covered both of the UMD Men's Hockey games against St. Cloud State as a photographer with Andrew Craig from Collegehockeyhighhorse.com.  Andrew Nippert also went as a photographer for the Saturday Night game.  I spent most of the games looking through a camera lens which does cause you to lose some perspective of what is going one, but none the less was able to watch some as well.  Unfortunately for UMD it was not their best effort of the season, but in reality they didn't seem to play that bad.  They ended up losing Friday night 2-1 and Saturday's result was a 3-3 tie.  One definate negative was the powerplay, which just can not stop anybody right now.

UMD seemed to have a tough time playing the angles in the beginning of both games.  We also noticed throughout the games that on more several ocassions a UMD player was anticipating the puck to be in a different place, this had to be due to the Olympic ice sheet at the National Sports Center.  Speaking of the National Sports Center it will be nice to have some renovations done to it, asof  right now it just a concrete box that is not all that pleasing for watching hockey games.  Enjoy a few pictures from the games and be sure to checkout http://www.collegehockeyhighhorse.com/ for complete UMD coverage.

1st Winter Storm of the Year

Well it is hard to believe that the first real winter storm of the 2011-2012 winter came on February 28th and continued into leap day.  It started yesterday with a few flakes and then turned into just a nice rain.  And rain it did.  It rained until I went to bed and when I got up in the morning we had about four inches of wet slushy snow.  It was really heavy and difficult to shovel.

It actually broke off many branches on trees in our yard, mostly from the Chinese elms and cottonwood trees.

New Years 2012

It had been a few years since we had gone anywhere for New Years and thought that it was probably a good time to do something different.  Sue's friend Brenda from Kalamazoo, Michigan has been dating Captain John who lives in Islamorada and they decided to invite us down share a beach side apartment with them for the Holiday.  We decided this year for New Years we would to enjoy the warmth of the Florida Keys. 

We flew down to Miami on Friday December 30th and Brenda had flown into Fort Lauderdale and picked us up on the way to Islamorada.  It was a beautiful day and we stopped at Gilbert's Resort in Key Largo for Lunch. 

After a nice fish sandwich and oysters we continued onto the hotel, La Siesta in Islamorada.  We had a great two bedroom ocean side hotel.  It was two levels with two patio balconies for enjoying the great setting.

Captain John is a fishing captain who fishes mostly the backcountry waters on the gulf side of island.  So, I brought a few flies along to try and see if I would have any luck on the water.  We went fishing two different times during the trip.  John keeps his boat at the World Wide Sportsman's in Islamorada and we headed out from there.  Both trips were successful fishing outings as we caught bluefish, Spanish mackerel, grouper and snapper.  I didn't catch a tarpon but we did watch them roll on the surface near where we were fishing and I did spot one right below the boat as I was casting for them.

For the New Years eve the girls got all dressed up and we went and had a nice diner at the Turtle Inn.  The restaurant was very busy and the food was delicious.  After dinner we stopped by a couple places for a drink and to listen to some music.  The first place had a tent and a live band.  We danced to a few songs on the beach and then headed to the next place.  There we listened to a few songs and then headed back to the apartment. 

It was a great trip and very relaxing.  It was so nice to be able to get up in the morning and sit on the balcony and have breakfast.  The pace was perfect for midwinter break.  We will definitely be going back to the area again.