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.