Wish we had ice skates...

for our car. Last night we met Andy and Tine for dinner in St. Paul., and when we left at 10:45 it had already started raining and the roads were slick. We finally made it home by 1am!

Early in the trip we took 94 where we hit top speeds of 10mph before coming up on an accident that stopped us. It was at the top of a crest in the road, and after stopping on the hill, it was nearly impossible to get up it. We idled, with tires spinning, gaining speed and were one of the last cars to make it to the top. We got off the freeway and then navigated home on city streets through St. Paul, taking a bathroom break at Davanni's near St. Thomas.

The roads in Minneapolis were significantly better, so we were able to get up to 15mph. Our last obstacle was a small hill on the newly paved 50th street, a few blocks east of our house, that was closed off. I'm sure others were having the same trouble getting up it, so we jogged over the 49th to get all the way home.

Our side door...

...has never really been used much because the lock was very difficult to unlock from the outside and you needed a key to unlock it from the inside (I know, this kinda freaked me out).

 

We've had a replacement for it for a while, but in order to install it, Josh needed to re-drill the hole in the door. We got a keyless deadbolt, so it has a keypad and codes to unlock the door. Now I'm not so worried about getting locked out of the house.

And I thought I would just show this too. It's the edge of the door and you can see the poor paint job and the previous blue and yellow trim colors before the red.

Just inside the door is where we were finally able to hang the flashlight holder Bud made for us. We've had it for 3 years I think, but we wanted to wait until we had a permanent place for it before we put it up.

Mad Men style

For Halloween this year, we dressed as Greg and Joan Harris of my favorite show Mad Men.

While Josh is Away...

I'm going out with my friends! I asked my good friend Jen to the Hot Chip/LCD Soundsystem concert last Saturday. This is a picture of the HUGE disco ball LCD used for a couple songs.

This video is my favorite song of LCD Soundsystem's called Dance Yrself Clean. They're an electronic band and even have a guy on stage that syncs the lights with the music. We had an awesome time, it was a great show!

2010 Canada Hunting Trip

This morning (3:00am) I got back home from a week long duck and goose hunting trip with my Grandpa, Dad and Bailey the black lab near Margo, Saskatchewan.

We had a great time despite the lack of geese in the area due to excessive rain which wiped out most grains fields in the Margo area. We brought home 47 birds for the week (13 Canada Geese and 34 ducks including; Mallards, Gadwals, Pintails, Blue Bill, Golden Eye, Widgen and 2 Shovelers for Baily to train with).

The picture above is from the first goose hunt of the trip.

10/17/2010
We arrived in Margo at the house we had rented at around 12:30pm. We unpacked our stuff and went out scouting for a field to set up in for the next day. Along the way we stopped at Ducks Unlimited land and tried to jump some birds. We also stopped at "the corner" to sneak up on a flock of geese. We were unable to make our way through the brush in time to take any shots. We found birds in a field East and North of Margo were we would set up the next morning

10/18/2010
We set up at the field we had scouted the night before and barely made it back to our blinds before sun rise. The geese arrived in small bunches for the entire morning. We got 10 Canada Geese for day. The remainder of the day was filled with scouting for the next day.

The picture above is from this hunt.

Dad calling in a flock of Canada Geese.

10/19/2010
Against our cardinal rule "never set up where you haven't seen geese," we followed the advise of the fellow hunter and hunted an oat field were we had not scouted any geese. The cardinal rule proved to be true as we didn't see any geese the entire morning. We were able to get 2 Mallards because we set up with a pond behind us and a field in front.

After the unsuccessful goose hunt we started looking for a spot to set up the next day. We met some local farmers and made our way to a lake where they said geese we sitting... they were right! There were thousands of geese sitting on the lake. We hid in the car at the top of a hill and Dad and I got out and hid in weeds watching the geese. When they eventually got up we followed them to a field where we decided we would set up the next day

10/20/2010
We hunted geese in the morning and got a couple, but that was not the highlight of the day. We decided to cut our losses and stop hunting geese and switch to ducks. We drove south of Margo to a slew between two lakes (Usinneskaw and Whitesand). As we walked out into the slew we kicked up a bunch of ducks and because of the wind they came right back. It was absolutely crazy how many ducks were buzzing around. Grandpa and Dad didn't shot, they let me take them all. The ducks were coming almost too fast and often to pick one to aim at. After many missed shots I ended the session with 6 ducks including hitting 3 in a row. Dad and Grandpa both agreed that they had never seen anything like that before. We decided to set up there again the next day.

10/21/2010
We hunted the same slew in the morning and afternoon. It wasn't as crazy as the day before but we did very well. I got my second Pintail of the trip (I was excited any time I got a duck that wasn't prevalent in Southern Minnesota)

10/22/2010
Again, we stuck with a good thing and hunted the same slew. The morning hunt was highlighted by a great shot I had on a flock of three Golden Eye that were flying between the two lakes. I caught them out of the corner of my eye and grabbed my gun. Without thinking about it I aimed and fired one shot and down went the center bird. Dad ran out into the shallow water in front of us searching for the bird, it had dove and was trying to get away. He tracked it down 15 feet away from where it had splashed and reached into the water and grabbed the bird (he got his jacket wet in the process). I was extremely excited because I had been trying to get into a good position to get a shot at one for the last day and a half! I'm planning on getting the bird mounted so I can remember that shot every time I look at it.



Grandpa with the Green Wing Teal he shot in the afternoon.

The Golden Eye I shot at 9:30am

10/23/2010
We hunted the slew one more time. We were planning on hunting from 7am to 8:30am, but as time to pack up got closer I wanted to stay a bit longer and see if we could get one more bird. At 8:40am we got a Widgen. It was a great way to end our hunt.

We then went back to the house and packed the car and headed out on our 14 hour drive back to Minneapolis.

I had a great time on my first trip to Canada and can't wait to get back next year and get a Snow Goose!

Brickwork

 

Three weeks ago we hired a mason to repair the brick on the north side of the house. Most of it just needed tuckpointing (when they grind out the old mortar and replace it), but some of the brick were loose, so they relaid those. We were super happy that he had vintage brick that almost completely matches our original, and was willing to custom mix the mortar (pink, maroon, buff, brown combo) to match the existing mortar on the other three sides of the house. We'll eventually have to do the same on the other sides of the house and replace the buttresses on our stoop, but we were glad to get this side done before winter.

 Then last week we hired another mason to completely rebuild our chimney from the roof line up. Our original chimney's bricks were showing their age and it just was best to replace rather than repair.

With the rebuild we got a fancy limestone drip plate, critter covers and brand new brown flashing. This mason was also able to mix up a color similar to the bottom mortar to match. We love the vintage look of the pink mortar. Who ever thought we'd be so excited about our chimney and pink mortar?!

The Wedding (Behind the Scenes)