Colleen and I eloped 18 years ago today at the courthouse in downtown St. Paul (more pictures here).
We are planning to celebrate tonight with our first ever visit to Mancini’s for dinner, then maybe a movie at the Uptown theater. This is also the 23rd anniversary of our first date – a screening of the classic movie Three Amigos at the old Har Mar theaters.
Yesterday my grandfather Donald Smith celebrated his 90th birthday at the Lexington restaurant in St. Paul with most of our immediate family. It was great visiting with everyone and the food and service were superb. I had a sirloin steak, while Colleen had the walleye almondine, which she said was one of the best she’s ever had.
My uncle gave a speech talking about his dad and it’s really amazing all of the things he’s been in his life: husband, father, citizen, patriot, bomber pilot, prisoner of war, grandfather, bank president, board member, St. Paul Winter Carnival leader, volunteer, great-grandfather, caregiver and retiree.
Cheers, Mr. Smith!
A week ago we packed up the family in the car and headed north to Duluth to visit the water park at the Edgewater hotel. It was just a quick overnight trip on a school night, so the place wasn’t very busy. That was a good thing, since it’s smaller than the Mall of America water park (or any of the Wisconsin Dells spots). Still, it was a very nice place and the kids had a great time.
We stopped at Tobies on the way up and had dinner Sunday night at the Duluth branch of Hell’s Kitchen. I had this (with chicken):
Baked Penne Pasta tossed in a creamy garlic sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese, oven baked til golden. Includes French bread & whipped butter. $10.25 Add vegetables $1.25, Italian sausage $1.75, grilled chicken $2.25, chopped shrimp $4
Nice food, cool atmosphere and great service, but a little pricey.
On Monday, we visited the original Grandma’s in Canal Park for lunch before heading back home. The Godfather sandwich there is still one of my all-time favorites.
The confirmation cards arrived in the mail today for the 2009 Monster Dash events in Minneapolis. This year the races will actually be on Halloween morning – the half marathon I’m running starts at 8:30AM, followed by the 5K that Colleen and the kids are doing at 10:30AM. The plan is for me to finish in under two hours and join them for the 5K.
The field for the half and the 10 mile race is full, so parking will be interesting. The forecast looks good, though. More later…
Just in time for the first (and second!) Minnesota snow storms in October, I purchased new tires for the MINI. The car now has almost 75,000 miles on it and the tires on the front were actually still the originals. I bought two new ones a few years ago and rotated the old rear tires to the front. This time, I picked four new Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grids (size 195/55R-16). Discount Tire in Apple Valley installed them for me quickly and smoothly for around $500.
Saturday also turned out to be new phone day. Colleen decided she was done paying T-mobile $50 a month for her pink Razr and wanted to upgrade. We went to the Mall of America and visited both the Apple Store and the AT&T corporate store, the latter of which was able to convert my account to a family plan. Colleen switched to a white 16GB iPhone 3GS, while I upgraded from a first generation iPhone to a black 32GB iPhone 3GS.
So now kid one has an iPod Touch, kid two gets my old iPhone (sans phone service) and we both have current iPhones. Everybody’s happy!
Today we got everyone out of the house for the Twin Cities Marathon Family Day events at the state capitol grounds. The weather wasn’t great (cold and rainy), but more than 5,000 other brave souls turned out for the 10K (new this year), 5K, Diana Pierce Family Mile, Half Mile, Toddler Trot and Diaper Dash.
Colleen walked the 5K with a group from Allina and finished in 59:02 (19:00 pace). The 5K was won by Mathew Chesang in 15:30 (5:00), while Meghan Armstrong took the women’s 5K title with a time of 16:45 (5:24). There were 1,989 finishers (850 men and 1,139 women), with an average time of 35:04.
Here are a few other results from people we knew in the 5K:
The inaugural 10K was won by Evgeny Beletskiy in 33:49 (5:27). Ariella Gottfried was the first women to cross the finish line with a time of 36:32 (5:53). There were 1,215 finishers (458 men and 757 women) and the average time was 59:50.
We also had a few friends in the 10K:
Our kids both decided to run in the one mile race this year and we all had the opportunity to meet Diana Pierce before the race. Deerwood had a smaller crowd this year, but it was great to see everyone.
I stopped in at the expo two more times today – once to get an event poster signed by the artist and later in the day with my neighbor Gina (who will be running her first marathon with me tomorrow). It’s amazing how much free junk you get at those things – even more when you bring kids along.
Pictures from today have been uploaded to Facebook and the private section of the 7MM photo gallery – email me if you need access to either.
Pasta dinner tonight, then off to the Metrodome (er, “Mall of America Park”) in the morning for the 28th running of the Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America…
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