Of Heat, Humidity and the Honorable Institution of Marriage--Part I

We went to Minnesota!  We had fun!  We are back home now!  I am writing this like a second grade essay on my summer vacation!  Sorry, I'm done now.

So, yeah, our vacation to Minnesota is done over and gone now.  And we did have a lovely time.  We saw Jeff and Kait safely married.  

I even had a little drama along the way.  The day of our planned flight I woke up with quite a bit of pain in my two brand spankin' new crowns the dentist had installed a week earlier.  She had been concerned that one of them might need a root canal "some day".  I thought I'd just run down and ask her to take a look and see if adjusting my new bite might help alleviate some pain.  She informed me that my bite was great--but that it looked like I needed that root canal right away.  I politely informed her that I was leaving for the airport in three hours and furthermore I was not done packing so--no dice!  She freaked me out with all sorts of stories of pain in the air and my teeth exploding from cabin pressure changes.  She offered to give me a shot to numb my tooth for the flight.  Again I tried to explain that wouldn't work as I would actually need to speak to my children in the airport and also excessive drooling through security  might not help our case.  Instead she set me up with some good drugs and antibiotics and sent me on my merry way.  My teeth did not explode mid-air.  I did feel a fair amount of pain during our trip.  I'm sure that had I not been medicated the entire time I would be telling a different story.  But medicine helps greatly and it was all manageable.  And I got my root canal the day after I got home.  Now I'm just waiting for my dentist to put a filling in that brand new expensive crown that had to have a hole drilled in it for the (also expensive) root canal.  Grrrrrrr......

And you thought you were reading about a trip to Minnesota.  

So!  We took a flight that left Seattle at about 7:30 PM.  That means we arrived in Minneapolis shortly after midnight.  By the time we collected luggage and a rental car life was feeling oddly surreal.  The parking garage was hot and sticky for 2:00 AM.  The kids were strangely awake for the middle of the night.  It all had the definite feeling of an adventure!  And then we arrived at the Diaries of the Happy Sanitarium and fell deliriously into our beds.  The loss of two hours in the time change combined with the mid-night travel helped us to sleep in until 10 AM!  Morning brought a joyous reunion of our kids with Naomi's kids.  It also brought a delicious breakfast cooked by Naomi herself.  Then we were off to explore St.  Paul and Minneapolis.  We started with St. Paul's cathedral.  What can I say--it's big!

There is not supposed to be excessive noise in a cathedral.  Naturally, we brought six children with us.  How else could we be quiet?  Don't they all look calm and subdued?

Hehe, see those scrapes on the side of Tadd's face and neck?  Some of them are from Henry's razor sharp finger nails.  And the others, well, they have a story.  You see, Tadd forgot to bring his razor and shaving cream.  I told him he could borrow mine.  He came out of the bathroom smelling like flowers and full of cuts and declaring that we would be making a stop at Target for proper shaving materials :)  

The cathedral ceiling was much more impressive than the pictures show.  Naomi and her girls have been dying to hear the giant organ be played, but it's only put to use during a wedding or mass. 

Down in the basement we found a lego replica of the cathedral.

And the bell that used to be up top.

The view of St. Paul from the front steps.  We were expecting broiling hot weather.  This day was quite rainy and windy and a bit chilly even. 

The kids used the front steps to get out some pent up energy and noise.

K and B informed us that those huge front doors are only opened for events, such as weddings.

After departing the cathedral we drove around the area looking at all the gorgeous old homes.  Tadd and I were so impressed with how lush and green it was.  Seattle is called the emerald city and everyone talks about how much it rains.  But Seattle looks brown and drab compared to St. Paul's summer beauty!  Our next stop was a walk along the mighty Mississippi.

These goons were having a grand old time together.  And we were having an even grander time listening to their conversations in the car!

We braved traffic between the twin cities and headed over to check out the old mill district in Minneapolis.

Walking down to one of the old mills we found a gorgeous place for taking pictures.  By this time it was raining in earnest.  My hair, which had been carefully flat ironed when I got it cut the day before began to grow like one of those sponge capsule animals you can buy for your kids to grow in a cup of hot water.  It was crazy!

Thus ended our site seeing for the day.  We high tailed it back to the car and headed home to enjoy a delicious meal Naomi was cooking for us. 

It was fun to see a little bit of an area that neither Tadd nor I had visited before.  It was time to rest up and be ready for the wedding mayhem to begin the following day!