Bloggers, Meet Minneapolis

Happy Wednesday! I took Friday off so my work week is half over! Oh how I adore 4 day weeks!

So I sort of failed on capturing last weekend on film. It was one of those weekends where I was sort of too busy having fun to think to take photos... But I do have some photos to share with you! You'll have to keep an eye on Kyla, Mandy, and Nora's blogs as I think they all did a much better job of capturing the weekend!

We started off the weekend with a Mexican Fiesta at my house! I used my little sister's guac & margarita recipes, my sister-in-law's vegetarian enchilada recipe, and Karina aka Gluten Free Goddess's Spanish Rice recipe. It was far from gourmet, but I didn't want a stressful hosting experience. Even though this was a super casual meal, I am totally crossing "host a dinner party" off my 30 before 30 list.

On Saturday morning we walked from our hotel to the Mill City area of Minneapolis to check out the Mill City Farmer's Market (which was awesome!). After roaming through the market, we headed up to the observation deck of the Guthrie theater to check out the views of the Mississippi River. Kyla snapped this photo of Mandy, Nora, and I.

I have no pictures from Saturday afternoon unfortunately, but we had lunch at French Meadow Cafe, checked out Wild Rumpus Book Store, and had ice cream at Sebastian Joe's.

On Saturday night, we checked out the concert at the Lake Harriet Band Shell. We were all pretty starving so we only stayed for 3 songs, but the musicians were very talented. I snapped this shot of Nora, Kyla, and Mandy.

After checking out the concert, we headed to Chatterbox Pub where we had dinner, played music bingo, and chatted away.

On Sunday morning, we headed back to the Mill City area and had breakfast at Spoonriver, which was delicious.

After brunch we headed over to the Sculpture Garden to check out the infamous Cherry-on-a-Spoon sculpture.

At this point, the heat of the day and the go, go, go schedule sort of caught up with us, so we headed to Caribou to caffeinate and relax for a bit! After some caffeine, we stopped by Whole Foods to check out the cheap t-shirts that Nora had mentioned in her guest post last Friday. Kyla and I both bought some (and I bought a French Cafe CD!).

Our last stop for the weekend was the MN State Fair. It really lived up to its "Great Minnesota Sweat Together" nickname as it was hot and humid! But we all had foods we were dying to try, so to the fair we went!

Nora, Kyla, and Mandy split some cheese curds - which they all thought were so delicious...

And I enjoyed "bacon on a stick". I think my meat-loving brothers are probably proud of me for trying this - it was delicious!! And really, it's not a state fair experience unless you eat SOMETHING on a stick!

The evening was capped off with an Amos Lee/Brandi Carlile concert (which was AWESOME) and a fireworks show. I kind of want to marry Amos Lee. He's handsome - and his voice is amazing. And he has a southern accent. I mean, doesn't Lisa Lee have quite the ring to it?

So there you have it! I'm short on pictures, but have many, many memories from this weekend. After exchanging countless emails, bbm's, and texts with these ladies, it was fabulous to meet them face-to-face! I can't wait for our next meet-up - and to meet more of my readers in the year to come!!