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The Bold North!

Welcome to the #boldnorth! I'm very happy that the weather in Minnesota has pulled through and exhibited everything that this part of the country has to offer during the winter. Yesterday, it snowed pretty much all day, and today, it's sunny, with bright blue skies, and -3 degrees, with a windchill of -22. With all of the out-of-state visitors here for the Superbowl, I didn't want Mother Nature to wimp out and produce a lovely 35 degree winter day...it's cold up here, and now people know it! Ha!

In any case, the game will be on, but I bet we will be paying more attention to the Puppy Bowl, the commercials, and JT's halftime show. I guess I hope the Pats win, so those nasty Eagles fans don't tear up our beautiful town. They can pack up and head back home as quickly as possible...without punching any people or police horses, preferably.

This was my football donut on the day the Vikes barely showed up to play the Eagles a few weeks back...I still think it's cute!



But, there's much more going on around here than just football! I took last week off of posting because I was heading up to Montreal on Sunday, and there wasn't enough time to get it all done. There's a reason that weekends need to be two days long! Small world though, I ran into several of my coworkers at the airport, so at least I had people to talk to while waiting to board. And then, I saw our friend Darren walking through the airport (he was coming back from Texas), so flagged him down for a brief chat. It was the most fun I've ever had while waiting for a flight to depart.

I also enjoyed a $16 Bloody Mary while waiting...yum! And yikes!


I flew to Chicago to pick up another coworker, and then we turned north to head into Canada. We had a very productive work trip, ate a lot of food, and traveled way too much in the three day period. We had a very long layover in Toronto on our return, which was good, because we experienced a syrup incident in security. I was an innocent bystander, but it delayed our efficiency a bit.

Hello, Air Canada!


View from my hotel room


Montreal is a lovely town, but I prefer to visit in the summer. In the winter, it's super cold (and it's all in Celsius, so I honestly have no idea how cold it really was) and damp (we were in downtown, close to the St Lawrence River.) But, it's Canada, so people are still very nice and polite.  I won't lie, though, I was pretty darn happy to see the US flag when we entered US Customs and Immigration in Toronto. Homeward bound!

Scott, the kids, the dog, and the house managed to survive without me, but I think it's safe to say that everyone was happy when I came home. Plus, I brought some edible Canadian treats, so...yeah!


Ava is kicking butt in her recorder karate for music class...she just earned her yellow belt/bead and a perfect score of 4. We had fun yesterday playing on a piano app so Ava could learn the tune of her next song. She's going for her orange belt/bead next!

G is still pooping his pants. He told me yesterday that he forgot where the toilet was. Lies! We didn't move any of our toilets yesterday, so he was just being super lazy and decided the toilet was his pants. As a past punishment, we have taken away his favorite stuffed animal, Puppy. As a twist on things yesterday, I decided to give his Puppy to Ava to take care of. He did NOT like that, at all. Ava has decided to make Puppy a girl, and has built a new room for Puppina (the new name), and secured a new wardrobe for Puppina to wear. G is mad about all of this, so I'm using this as an incentive to get him to remember where the toilets are, and then actually use them. Ha, take that, little man!



My coworker gave G a TMNT hat and he loves it! 

Side note: "Puppina" is in the below pic and when G just saw the pic, he commented that he promises not to have any accidents today so he can get Puppy back


We're getting ready for our upcoming trip to Florida to visit Grandma Deb and Grandpa Whitey. We're super excited to enjoy some weather warmer, a famous mouse, and see the ocean. Both kids are very excited to go on a plane. They will both have their Kindles and earphones, so I'm hoping that we have a quiet, easy flight. The next blog entry will be post-Florida, so I'm sure we'll have some fun stories and pics to share!

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