Christmas Eve At The Tauers

Thursday night (Christmas Eve) we always spend with Nicole's family. Her Grandma Karen always joins us and her uncle Paul and his family were also there. She has 2 other uncles (they are twins John and Joe). John and his family live in Texas and we always talk to them on Christmas Eve and Joe was a "chicken liver" this year as he didn't make it from Richfield because of the storm. Just kidding Joe. We know Jess wears the pants and you went to Wheaton to be with her family.
We had a wide array of appetizers this year and it was great. The traditional family sit down dinner is also nice, but I like the variety with all the appetizers. We had buffalo wings, meatballs, Potato Leek soup, cream cheese won tons, taco salad, pickeled herring, and I'm sure a few other items that I missed. We had a blast watching the kids open their presents and we received many nice gifts from George and Michelle, thanks so much everyone!

Hattie and Mommie

Hattie was trying hard to stay up for presents

Nicole got a "weekend bag" from her parents. I just don't see her fitting all the clothes she packs in that one bag!

Zander with his favorite gift of all from his mommy! Look at all those cars!

Christmas Updates

Nicole and I headed to Springfield on Wednesday night. We wanted to get there safe ahead of the storm. It turned out to be a good plan as the storm was much heavier in that part of the state. While we were there from Wed night to Friday morning they had at least 12 inches and probably closer to 18 inches. We laid low on Wednesday night. On Thursday the markets were open until noon so I was tied down with that, but Nicole went to the grocery store to help her dad. It was very busy at the grocery store over the holidays with all the snow. I think people were "stocking up" just in case they got really snowed in. We got the Saab stuck twice in my mom's driveway over the two days we were home. The low clearance and bald tires were a terrible combination. We need to get the snow tires on apparently.
On Thursday night we spent Christmas Eve at Nicole's parents. All her sisters and niece and nephew were there which was nice. The Tauer's were nice enough to invite my brother Andrew and my mom over to celebrate with their family. We all had a great evening. On Friday we fretted about trying to get back to Hudson or if we were going to wait out the storm in Springfield and then make our way to Hudson on Saturday. We decided that we wanted to get back on Friday so we slowly worked our way home. The worst stretch was from Nicollet to St. Peter but after that the roads were very good.
My brother Andrew and I shoveled out the driveway when we got home. It was a much different storm in the metro than it was in SW MN. The snow up here was heavy and wet while at home it was much lighter and more plentiful. Friday night we had a traditional Christmas dinner, Chinese! It was about the only restaurant open in the Twin Cities on Christmas Day so Andy, Nicole, Mom, and I ate sesame chicken and egg rolls for Christmas. We also went to a movie at the Hudson Theatre. It was a great night, we laughed a lot at the movie. We saw It's Complicated with Merle Streep and Alec Baldwin, funny!
On Saturday we had an armoire delivered so Andy and I spent the morning getting that situated in the bedroom while Nicole and mom started preparing the feast for Saturday evening.
People started arriving at 4:30 and we had appetizers. Nicole made Potato Leek soup, a new recipe she has and it is great. She also had her won tons (we are tired of won tons and taking a break from them). We also drank some good wine and talked for a few hours before dinner. It was good to catch up with everyone. Dinner went well, all the food was great, too much of it as usual, but that's good for me as I get leftovers for the week. After dinner we had a nice prayer where each of the kids lit a candle and said a prayer for our Dad. This Christmas was tough for everyone, especially mom. We kept her busy and being together sure helps us all get through the tough times. We love you mom!
Mom got a nice surprise for Christmas this year. We presented her with a cruise option of choice so she has to decide where she wants to go. I think all the kids are going to make the cruise except my sister Shelly and her family. They are traveling too much this year to fit in another week. They are going to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii so I don't think they'll cruise with us, but we should have the rest of the family available. It is going to be great! Mom, let's do the Caribbean, the one Ryan hasn't done yet! Not sure if that is Western or Eastern.
All the nieces and nephews had nice gifts and we enjoyed a nice evening together.
Merry Christmas everyone!

My family
In front my 3 brothers from left to right, Ryan (34), Andrew (21), Chad (43)
In back my sister Shelly (41), Mom (50 and holding) and me (31)

All the nieces with Andrew and Ethan
Clockwise Chandler (14 Stanford Sweatshirt), Ethan (6), Morgan (7), Lauren (10), Carlyn (10), Andrew in the middle

Weekend Update

We had a busy weekend. On Friday after work we headed to Detroit Lakes to get my braces tightened. It has been almost 2 months and to move to the next level (which is GETTING THEM OFF) I need to get regular tightenings. We are going again in January and then maybe just 1 more time after that if the "Good Doctor" thinks they look good. He is very happy with the bottom teeth, still working on the top teeth.
So we arrived in DL on Friday night about 8:30. Ryan and I went to the office for about 30 minutes and the work was done. I know I keep saying this, but it is true, but I seriously feel no pain and we watch TV and chat and it is quite relaxing. Not too many people find the dentist chair relaxing, but for me it is.
We had a full day planned back home on Saturday so we got up and played with Hattie for about an hour and then we were on the road back to Hudson. The Ritchie's had a full weekend planned as Grandma and Grandpa were coming up to watch Hattie while Ryan and Emily went to their company Christmas Party.
Nicole and I stopped Room and Board on our way home and found one more piece of furniture that we have been shopping for and that is a media console for our bedroom. Our TV in our bedroom has been sitting on an ottoman since we moved home in September and it looks pretty "ghetto". So we finally found a deal at Room and Board and we should have it this Saturday unless the winter storm delays the delivery.
After Room and Board we met Jeb in Woodbury for a wine tasting at Cellars (a wine shop). They had their Top 8 Wines of 2009 so we got to taste them all. We were very impressed with 2 wines and 1 was pretty good.
Saturday night we were invited to a Christmas party at Scott and Jeri Nelson's, friends of ours in the development. Scott and Jeri are from St. James so we have that small town connection. They are the nicest people and Scott and I have played golf together for 5 years now. It was also made public that night that Jeb and Kaylan are expecting their 1st baby! It gave us another reason to celebrate (excluding Kaylan) who is stuck with sparkling wine for the next 9 months. I think her actual due date is the 1st weekend of August or the last weekend in July, right around our big golf tournament in Troy Burne. Congratulations Jeb and Kaylan!
On Sunday Nicole and I spent the day cleaning up around the house. Nicole also made a Barbera Roast with mashed potatoes. This is the menu we are thinking about for Christmas on the 26th. I think it is great but that will ultimately be up to her. We are going to do a few appetizers and a nice dinner paired with some good California wines.

Happy Holidays

As we get into the holiday week I wanted to get our holiday wishes out to everyone. We look forward to seeing you all at Christmas. We are headed to Springfield on Wednesday night or Thursday afternoon, depending on the weather. It looks like a potential winter storm coming mid-week so if that is the case we will leave after work on Wednesday rather than fight the storm on Christmas Eve day. It will depend on Nicole's schedule, I know she is scheduled to be in Hastings on Wednesday. Christmas Eve we will spend with the Tauer's and look forward to Hattie's 2nd Christmas, but her 1st Christmas where she will be excited about gifts. Last year at 2.5 months she didn't seem to like what we gave her. It is always fun to see our 3 year old nephew Zander with all his gifts too.
On Christmas Day, my mother is hosting her side of the family (The Will Christmas). So I'm sure we'll be busy at her house, and then later that day Nicole and I are headed home to prepare for another Christmas we are hosting on Saturday the 26th. This will be my immediate family, 3 brothers and their families and my sister and her family. In total 15 adults/kids. We haven't hosted in 5 years so it is certainly our turn. My sister has hosted 3 in a row I think so it is time to mix it up. We just hope the weather is decent enough and safe enough for everyone to travel.
So from Nicole and I we wish you all a Happy Holiday and be safe in your travels.

It's Been A While

We've been busy lately and I haven't had much to say. We went to Springfield for Thanksgiving and spent time with both families. Since December started we have been doing seminars 2 days/week which has demanded a lot of my time. When I am home on the "other" days I am usually pretty tired so Nicole and I have just been sticking around home. We are cooking more and more trying new things and continue to find wine to stock up the cellar. It is a fun process to go through. We got our first shipment from Napa Valley this week, 3 bottles of Reserve Cabernet from Rubicon Estate, 2006 release. This was our favorite vineyard that we visited a month ago and we will get 5 shipments/year from them.
This weekend was a busy one. Nicole had the day off on Friday so she made Christmas cookies all day so we have that taken care of. On Saturday we did 90% of our Christmas shopping. The malls were so busy it was quite frustrating, but we did get to eat some sushi at Crave in Edina. On Saturday night I met with two clients and their wives for dinner. We ate at Murray's downtown and it was a pretty good time. We then went to The Shout House where one of my clients daughters plays piano and sings. She was very good, I would be so nervous to do that. We had fun but stayed out too late.
Sunday we put up the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree farm where we go in Hudson is now for sale and their inventory is getting low as they are not replanting trees. We found a nice Fraser and got it decorated today. It feels a little more like Christmas now.
This week we have our last seminar on Tuesday until January when we have a few more scheduled. Nicole has recipe club on Monday night and then on Wednesday she is going to a knitting class in Stillwater. She is back into knitting making hats for our friends The Affeldts who just had a newborn baby girl and also for Hattie Georgina.
We are looking forward to the Christmas holiday and look forward to seeing you all.
Be safe in your travels!

6th Anniversary

We went back to work this week after a nice long vacation. It felt good to get settled back in at home. We cooked in each night Mon-Thurs with Nicole cooking on Monday and I took care of the duties Tues and Wed and then we made a roast on Thurs. I am getting more interested in cooking and we have even signed up for some cooking classes. We hope to start cooking more with Brent and Courtney Snyder. We are thinking an evening where the men do everything, from the shopping to the prep, cooking, serving, and cleaning. Then vice versa the following week. The one class we signed up for but for right now we are on the waiting list is a "sushi" making class. We stopped by Coastal Seafoods yesterday which is in St. Paul and learned more about what fish to buy, and we have the equipment necessary to roll sushi, now we just need more recipes and the lesson in doing it. We are going to try to perfect our cooking a little more this winter. Nicole is pretty good in the kitchen, she makes some nice things from scratch and can whip up tasty things in no time. For me, it is more of a process. I like to plan it out, I make a huge mess in the kitchen (I haven't quite perfected the "clean as you go" theory). I actually enjoy it but it is a little "unsatisfying" at the end because it takes me so long to make something and so short of a time to eat it. It is something fun though that Nicole and I can do together.

So work was quiet this week as the majority of my customers are still harvesting corn, which is very late to be doing so. So far though the weather has been cooperating and November has turned into a very nice month. If we would have had a lot of snow thus far we would have been in some trouble with that much corn in the fields.

Anyway, we worked all week and talked about what we wanted to do for our 6th Anniversary, which was Saturday Nov 21st. We didn't really decide until Saturday on our way to Room and Board Outlet. This has kind of become our Saturday ritual where we go to Golden Valley to this outlet store. It is our favorite store and we are still trying to find more furniture pieces for our home. We need a nightstand for Nicole's side of the bed, we need a media console for the bedroom so we can put the TV on something in there along with the components and we need an ottoman for downstairs, and some end tables downstairs would be nice too. We are spending the majority of our time in the basement now and we each sit on the couch with our computers. Speaking of computers, Nicole got a new one on Friday. When she bought her 1st computer, that HUGE Sony Vaio I thought she was crazy. I thought she spent way too much money on it and it was like 8 lbs and I couldn't understand why she wanted such a big computer. Well, after more than 6 years, the Sony finally went dead, but she really got her money's worth on that computer. Well anyway, she got a new Macbook Pro. She has been laboring over this decision for sometime now. She has wanted to try Mac as Emily and Ryan speak so highly of Mac and now Michelle has a Mac, and Ally and Ashley have always had Macs. So, now we are a split family with one PC user and one Mac user. She spent a lot of time at the "Genius Bar" at the Apple Store asking questions, most of them around her billing program at work called Procentive. She needed to make sure she could use this PC program with her Mac as she uses this program daily. It really is amazing what Mac has done to be able to isolate part of the hardrive for PC programs and then leaving the rest for Mac programs. She can actually log into each different part of the hardrive seperately. If she wants to run Mac programs she logs into one part, if she wants to use Internet Explorer and other PC programs (ie Microsoft Office, which includes Powerpoint, Excel and Word) and most importantly her billing program she just logs into that part of the hardrive. She is also really excited about the Photo opportunties that she has with Mac as she just loves to take pictures.

Anyway, back to our Anniversary Saturday. We Tivo'd the gopher football game so we made sure we didn't listen to the radio on our way home. We found a nice rug for our entryway coming in the front door and we also got a desk chair for my new desk downstairs. No luck on end tables or media console for the bedroom, and no luck on the ottoman. On our way home we stopped and had lunch at Cafe Latte, our favorite St. Paul spot. We made it home and watched the pathetic game where the Gophers went 2 consecutive games without scoring an offensive TD. We need to make a change at QB next year, and I'm tired of hearing this "bowl elgible" talk. Who cares about the Insight Bowl or whatever terrible bowl they will qualify for. If you are 6-6 and have a losing record in your conference, you should be DONE! No bowls.

So our plan for the evening was to do a little "sushi tour" of Mpls. We wanted to try some of the best sushi restaurants in the city and see which one was better. We know which restaurant that is always voted Best Sushi and that is Origami. We had never been there so we knew we would hit that, then we were thinking Sushi Seven, and then finish the night at 20.21, which is Wolfgangs restaurant at the Walker Art Center. We were judging the sushi on two things, actual quality of sushi, but also on atmosphere of the restaurant. The sushi at Origami was decent, nothing fancy, just solid. The atmosphere was a little slow but we were there early, about 6 p.m. From Origami we stopped by Surdyk's and took a browse of their wine sale. We found some good deals and then made our way to Sushi Seven. This is a very fancy place. Everyone was dressed very nice, (we were not, jeans and sweaters). The restaurant is very cool, but you have to be into that type of place. The lights were dim which we didn't really like. We sat at the sushi bar and talked it up with Tao, the sushi chef. He asked us what we liked and we told him spicy tuna and unagi (freshwater eel). He said, no problem, I'll make something great for you. So he went to work and came back with an 8-piece roll that was VERY GOOD. This was the best sushi we ate of the night, and it did win the coolest restaurant award. It really isn't our style of a place though, we are not really into getting decked out and high priced dinners. There was a table of 8 behind us, all dressed up in suits and nice dresses and they ordered "The Sushi Boat" which is a wood boat filled with sushi, at least 100 pieces of sushi in this boat. Well, they ate like 20 pieces and threw the rest away. They just wanted to be SEEN! We think the best way to eat sushi is to sit at the sushi bar and talk with the chef and they always take good care of us. They usually throw something special in for you if you sit at the sushi bar as well. Nicole was full now after 2 sushi stops and our last stop was 20.21. It was now 9:00 p.m. and 20.21 was dying down. We again sat at the bar and learned that they didn't even have sushi at 20.21. They had ahi tuna and other seafood, but everything was cooked, so we had kobe beef burgers (3 mini burgers). They had a sweet pickle on them and they were excellent. From our sushi tour we now needed dessert so we went back to Cafe Latte. We shared our favorite Turtle Cake. After dessert we walked across the street to Billy's to help Ashley and Johnny Larson celebrate their 25th birthdays. Ally was there too so we had a few hours of fun with the youngsters. Honestly, they probably kept us from going home to bed as us 30 year olds (I'm 31) get a little tired after 10:00 p.m.

We had a great day, the weather was perfect, the company was perfect (I love you Nicole) and we ate some good food and tried some good wines.

Nicole posing outside 20.21
What a beautiful wife!

Maui Day 10 (Head For Home)

We had a long trip scheduled home on Friday. It was a brutal day filled with airports, layovers and jet lag. We left the Maui Ocean Club at 8:00 a.m. We returned the rental car and headed to the airport for our 10:30 a.m. departure. Our first trip was a short one from Maui to Honululu. Only a 30-minute flight, but then a 1 hr 40 minute layover there. From there we were onto San Francisco, a flight of a little over 5 hours and a 2 hour time change. Then we had another 2 hour layover in San Fran. Now, here is where the trip got UGLY! From San Fran, we couldn't find a reasonable direct flight home so we found a one stop in Atlanta. This was another 4 plus hour flight with another 3 hour time change, another 1 hr layover and finally onto Minneapolis. We left our hotel at 8:00 a.m. on Friday and we landed in Minneapolis at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. This was a 25 hour day with 5 hours of time changes. Yuck. We are both feeling it tonight. Nicole decided to spend the day resting and watching the Gopher football game (barely escaping with a victory 16-13 over SDSU). I decided to fight jet lag by playing golf. Brent and John Reigstad and I headed out at noon today. It was cold at first but we walked the front 9 and it turned out to be a pretty nice day. Brent gave me 11 shots today as he could see the jet lag on my face. I played ok and shot 82, but Brent had me beat by hole 15 as he was 2 under through that point. He ended up shooting a 1 under 70 with one bogey on the last hole. I think it was good for me to get out and get some fresh air, but as I sit and write this blog tonight I am watching Gopher Hockey (currently up 2-1 over Bemidji State) I am very tired.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, laundry and resting preparing to go back to work on Monday. Michelle and Zander are staying over tonight so we are having fun entertaining our 3 year old nephew. He is growing up so fast and is very smart, but still FULL of energy. Nicole loves to entertain him. Enjoy the weekend!

Maui Day 9 Thursday

This was our last full day in Maui. We didn't have anything scheduled for the day and all week long we thought about what we should so. The Wilsons wanted to bike down Haleakala, which they did. They woke up for the sunrise bike tour and they said it was a great time. Nicole and I had enough biking from our trip in San Francisco so she and I went back and forth on which golf course we would play. We ended up playing the Bay Course at Kapalua. We played their sister course, the Plantation on Sunday and enjoyed it so we thought we would try the Bay Course. It was just fine, not nearly as nice as the Plantation, but it had some cool holes along the ocean, one in particular where you have to hit your ball 100 yards of carry over the ocean. It was a 205 yard par 3. I made a par, which was the highlight of the round.
We had considered taking the ferry from Maui to Lanai, an island directly across from Maui and playing 2 courses over there, one called the Experience (designed by Greg Norman) and the other called The Challenge (designed by Jack Nicklaus). It would have been a great time, but a long day so we decided on just 1 round of golf.
We went back to dinner at Cane and Taro, where we started our trip a week earlier and had the same sushi that we loved so much the first night on the island. What a great trip, Maui lived up to its hype of being a great vacation destination. We loved every minute!

Maui Day 8 Wednesday

Today was another golf day, this time we were scheduled to play the Gold Course at Grand Wailea. This course has also hosted The Skins Game, which is a pro tournament. This course is also ranked in the top 100 in the US and it was a great course. We all loved it, Jeb more than the Plantation, Nicole and I liked the Plantation course better. We did have a bright sunshine day to play at Grand Wailea. Nicole and I tied at this course, we had the exact same score on the front 9 and the back 9. I had no idea it was that close as I was struggling with my game the entire day. I drove it all over the course so I got to see some interesting spots. Nicole made some HISTORY on this course as she recorded her first EAGLE! There was a 205 yard par 4 and she drove it on the green. We both surveyed the putt and it was about 8 feet with some break to the left. She lined it up and SANK IT! She was very excited. After golf we always shower in their beautiful locker rooms and then have dinner. We had our best dinner of the trip on Wednesday at the following restaurant: Humuhumunukunukuapua
This is the Hawaiian State Fish and it was a very cool restaurant at the Grand Wailea hotel. We ordered sushi again and the food, scenery, and atmosphere were all great.

Maui Day 7 Tuesday

Tuesday was a recovery day from Hana for our group and a work day for me. We had an important USDA report out at 7:30 CST, so 3:30 in Hawaii. I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and tiptoed out of the room as to not disturb anyone. I worked for 2 hours before trade and the 4 hours of trade. It really didn't feel like work at their oceanside cafe with the ocean 40 feet from my table and the pool about 20 feet. Wireless is a beautiful thing. It ended up being a great report day and my clients were happy with our positions. We rented a cabana on the beach for Tuesday and I joined the group at 9:30 a.m. Hawaii time. We relaxed on the beach, snorkeled, snoozed and just did what you should do on vacation. We had 1 underwater camera so we hope to get some good pictures from that when we get back home. On Tuesday night we went to a restaurant in Lahaina which was a recommendation from our neighbor and friend Brian Thompson. Brian was so confident in this recommendation he said that if we didn't like our meals he would foot the bill. Well, we all ordered the surf & turf with lobster and filet mignon, and believe it or not, we didn't like the food. It was honestly the worst meal we ate on the island, and certainly not the cheapest. The most fun will be getting it out of Brian when we get home.

Maui Day 5 Sunday...golfing at The Plantation @ Kapalua

Sunday was a day we had a tee time to play at Kapalua's Plantation Course. This is a very famous golf course and always considered to be top 100 in the US. We as golfers have this argument all the time, is the course worth the money? We are very spoiled coming from Troy Burne where conditions are unbelievable. Our pros at home (you know who you are) tell us that many courses in the top 100 don't hold up to Troy Burne, it is about how much $$ you give to these magazines such as Golf Digest to rank your course, because you know once you are ranked you will get people to play your course. (Above: Hole #1 overlooking Kapalua Beach)

Anyway, Nicole and I thought the Plantation was wonderful. Honestly, the conditions were not as good as they are at home, especially the greens, but the SCENERY was unmatched by any course. The panoramic views offered by each hole were so beautiful. I think Nicole took 200 pictures on the golf course alone and she is approaching 700 pictures for the trip. Now, how did we play? The answer is not that good. I'll start with Nicole. She drove the ball perfectly all day, but really struggled putting on their SLOW greens and her short game around the greens hurt her. She shot 57 on the front (worst 9 holes in several years, grrrr) and then recovered with a 45 on the back 9. I played very well with the exception of my tee ball (big surprise). I only 3-putted one green all day and my irons were sharp. I shot 88 which was very disappointing but I hit 4 balls out of bounds. The course was a par 73 and we played from 7200 yards. Dinner afterward was very good with open window seating to the ocean. We used their locker room to shower and change after golf and it was pretty neat seeing pictures of all the past winners on the PGA who play in their tournament every year. Needless to say, we love golf.

Days 3-10 Maui, HI

We arrived in Maui at 2:30 p.m. on Friday. We grabbed the rental car and headed toward Lahaina where we are staying at the Maui Ocean Club. We are on Kannapali beach. It is our 1st trip to Hawaii and we were absolutely amazed by its beauty from the first day. Our hotel property is great, its location is perfect as there is a beachwalk that connects all the hotels and there is an array of shops/restaurants/bars all the way for 3 miles. We soaked in our first Hawaii sunset and then ate dinner on Friday night at a new restaurant called Cane and Taro where we enjoyed local fish in sushi form. Nicole and I love sushi and this was as good as it gets.


Day 4
We decided to make Saturday about resting as we have been going pretty hard since we arrived in San Fran on Wednesday. We went to Lahaina and picked up some groceries so we could eat breakfast in our room each morning. We also rented snorkel gear for the week (very cheap, $10.00/person for the entire week). Down the beach from the Marriot is a place called "Black Rock". It is basically a big lava rock that juts out into the ocean from the shore and it creates a great place to snorkel and also cliff jump. Nicole and I have never snorkeled before and we found it to be GREAT! Jeb has snorkeled a lot on his many trips and he taught us a few tricks. I struggled with the mask for a while, fogging up and leaking water, but after a while I figured it out. It is very relaxing as you just lay on top of the water and let the surf push and pull you in and out. The only trick is to pop up once in a while just so you haven't drifted OUT too far. We saw some beautiful plants on the ocean floor and fish of many colors. The scariest thing we saw was a massive turtle, which was probably over 100 lbs. Jeb and I both jumped off a cliff too, I don't know if I should say cliff, it was about 25 feet into the water. We jumped off higher when we were in Jamaica, but it seems in my old age I am getting more scared of heights so 25 feet seemed high enough. Saturday evening we headed to The Old Lahaina Luau. The Luau is a Hawaiian tradition and it was a lot of fun. The food was excellent and the rituals and dancing were also good. I have never seen a belly shake so fast!

Day 2: Napa

Day 2 Napa, CA
This was the day we were looking forward to the most. Nicole and I love to drink wine and what better place to visit than the wine capital of the US. We hired a driver to take the 4 of us from San Fran to Napa for the day. It is about 35 miles from San Fran to Napa, but it takes a little over 1 hour to get there. We were picked up at the hotel at 9 a.m. Our tour guide, Tom, is a wine aficionado. In his own words he is a complete “wine snob” and only will drink the best of the best. He has made it his life’s mission to weed out poor high priced wine and take his customers to places that have just great wine. He told us the history of Napa dating back to the early 1900’s and about his personal meetings with Robert Mondavi, a true pioneer in the wine business.


Our first stop was Trefethen. We were seated at a reserved tasting table and we drank nearly everything on their menu, 10 wines or more. We were all blown away by their Dry Riesling so we bought a case of that. All the wineries we visited in Napa were amazing, the properties are unbelievable, they range from early 1900 estates to brand new state of the art contemporary buildings. We loved them all. We didn’t love all the wines though, there were some that we found to be overpriced and not worth the money at all.


The 2nd winery we stopped at was called Silver Oak. This is a large winery and is very well known all over the world. I am not a big fan of their wines, but their winery was state of the art. Their old winery burned down 3 years ago and they rebuilt an unbelievable structure. The wine cellar below at Silver Oak is the coolest wine cellar I have ever seen.












3rd Stop Robert Mondavi
Need I say more. We drank some great wines here in their Reserve Tasting Room. Mondavi has the brand that sells in the wine business, but as our group discussed and agreed, people wouldn’t drink it if the wine was poor. We loved the wines at Robert Mondavi.


4th Stop Rubicon Estates
This was probably the best winery we visited. The wines were unbelievable (we knew this before we arrived as it is our favorite wine, we just can’t afford to drink it very often).
Francis Ford Coppola (the famous movie director) owns this winery now. He bought part of the winery with his money from The Godfather, and he bought the rest of the winery with money from Bram Strokers’ Dracula. It is not uncommon for their wines to be $150/bottle, they call it Rubicon. They have some lower level wines that they sell to the mass market and they don’t even make those wines at this property, they are made in Sonoma at their other property. We drink those wines more often. We bought 6 bottles here and joined their wine club, which means we will get 3 shipments/year when they release a new wine. If you buy wine and collect wine (something we just started doing), this is the cheapest way to buy wine, direct from the winery before it is handled and marked up by everyone else. Some of the wines that are sent to members of the wine club are never sold to the public, which we thought was pretty neat.


5th Stop Lunch
You really have to BE CAREFUL when you visit as many wineries as we did. You drink A LOT of wine and you become very familiar with what the Napa folks call "The Bucket Of Common Sense". This is the spit bucket that each table has so you don't drink all the wine, you just taste it and spit it back out. It's quite disgusting actually. Personally, I couldn't justify spitting out $150/bottle wine, and I didn't. I spit out 2 wines and it wasn't because I consumed too much, it was because the wines weren't good. We had lunch at a great place, a staple in Napa called Dean & Deluca. It was an upscale deli with sandwiches and cheeses. We ate on the road as we were now headed up Howell Mountain to our next appoitment, which was Ladera.
6th Stop Ladera
This property was beautiful. It sat up on Howell Mountain overlooking the Napa Valley. The winery was built in 1886. This was the 1st winery where we "saw the process". The other wineries up to this point we just saw some barrels and sat in their wine tasting rooms. At Ladera we were in the caves underground where they make/store the wines. We saw the vats of grapes being crushed, we saw the barrels stored in long hallways, cool and dark (A good Cabernet is barreled for 22-30 months). This is why the 2006 Cabs are just being released. So, as far as wineries go, Ladera was very nice, we just didn't like their wines. In their defense, we had drank some of the best wines California has to offer up to this point, and we were getting tired. You can't buy Ladera outside California, their production is too small. They produce 3500 cases/year. We bought 2 bottles to bring home, but they need to sit in the cellar and age for 10 years or so.
Our last stop was at Bell Wine Cellars. This is another small production wine cellar. The wines were much better here and we all tried a wine that we had never had. It was a typical blending grape called Petit Verdot. It was very good and worth a couple bottles.
On our way back to San Francisco we stopped and they packed and shipped our wines home for us. It was BY FAR the best part of our trip to San Francisco.

San Francisco Day 1

I'm going to write short blogs about each day, even though we are already 4 days into our trip.

Our first day in San Fran was a nice day, temps were about 70 degrees. We got settled at the hotel and walked out the door to the cable car. When I envisioned "cable car" I was thinking State Fair with cars up in the air going back and forth. Obviously I am an idiot as these are more like street cars, except they are pulled by a cable under the city streets. They also have electric buses in downtown San Fran which was pretty neat. No diesel filling the air from all the buses. The Cable Cars were very slow and I think more for tourists than anything else. We stayed downtown in the financial district and I didn't see anyone riding them to work. We worked our way to Fisherman's Wharf which is a big tourist attraction in San Fran. It is a bunch of shops and street vendors along the water, similar to Navy Pier in Chicago. Out across the Bay you can see Alcatraz and The Golden Gate Bridge. We decided a good way to see the city was by bike, our group thinks it was my idea. It was a strenuous 16 mile ride up and down hills and through neighborhoods. The finale was a 1.6 mile ride across The Golden Gate Bridge. I'm going to admit to this now as I'm sure it will get brought up again. If you know me you know that I am scared of heights. Well, this bridge is 225 feet above the water and we hit it in mid-afternoon with rush hour traffic. We were safe on the bike path, but the cars/trucks/buses were flying by us at 50 mph and the bridge was moving underneath our bike. So, I freaked out about 1/4 of the way across the bridge and we had to turn back. Nicole was ok with it, we got some good pictures and we knew we would be traveling across the bridge the next day on our way up to Napa! The bike tour was a fun little adventure. I like to call it a good 4 hour session in Marriage Counseling. We decided to rent tandem bikes and it tests all facets of the relationship. We had to compromise, communicate, and once in a while yell. We did very well! Here are some pictures from Day 1 in San Francisco.

Cable Car






Fisherman's Wharf. We saw a lot of fish being unloaded and here is one pic of an exchange with a customer. A lot of restaurants buy their fish this way for dinner that night.



The Tandem Bike Tour



The Gateway To San Francisco, The Golden Gate Bridge

Packed And Ready To Go!

Nicole and I are packed and ready for our trip. We leave Wednesday morning (tomorrow) at 4:30 a.m. My brother Andy is going to drive us to the airport and then pick us up on Saturday November 14th. We are going to stop in San Francisco for 2 days (Wednesday and Thursday) and then we leave Friday morning for Maui for 1 week.
On Thursday, we are very excited to take a day trip to Napa, CA. We have a private tour setup for the 4 of us taking us to 5 different vineyards.
While we are in Maui we plan to do all the tourist stuff. We are going to golf at 2 of the top 100 courses in the US, one course called The Plantation at Kapalua, the other called The Gold Course at Grand Wailea. Nicole and I plan to play the Bay Course at Kapalua also. I think the Wilson's are up for 2 rounds, they are more beach people than we are so we'll probably sneak another round of golf in while they are sunning themselves. I could care less about the beach, white people like me don't belong on the beach, I belong on the golf course. :) Just in case I have my SPF 70, but from what I read anything above 35 SPF doesn't matter.
Other exciting adventures we are planning are snorkeling, drive on the Road To Hana, and drive up to Haleakala National Park. We are also going to attend a Luau so we'll see how that goes.
I am going to take the over on 1000 pictures that I'm sure we'll take, so we'll share them along the way. Hopefully I don't have time to write on the blog while we're gone, but I'll probably post some updates.

Happy Halloween

We had a good weekend, boy was it busy. On Friday night after work I went to help my brother Ryan move into his new house. He and my brother Andy had most of the heavy lifting done before I got there, but they saved some of the heavy stuff for me as they say I am the strongest brother, HA!. Their house is very nice and it was exciting to move them in. My brother was excited to get his DirecTV setup with DVR. It was nice that he got DirecTV as he got $100.00 off and I got $100 for a referral. It was also great to see my mother whom I haven't seen since her birthday in August. Miss you mom!
After I finished helping there I met Nicole and the Snyder's (Brent and Courtney) for dinner. We went to Court's favorite Asian place in White Bear called The Orchid. The food was great. We then went back to our place to watch Twilight, one of Brent's favorite movies. It was pretty good and now we await the release of the sequel in November called New Moon.
Nicole was on call this weekend so she called the hospital on Saturday morning to see if there were any orders. There were 3 orders, so it was a full day for her. I went to my AGR board meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday and I dropped Nicole off at Fairview. My meeting was about 2.5 hours and Nicole was at the hospital until 3:00. After I picked her up we were both tired so we decided to sell our Gopher football tix and go home and watch the game on TV. Plus Nicole had 2 hours of dictations to do. We decided at halftime of the Gopher game to get a bite to eat so we went to a new restaurant in Stillwater called The Kitchen. The food was good so we will go back. We came home to watch the 4th quarter of the Gopher game and it was a good one. Adam Weber had a career game with over 400 yards passing and 5 TD's as the Gophers beat Michigan St. Iowa also won to improve to 9-0, their best start in school history. I'm sure Happer is enjoying the Hawkeye season very much.
On Sunday Nicole checked with the hospital again and this time no orders so she had the day off, which was great as Troy Burne had its end of the year tournament today. This is just a day where all the members play golf and they empty out all the beer coolers, booze bottles, all pro shop items that didn't sell and couldn't be returned. It ends up being a fun day. We played with Brent and Courtney but we didn't play great. We had a lot of fun though. There weren't any good women's clothes left but I got a nice shirt which I gave to my neighbor Brian and I got a new Nike putter that I sold to my neighbor Tim. I have enough golf gear and the only club I am considering is a new driver, but that will be next year. It was a fun weekend and below are some pictures from today's golf.


Meet The Snyders "Brent and Courtney"









Oh, those newlyweds!

Nicole spent much of the day trying to kick the rust off her swing. You'll notice no pictures of me as I was doing the same thing.





Courtney driving another one down the middle!




Nicole very excited about Courtney's birdie putt falling on #2 (Thanks to Brent for putting us about 3 feet away!

Great Weekend

Ok, my wife says that I ramble too much on the blog and that my stories take too long, so I am going to make a conscious effort to be more concise in my writing.
We had a great weekend, the weather continues to stink with more rain and gloom, but we can't let it get us down people.
On Friday night we went to the Gopher hockey opener against the Denver Pioneers. We got the tickets from George (thanks George). We were in the club level at Mariucci row 1, so the seats could not have been any better. We took Brent and Courtney Snyder with us and it was a lot of fun. Brent went to DU so we had to prevent him from cheering for Denver. He is more of a Broncos fan than he is a Pioneer fan. We lost 2-0, but it was a hard fought game. We always enjoy spending time with the Snyder's, they are a lot of fun.
On Saturday we went to the Room and Board outlet in Minneapolis, we are still looking for a few furniture pieces to complete the house. We found a good deal on an end table for our bedroom, so we now have the alarm clock and lamp off the floor. Next, we are trying to get the TV off the floor in our bedroom. One piece at a time, kind of like the Johnny Cash song!
After Room and Board we started out for Detroit Lakes. We went to see the "dentist" and spend time with our beautiful niece who is now a big girl at 1 year old. She is getting so tall, 98th percentile for height. The dentist was NOT VERY NICE to me this time. My teeth hurt so bad after our session, by far the most pain I have been in. The pain had NOTHING to do with the dentist though, we skipped a step or THREE as I have been pushing Ryan to get these braces off. We went to a thicker wire and my teeth have been moving a lot since Saturday afternoon. Ibuprofen is a beautiful thing. I was quoted 12 more weeks by the good Dr. before they come off!
On Saturday night we had a big night planned. Grandma Tauer (Michelle, not Maryann) was babysitting Hattie so the Ritchie's and the Ward's got all dressed up for a fundraiser for the local hospital at our favorite DL restaurant Fireside. It was a wine orientated event with heavy appetizers. Both were amazing, we drank some great wines my favorite being a Malbec from California. The gals enjoyed the Moscato and we all thought the appetizers were excellent. They had a prime rib carving station that was great and all the desserts were unbelievable, fresh truffles, creme brulee, they really went all out. It was a good fundraiser for the hospital too, they made some good money as there were over 200 people at this event. It was black tie so we had a good time getting dressed up.
Sunday we went out for breakfast to Speak Easy and then came back to the Ritchie's to watch the Vikings/Steelers game. Thanks to the Ritchie's for hosting us this weekend, we'll see you around Thanksgiving.
Nicole and I leave for our trip to San Fran/Hawaii next Wednesday so we are getting ready for that and we are very excited.

Fast Tiring Weekend, BUT FUN

Miss Hattie just loves Uncle Jason (and he thinks the same of her!)

Last week for us was great. We met Ryan, Emily, Hattie, Orlin, and Julie at Salut in Edina for dinner on Wednesday night. We were celebrating Hattie's 1st birthday. She was such a good girl, I don't call her a baby anymore. She is getting very tall in my opinion and cuter by the day. She got a nice tea set from Auntie Coco that she lost interest in very quickly (whatever, it kept her entertained at the end), but maybe will play with someday. We had a nice dinner and it is always great to see family.

On Friday Nicole and I went to Las Vegas for a little work related trip. We were only in Las Vegas for 42 hours and not a lot of that was sleep. We were GO GO GO for that 42 hours and feeling a bit tired today. We stayed at the Palazzo, which is a Venetian property. It was amazing, the room was HUGE, over 700 square feet with 3 TV's and a sunk in living room. The shade on the window and drapes was remote controlled so in the morning when we woke up, I hit the button and the drapes opened and the shade went slowly up. Our view was the mountain and the Wynn golf course so it was very cool. I would much rather have some nice landscape to look at than the Vegas Strip. When we arrived on Friday, my first order of business was to get some money on the Gophers to cover an 18 point spread against Penn State (doh!) I had 2 guys from the office who wanted money on the game and I did as well. Well, we lost 20-0 and the money was lost. How sick was it we got stuffed 4th and goal from the 1 yard line. After my wager was placed, we went to a wine tasting and then a welcome reception at the V Bar, a cool spot in the Venetian Hotel. On Saturday Mark and I were consumed with meetings from 9-4 while Nicole and Karen took care of show tickets and did some shopping and some pool lounging. Mark and I enjoyed the meetings very much and learned a lot. After the meeting the fun began. We headed to the pool to be with our beach babes. I got the white belly out and scared most of the people away. We then headed to dinner at David Burke restaurant. It was very good...lobster and braised beef short ribs were one of the 5 courses. Nicole and I then headed to see Jay Leno live. He did a monologue for 90 minutes without stopping. That man talks supper fast and has a lot to say. It was quite good and of course, funny. It was a very fun weekend...good food and wine. Las Vegas is a great place to people watch for sure.

Not Ready For Winter

The weekend gave us a rude awakening as we awoke on Saturday to find our yard covered with snow. We slept in a little (for us that is 7:30 a.m.) which was very nice. We were on our way to the Homecoming Football Game which put the "improving each week" Gophers vs. the lowly Purdue Boilermakers. It was a great day to be outside though, it was bright sun, but brisk. We wore long johns, winter coats, scarfs and stocking caps. Our claps were muted by winter gloves, but we cheered hard to get a Homecoming victory and improve the Gophers record to 4-2. We think we have to win out at home to make a bowl this year and that should be attainable. We have Michigan St on Halloween night, we have Illinois the 7th of November and we have South Dakota State on the 13th of November. On the road we don't really have a prayer as we play at Penn St and at Ohio St, and then finish the year at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City! I bought 4 tickets to this game if anyone wants to make a road trip, but my intention was to sell them to some desperate IA fans.
After the game we tried to do some shopping for our trip to San Fran/Hawaii which is coming up in 3 weeks. I haven't bought a new swimming suit since high school and thank goodness for elastic it still fits. We went to J Crew in Rosedale (haven't been to Rosedale since 2000). Our friend Courtney Snyder is the Store Manager at J Crew so we thought we would patron her store with some business. My wife tells me "MEN" always find the good deals and WOMAN always have to pay full price. I found some nice stuff on the Clearance rack (the only place I EVER shop). Nicole found nothing under $100 so she didn't get anything. I felt bad for her, but we'll keep looking.
On Sunday it was sunny again, but cold. Nicole worked on her CRP (Clinical Research Paper) all day. I watched golf in the morning and then played 18 in the afternoon with Brent Snyder and his brother Kyle and his dad Bill. They were nice guys and Brent and I are becoming very good friends. He is an unbelievable golfer and I learn so much by just watching him play. He gave me 8 shots (think about that), I have been golfing my whole life and carry a 4.8 handicap and Brent gives me 8 shots. So that means he was playing to a plus 3, which means he could shoot 3 under par for 18 holes. I kept it interesting and played very well, but lost to him on the 17th hole to lose the match. He simply made too many birides on the back 9. He shot 70, I shot 78. My pair of 39's was solid playing, but I hit 2 in the water on the back 9 which cost me the match. I had a blast playing with Brent and his family. We walked to stay warmer and who would have ever thought walking 18 holes would burn 700 calories, but I like it!
Last night (Monday night) Brent and I ordered pizza in and watched Monday Night Football and Tivo'd Presidents Cup (Golf event between the US and an International team). Our wives went to Recipe Club hosted by Sue Glasnap. They are great people from IA and we have a little competition going with them about Iowa vs. MN in any sport. They seem to win all the time, but it makes for good fun. She has a good friend in our development who is a big Wisconsin Badger fan and they are NOT SPEAKING this week because the Badgers play the Hawkeyes this weekend (Go Hawks)! Can't believe I wrote that but when it comes to the Badgers, I would cheer for Hitler if he were playing them.
Nicole and I are heading to Las Vegas this weekend for a little corporate getaway. I have a conference to attend on Saturday so she and Karen will spend the day either by the pool (doubtful) in the spa (maybe) or scouring the shops at Caesars (most likley). We are excited about the accomodations in Vegas, we are not big Vegas fans as we are not gamblers, but they have some of the best restaurants in the world and I'm sure we'll drink some very good wine. We are staying at the Palazzo, which is supposed to be top notch, so we'll report on it when we return. It is a quick 48 hours trip, actually less than that. We arrive in Vegas on Friday afternoon at 3:30 and leave at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday so in and out. This conference is very valuable to me though information wise. I learn each year some trends to watch and always find something in it to bring back to my client base. I have gone to this conference, this will be my 4th year, and the 1st 2 years I went with just Nicole and they were in Chicago. Each time I came home I had such good info that now Mark and his wife go, there first year was last year, and I doubt Mark will miss it again as he thought the same as I did about the value proposition it brings. There are so many smart people and to learn from a few of them is very beneficial because I'm not one of them.
I forgot to mention last Friday we missed out on the Homecoming festivites on campus (parade, pep fest) and went to Nicole's bosses house for dinner. They had a retreat that day and then afterward he invited all of his employees and their spouses for dinner. We think there are 28 employees in all, 15 being doctors and the rest office staff. He lives in North Oaks, which I have never been to, Nicole has been there for lunch a few times with her boss. He and his wife were the nicest people and very down to earth which was nice to see. You would have to see North Oaks to explain it well, but let's agree for a minute that Troy Burne is a nice development. I am biased of course, but there is a good golf course and some nice homes, but North Oaks makes Troy Burne look like the projects of Chicago or the "crackstack" in Minneapolis. It is a huge development where I'm going to guess the minimum home price is $1 million. Kevin McHale lives there, the CEO of 3M lives there ($8 million home) according to Nicole's boss. There home was very nice, but modest. It was small for North Oaks but still close to 5,000 square feet. We had a nice time meeting Nicole's coworkers. Enough rambling for now....

Broken Record, But Another Great Weekend

Nicole and I had planned to head to Detroit Lakes this weekend to get my braces tightened and watch Hattie while Em and Ryan went to a friends wedding. Nicole had the option to be on call for the weekend so we decided to do that instead. Thanks Em and Ryan for understanding and we will see you this coming weekend.
We took it easy on Friday night and just stayed home and caught up on Rescue Me (a TV series we enjoy). Nicole was excited about her 1st weekend on call. She is on call at Fairview Riverside (where Ashley had Zander). It is pretty neat how it works. She gets up on Saturday morning and at 8:00 a.m. she calls the hospital to see if there are any cases. If there is, she goes in, if there are not, she has the day off. So it's not like she can be called in for an emergency at any hour of the weekend, it is just a check-in right away in the morning and then go about your weekend. It prevents us from leaving town on that weekend, but that is no big deal. So yesterday she called in and there was 1 case, so she went in. She got home about 1:30 so she was gone about 5 hours. I went and played golf in the morning and then when she got home we played 9 holes with our good friend Brent Snyder. Brent is the teaching pro at Troy Burne. I was able to hang in there with him for 9 holes, but I made some dumb mistakes on the 2nd and 3rd holes and he beat me by 3 shots. He was a little rusty and if I ever had a chance to beat him this was my day. It would take Brent on a rusty off day and me shooting even par to beat him, a bad round for him is 1 over par. He simply plays a different game of golf than anyone I know.
After golf I went home and mowed the grass and we had Brent and Courtney over for dinner. Brent and Courtney were married last Saturday so we got together to catch up on their honeymoon to Quebec City. They are great people and we look forward to getting to know them better. Courtney is hilarious, she jabs at Brent like they have been married for years, and if you know Brent normally he is so cool and confident but his wife knows how to get him. (which wife doesn't right?)
Nicole made fresh salsa (always great) and we had a great pork loin and roasted potatoes. Nic is a great cook and entertains very well. After dinner we watched the Iowa/Penn St game and it was a BEAUTY! My brother Ryan and I were texting during the game as we all know how much the Hawkeyes meant to Hap! We so wished he was here to watch the game with us as he would have been on CLOUD NINE! The un-rated Hawkeyes went into Happy Valley to play the 5th ranked Penn State Nittany Lions! They won what was probably one of the best games I have seen in a couple years. Watching that game made me think of all the Hawkeye games we watched growing up begging Hap to turn the Gophers on. They are and always have been our 2nd favorite team. Do you know the chant, Who Hates Iowa, We Hate Iowa? I have always hated that cheer and wished we did that for the Badgers, because Wisconsin is way worse than the Hawkeyes in my opinion! It was a glorious day yesterday for Happer and I'm sure he was watching that game somewhere!
It was a great day on Saturday. Now today, Nicole got called in again, 2 cases today, maybe 3 which is very good. She is getting more efficient with her evaluations and her dictations. I'm trying to think of something to make for dinner so she doesn't have to cook when she gets home. I kind of feel lazy sitting home watching the Vikings and Tour Championship when she is working!
I hope everyone had a great weekend!

This Weather Is Great!

It was another beautiful weather weekend in Hudson. We started out with Couples Golf which we call 9 N' Dine on Friday night. We were very disappointed with the turn out as it was Nicole and I standing on the 1st tee at 5:15 when it was supposed to start. It wouldn't have stopped us from playing but people must be tired of the golf season or just too busy with back to school projects. One other couple showed up at 5:20 so we played 9 holes with them. The Gagnes were able to join us for dinner so the 6 of us went to Barker's in Hudson as the club was closed (not willing to stay open for 6 people I guess). Nicole shot a 46, not bad, I shot a 36, best round of the year. I got it to 1 under after hole 7, but I bogeyed number 8, which is a difficult par 3. We had the neighbors over for some drinks after dinner and we turned in early as Saturday was a long day!
On Saturday we had the Gopher football game at 11:00 against 8th ranked California. The Gophers were 14 point underdogs. We met Ally, Ashley, and Zander at the tailgate lots. Zander was very tired so he wasn't in the best of spirits. He was running a fever the day before and still probably not 100%. It was a perfect day for an outdoor game, in fact it was a little too warm, but we weren't complaining as there will probably be some cold game days coming. We both wore jeans thinking it would be a little cool in the morning, man that was a mistake. Our seats face the sun (which we thought would be good as it would be warmer), yeah, we baked for 2.5 hours.
The Gophers put up a good fight against a top 10 opponent. We really had a chance to win I think, but a few big plays were allowed and we lost by 14. They definitely improved from their game against Air Force. Our running game has to improve, our top receiver Eric Decker had a career game, but he took some serious shots and if that continues he'll be hurt and we'll be in the same position as we were last year (7-1 through 8 games, then losing the remaining 5 games). The running game has to improve.
After the game we went home for about 2 hours. I mowed the lawn and Nicole cleaned up around the house. We then went to Stillwater to have some appetizers and drinks with my largest client and his wife. They have a boat that they cruise the St. Croix river with and they were at their slip in Stillwater for the evening. So we met them on their boat and had a great time. I was a little nervous going into it, but we got along great. His wife and Nicole hit it off great as Nicole has a lot in common with their daughter. Their daughter is finishing her Masters in Clinical Psychology and thinking about making the "plunge" into the doctorate program!
At 8:30 they went to dinner in Stillwater and we walked with them, but we had a wedding reception to get to so we parted way. It was a great time.
The wedding reception we went to was for Brent and Courtney Snyder. We have gotten to know Brent over the last 5 years and we like him very much. He is our golf coach and now is becoming a good friend. He is 29 years old and is very interesting. His reception was a blast, lots of good music and of course some good beer/wine. We danced and talked until midnight when they shutdown the music.
On Sunday we slept in and did some more yardwork (never ending). I watched the Vikings for a few quarters and then had to play in the final golf tournament of the year, an event we call King of the Burne! This event is for the top 19 point getters throughout the season. I was number 7 out of 19. Out of 19 players, I was able to place 3rd yesterday. I lost out in a chipoff on the 17th green as I had tied with one other guy on that hole. I hit one in the water and still managed to tie but I lost the chipoff. The final 2 players went to the 18th and a winner was crowned King of the Burne. While all this football was being watched and golf was being played, I had a wife hard at work at home. She FINISHED HER DISSERTATION yesterday! I am very proud of her and I think my constant nagging had something to do with it, but maybe it was just a pain in her side. Either way, it is done and will be handed in this week for final review. We went out to dinner last night in downtown Hudson to celebrate a little. Nicole is getting a few more billable hours each week and is working hard to grow her business. It's slow going but it has only been 9 days.
This week looks to be pretty quiet, we have the 1st Wild game of the season this Thursday and are heading to Detroit Lakes on Friday to watch Ms. Hattie for the evening (Saturday) while Ryan and Em attend a friends wedding in Bemidji. We are excited. I am also going to get my braces tightened, hopefully for the last time. We are getting close to the end I think. We'll see! Have a good week.

Another Great Weekend

We started the weekend early this week with some friends coming out for dinner on Thursday night. With the big gopher opener we had a lot of friends in town, college friends that is. The core of my college friends have moved out of the Twin Cities and when we have a chance to get together it is always a great time. On Thursday we had Aaron and Emily Peter (Rochester, MN), Adam and Eve Adamson (Bermuda Island), and Mark and Amanda Escen (Geneva, Switzerland) over for dinner. Nicole made her specialty which is chicken marsala and it is always great. She had some great appetizers and we had some nice bottles of wine. This was our first group dinner since we finished the basement and I was curious how it would work out, where would people congregate, what would the flow be, etc. Well, as expected the bar was the popular spot, but that was not exactly the best thing. Nicole was left alone in the kitchen and for that I felt bad. The guys were at their bar stools, Thursday night football was on so that made sense to me, but all the gals wanted to be downstairs where the action was so it made me feel bad that Nicole was managing all the food in the kitchen by herself. At our previous dinner parties, the kitchen was the popular place to gather, but now downstairs seems to be. Maybe I'll come up with a sign that says women upstairs, men downstairs, until the meal is over.
Mark brought me a great bottle of whiskey from Ireland (he goes once/month) as it is only a short flight away.
Adam and Eve brought a bottle of rum from Bermuda and it was quite tasty and Aaron and Em brought us some wine for our cellar (it didn't make it to the cellar as we drank it before dinner).
It was so much fun to spend a night with old friends catching up on our lives and it was very exciting listening to the Escen's and Adamson's talk about their experiences overseas. Adam and Eve have only been in Bermuda a short time but Mark and Amanda have been in Switzerland for 3 years now. Eve is an actuary and the reason for the Adamson's move to Bermuda. Adam is not allowed to work "officially" as they don't want him taking a job from the locals. So he finds things to do for cash once in a while but admittedly spends a lot of time on the golf course and the beach. I hope to play with him there soon.
Mark and Amanda both work for Cargill in Switzerland and they absolutely love it there. Amanda hopes to move back to the US in the next 2 years but Mark wants to live there forever. He told us he sees no reason to move home, which was a little surprising to his wife. Mark spent the afternoon taking the Summit Brewery tour so maybe the MN beer was talking. I know he loves it there though, they are so close to so many countries and have experienced so much in the past 3 years. They really talk highly of the quality of life that the Europeans enjoy over the US with much more emphasis on family and enjoying life and not as much on WORK!! Interesting!
On Friday night I got together with the "boys" again this time at Rock Bottom Brewery. 15 of my college buddies got together to talk smart and catch up. Everyone is doing well which was nice to find out. Some have kids, some don't, some are married, some aren't.
Saturday was a big day. I started out the morning playing in the Troy Burne Club Championship. It is a 2-day tournament. I teed off at 7:45 and played ok. I shot 83 and was in 3rd place. The golf course is in the best shape it has ever been in, greens are very fast so it is playing very difficult.
After golf I came home and took a quick shower and Nicole and I were off to "The Bank", TCF Bank Stadium. We were meeting friends for afternoon grilling and off to experience Golden Gopher Football Back on Campus. It was a great day, people were so excited. We met up with Ashley and Ally, my brother Andrew and Brianne throughout the day. We tailgated for a few hours and then headed over to the stadium for the pre-game festivities. The stadium is unbelievable. I don't think it could be any nicer. There are more bathrooms than people, the only thing you are not used to is SO MANY people at a Gopher football game. They didn't have cash registers yet so everything was manual at the concession stands, which made for very long SLOW lines. They lost some revenue as people couldn't wait that long, and if the soda man came down the aisle his bucket was empty before he got to the bottom, so a few kinks to work out yet.
They had 4 F-16 fighter jets fly over the stadium, which was cool, but they flew over too early. We received an e-mail a few days before the game with a detailed timeline on all the activities. The flyover was supposed to be AFTER the national anthem which makes sense. Instead, the flyover happened DURING the Rouser and we nearly missed it, they flew over VERY FAST! Anyway, it was still a neat thing to see.
The game went by very quickly it seemed. The Gophers pulled out the victory which is great to start off the stadium right. My own personal opinion is they will have a very hard time winning Big 10 games this season, but maybe I'll be wrong, hopefully, but I just don't think they look very good.
It was a great day to be an alum of the University of Minnesota, and for the current students, what an atmosphere to experience on Saturday. We were very proud to have went to school there, we always are actually, but Saturday was a historic day!
Sunday, I played the final day of the Club Championship. I was in the final group, but I was 7 shots behind the leader, my friend Brian Thompson. Now, let me tell you just a little bit about Brian Thompson. He played Division 1 golf at Michigan and is MUCH BETTER than me, so there was NO PRAYER that I was catching him. I was 1 shot out of 2nd place, which was held by Mike Lovick, the Club Champion from last year. I thought I had a chance to catch him. So, we tee off on the 1st hole. I make par, Brian makes bogey, and Lovey (as we call him) made a double, so all of a sudden I'm 6back of the leader and 1 ahead, in 2nd place by myself. I played well until the 9th hole where I had a DISASTER. I lost my ball in the long grass to the right of the fairway (we call it FESCUE) Then I hit another one and it went in the same Fescue farther up the fairway and WE LOST ANOTHER one. I made a 9 on the hole, 5 over par for 1 hole. My chances of 2nd place were OVER. I ended up shooting a 92 today, and finished in 5th place. OUCH! I was disappointed of course, but how can you ever be too upset when you are on such a beautiful golf course.
Nicole spent the entire day Sunday working on her dissertation, she is nearly done, but it's crunch time so she's really into it. Sorry this got long, but it was a great weekend. We're watching the Packer/Bears game now and relaxing for the night. Go Bears!

Labor Day Weekend

What a great weekend, the best in recent history. I mean, talk about perfect weather.
We left for Duluth on Thursday night to cut our drive in half. I worked from the hotel on Friday, Nicole went for a nice run along Lake Superior. I finished work around 2:00 p.m. and we headed north to Ely, MN for Nicole's uncle Joe's wedding. We have driven the route along Hwy 53 from Duluth to Virginia many times over the last year. So we decided to mix it up this weekend and drove to Two Harbors from Duluth and then taking Hwy 2 up to Ely. You are on Hwy 2 for about 50 miles and then move to Hwy 1 for another 30 miles. Honestly, Hwy 1 is the coolest drive I have ever been on anywhere in the world. Of course I haven't driven in many places, but it is for sure the coolest road I have driven in MN. This is the ideal road for sports cars who love to test the way their car handles. By no means do we have a sports car, but the Saab handles very well in tight corners and this road was perfect for that. We met a lot of motorcycle riders who probably had the same idea. It is not recommended at night or in the winter, but on a perfectly dry summer day it was a lot of fun. I couldn't wait to do it again on our drive home. Nicole said I could drive as fast as I wanted, as long as I was in control. I slowed down when she turned green and had to roll down the window for some air. She got a little car sick.
Once we arrived in Ely, the festivities began. We checked in and immediately went to the rehearsal for the wedding. Nicole was a reader in the wedding. Then we went to the Groom's Dinner. The wedding was Saturday afternoon, right on the lake. It was a perfect day, I mean you could not have asked for better weather for an outdoor weekend. People went fishing, boating, tossed horse shoes, had campfires, smores, everything you could ask for at the lake. The service was very nice and Nicole did a nice job reading. She was nervous, but she did well.
On Monday we went kayaking down the Kinnikinic River, which is a small tributary to the St. Croix River. We had 4 couples who made the journey, the Wards, Wilsons, Gagnes, and Thompsons. It was about 4 hours and again the weather was great. Nicole and I went up to the park last night at sunset and enjoyed a bottle of wine and talked about how great the weekend was.
The only negative of the weekend was I dropped my phone in the lake. George and I were putting the bumpers between Joe's boat and the dock and I reached down to grab the bumper and my phone fell out of my front pocket of my shirt. There was literally 1 inch of space between the boat and the dock and the phone went perfectly through it. Fortunately I have insurance on my phone that gets me a new phone at no charge, WHEW!
I hope everyone enjoyed Labor Day 2009!

Weekend Update

We had a nice relaxing weekend. Nicole was home most of last week as she was given the week off by her new boss. She went to report to work on Monday of last week and checked in. She went to their testing site at Fairview Riverside and received her credentials (she was also told that she couldn't park in the Doctors Parking lot until she was a licensed doctor) which we both had a chuckle about. She still gets to park free in the ramp, but not out front where the doctors park. I told her when she does get to park in that spot she should drive the Land Rover because it will leave some nice oil spills each day. :)
Her boss was very nice and said to her, when do you want to start working? Nicole said, I'm here to start today. He said when did you finish your residency? She said, last Friday. He says there is no way you are starting today, you have only had 2 days off, you take the rest of the week off and start next Monday. So, she started today at Noon and will be shadowing pretty much this whole week, maybe even into next week. She is excited to dig right in.
So last week with her having an unexpected 4 days off she really got the house in nice shape. There was a lot of clean-up to do downstairs after all the work. We had company on Friday night which was Ryan, Emily and Hattie Ritchie along with their friends Matt, Amy and Mya Boeke. We talked about taking them to this great burger spot in Hudson called Barker's. So Friday during the day they went to the State Fair and then that evening we went down to Barker's. We checked in and it was about a 40 minute wait, so we said fine, let's walk down to the river and Mya and Hattie can eat their supper. So about 30 minutes later we come back to Barker's and the POWER WENT OUT. It didn't just go out at Barker's it was the whole downtown Hudson. So we went to Bricks, our favorite pizza spot in Hudson. They don't cook with any electricity at Bricks, they have a stone fire oven that they do all their cooking in. So we had some good pizza and artichoke dip and everyone but Matt enjoyed it. Matt is a meat/potatoes type guy so pizza with asparagus and olives and peppers on it didn't appeal to him much. We felt bad about not eating at Barker's but it gives them a reason to come back and visit us.
Saturday Nicole and I played golf at Troy Burne, and we played terribly. It was good to just get back out on our favorite course.
Saturday night we had our neighbors and friends Brian and Shelly Thompson over for appetizers and drinks. Then the Wards/Wilsons/Thompson's went to Woodbury Days for an outdoor festival. It was a good time and it was chilly. Nicole was happy as she got to wear her UGGS again!
On Sunday we slept in for a change and then I had a golf outing in the afternoon and Nicole continues to work on her CRP dissertation. We are so happy to be back to our normal life in Hudson.
This coming weekend we are going to Ely, MN for Nicole's uncles wedding. 1 week back in Hudson and we are heading back to THE RANGE!!!

Gopher Football

With all the news yesterday surrounding the Favre signing, I thought I would plug the Gophers. Season tickets came in the mail yesterday and it got me excited about the upcoming season. This Saturday is the Summer Scrimmage and season ticketholders can go and sit in their new seats and check them out. I gave mine to my brother Ryan and he is going to take the kids and let me know how the seats look.
I also had a client call yesterday who is putting together a group order for a Favre jersey. He has over 100 already on his list. He said they weren't NFL replica jerseys but look just like them with Favre on the back. They sell for $22 so if anyone is interested I will add you to the list. I personally don't really care about wearing jerseys, but I took one as my client was selling (brown noser)!
My good friend Mark Escen is flying in from Switzerland next week for 2 weeks to catch the opener. I have never seen Gopher fans this excited. Now the real question is, how long does that enthusiasm last? If the team stinks, the stadium euphoria will wear off quickly. My sister and brother in law Tom cannot make it to the 1st game as they have a good friends wedding (I told Tom if he was a good friend he would have gotten married a different day), but Tom was checking to see if any of his family members wanted the tickets, if not, I will have 2 extra so if anyone who reads this blog (so George, Mom, and Emily) let me know if I can get those tickets if you want to go to the opener!
Raining here today, quiet day in the markets. Nicole only sees 1 client today and is spending the rest of her day working on her dissertation. If you talk to her ask her how it is going. She is the Queen of Procrastination but always seems to get her important things done. Not to put any pressure on her, but she doesn't graduate if this paper is not done! Let's get her graduated! She has until October 17th for it to be signed OFF by her committee. She got a nice certificate yesterday from the consortium up here (what does consortium mean anyway) as she has officially satisfied her 2000 hours of residency!
My mom started her new job Monday at the Advanced Press in Springfield. I was so happy that she found something so close to home and won't have to be commuting to New Ulm or Sleepy Eye everyday, especially in the winter. They are going to work her a little harder than she wanted, 4 days/week, she was hoping for 3, but she get 3-day weekends every week as she has Friday's off. I talked to her on Monday night after her 1st day and she was a tired girl, yawning all the way through our conversation. I think that is because I am boring to talk to, but it probably was because she spent the previous 3 days working her tail off for the Senn Family reunion. 65 people came to my Aunt Jeanie's farm in Mapleton, MN. Senn is my maternal grandmother's (Grandma Connie) maiden name. Ryan and I were the only two dopes who didn't show up. We had our PGA tickets bought a year in advance before the reunion was even scheduled, but still were bummed we didn't make it. Grandma was bummed too. My great Grandpa Senn, his name was Harold, but he went by H.F. I always thought that was cool to go by your initials. He owned a garage in Easton, MN, he was a mechanic. I never met him that I remember, he died when I was 3 or so, but mom showed me a picture of me sitting on his lap I believe.
Have a great day and Go Gophers!

Home Stretch

Nicole and I got back up north last night. This is our final week on The Range! Nicole sees patients all day today (8:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.), then has one patient tomorrow and one on Thursday. Friday they are having a pot luck for her and we clean out her office. I'm sure she'll shed a few tears as it has been a great year for us, mostly for her. Our friends Jeb and Kaylan are coming up Friday for one last weekend of fun on the Range. We leave Sunday August 23rd for HOME! I'll let Nicole write the "thoughts of this past year", I'll just bring you up to speed on what we have been doing at home while we have been up here.
In February we decided that while we are living up here we should have our basement finished. It avoids us living through the mess full-time, and boy was it a mess. Well anyway, our project was completed yesterday, we just have a few touches to finish up, nothing too major.



When Ashley came back from Australia and was going to live with us we partially finished 2 bedrooms and our bathroom down there, so there wasn't much left to do in that area, just trim and a closet door in one of the bedrooms. The major work was done in the living room. That area was plumbed with the build of the house to have a bar and a living room and a recreation area. We also chose to put a wine cellar in where otherwise another closet for storage would have been. I will post some pictures that Nicole took yesterday. We hope to have more people over now that our basement is finished and that we are home full-time.

This is our living room. The wall on the right will be filled with pictures!

Another picture of the living room, we used a gray slate on the fireplace

One sectional for furniture. We need an ottoman or coffee table yet!

The Ward Bar!
The Wine Cellar! This is located next to our bathroom, just down the hall from the bar!

The Wine Cellar is temperature controlled with its own seperate unit. It keeps temp and humidity at preferred levels.

The floor in the bar area and down the hallway and into the cellar is a stained concrete. We had many problems with this part of the project and still are not completely satisfied with its color in all spots. We will be doing some adjustments to it in the coming weeks, trying out new stains in certain areas, and if ALL FAILS (which we certainly hope doesn't happen because we like the look) we can tile/carpet over it. I think we'll find a "happy medium", but with concrete you never know what you are going to get. We chose concrete as our top of choice in the basement. It is part of every countertop we have downstairs, except for my desk which is just to the right of the bar. We like the uniqueness of concrete and found that staining concrete was no more expensive than carpeting the floors, and it was no more expensive than granite countertops like we have upstairs.
Overall we are very happy with the turnout of the basement project. We just need some time for Nicole to put her magic touches on it to make it our home. It feels a little cold and empty right now, but soon will be warm like the colors she chose down there.