Weekend Update

Friday night we had dinner with Dan and Jess Watje. We went to Saffron which is a new restaurant downtown. It is Middle Eastern cuisine and we were nervous about that part, but we ended up very happy about the food. It was restaurant week in Mpls last week so a lot of restaurants had some feature items. You get a salad, entree and dessert for $30/person. I had a beet salad, lamb chops, and then a nice chocolate dessert. Nicole had scallops and another dessert and we thought the food was very good. It was great to catch up with Dan and Jess. Both are very happy in their jobs, Dan is still with Cargill traveling all over the world. He was in Istanbul in January and he gets to Argentina and Dubai once/year as well. I think I have written this on the blog before but Dan and I both interviewed for the same job at Cargill when we were in college. He got the job and I then interviewed with Northstar and got that job. It's interesting how life turns out and we always laugh about it, how he was the "better man" and how they chose the right guy. Jess is still with Best Buy and still loves her position.

On Saturday Nicole's day was filled with BABY SHOWERS! She made the trek out to Chanhassen to Sue Knott's shower. She saw some old friends from college and got to see some of Andy's remodel projects, most recently their bathroom. She said it looked great. Sue looks good and is due in 3 weeks.

In the afternoon she went to another baby shower for Jennifer Chase in our development.
While she was on the baby shower tour I went to Yoga in the morning and then met my friends Adam Adamson and Mark Escen on campus for lunch. The "boys" like Mannings on Como as it was one of their college hangouts. I personally don't think much of Mannings and would rather hit Sally's or Stub & Herb's, but crowds are never a problem at Mannings. We enjoyed catching up talking about Adams new job in Bermuda. He is brokering insurance, health and life on the island. His wife Eve continues her job as an actuary. He told us they were likely to be in Bermuda for another 2 years.

Mark and Amanda moved back to MN in November and have found a house. Mark's wine shipment that he sent home from Switzerland has finally arrived in the US. It is in customs at the airport and he is looking for storage until their home is ready. I offered up our cellar for storage and he lauged and said it wouldn't be big enough as he has over 400 bottles coming. Our cellar has 360 bottles of capacity with the current racks on the wall, but we can add another 360 bottles just by adding more racks. We figured let's fill up 360 before adding more racks. Mark lived 30 miles from Burghundy France for over 3 years so he has amassed quite a wine list. I can't wait to see their cellar when they move into their new house.

On Saturday night I played poker next door at Dave Rondeau's with some of the guys. Nicole and Kaylan went to Shanhai Bistro for dinner. We had fun playing poker, I hadn't played poker in a very long time. I lost $5. Dave made his homemade pizzas for all the guys and they were very good.

On Sunday Troy Burne had its Spring Fling, which is just a brunch for everyone in the development. We had a great turnout with over 70 people coming. The food was catered in from River Falls and it was lousy. How do you ruin egg bake with hashbrowns, but they did. Runny eggs and clumpy hashbrowns and very fatty greasy bacon. The Bloody Mary's and Mimosa's were good though so we had fun.
After the brunch the Gagnes and the Wards went and toured 3 homes in the development. 2 were on the Parade of Homes which kicked off this weekend. The nice part is 2 of the homes were already sold and one was still for sale. We love to see homes sell in our neighborhood, it gives us all a sense of relief that someone might actually want to live in our neighborhood. We took it easy on Sunday night and watched the Oscars.