Anne and the City

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I yearned to live in a city.  It didn't even have to be Minneapolis or St. Paul, even downtown Grand Forks would have sufficed (shut up Nicole, I can hear you laughing). I have just always loved downtown areas and marvel at the old buildings full of charactor and history. Not to mention all of the one-of-a-kind boutiques and restuarants with outdoor dining right out on the side walks. Everyone walking around just seems so cool with their ecclectic yet vintage style and interesting lives. Well folks, I got my wish . . . sort-of. I am not quite young enough to fit in the "young and hip" catagory, and having a whole litter of children probably doesn't help me much either. And rolling down a sidewalk in a wheelchair pushed by my mother was probably the last nail in my "cool coffin".  But I'm really not that sad about it.  I love my life just the way it is and feel pretty lucky to be able to take in all the awesomeness of this city, without all the high priced real estate, horrible parking situations, bad traffic and "city dangers". :)

I have continued to be a busy girl. Here is a over-view of my last couple days:

Sunday Night:
My friend Jenine came to stay with me in the time-lapse I had between when Carl and the girls left and when my mom came on Monday afternoon. She took me out to a fantastic restaurant called the Monte Carlo (which I found out was one of the oldest restaurant in Minneapolis) and had some of the best chicken wings I had ever tasted. Then we had to head to Target to pick up a few essentials...instead of opting for my wheelchair for my traveling needs, I chose a motorized cart.

This was a whole new level of embarrasment.  It had a 0.2 miles an hour top speed, sqeeky wheels and beeping alarm when I went in reverse . . . I won't be choosing this form of travel again. We then went back to the apratment, settled in with some movie candy and popped in "The Vow".

Monday:
I slept in until 9:00am and had some coffee cake with Jenine before she headed home.  I then just lounged around . . . took a very long shower (maybe I should have ordered a sponge bath from the front desk . . . ?), picked up a little, caught up on the blog and read unitl my mom arrived later that afternoon.  We decided to head back over to Grand Ave in St. Paul so we could have dinner and hit up a few shops. We had dinner out on the Salut patio, bought a baby book at the Red Balloon book store and browsed a few boutiques. Needless to say, it was a great night.

Tuesday:
Had another relaxing morning (beginning to see a pattern??) and then ventured out to one of my favorite stores of all time - Patina.

I picked out my birthday present (Thanks Mom!!), picked out a small gift for Carl, got a little gift for the baby, and got a few unique thank you cards that I just had to have.  After about an hour of shopping/browsing/wishing at Patina, we headed over to ReVamp Salonspa for a pedicure.  It was fabulous.

I was so excited that Carl, my Dad and Barb and the girls were headed back down to celebrate Carl and I's birthday with a birthday dinner!! We decided to go to Burger Jones right by Lake Calhoun for the "Best Burger in the Twins Cities" voted by Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine. I would have to agree . . . the burgers are to die for :)

Today, I will be celebrating my "real birthday" with another ultrasound at 2:00pm and then another shopping activity with my mom.  It is supposed to be in the 90's and very humid, so needless to say, I will be indoors for most of the day.  Beacause as we all know hot + humid + very pregnant = crabby Anne.

Much more to come!
*sorry for all the mispellings and errors...spell check just wasn't working, and I was too lazy to look too closely at the text :)