Weekend and mini-vacation

This is a first for me, I’m blogging in the car on my laptop! Well, I’m cheating and typing up the entry on the way home from Up North.

It was such a great weekend! Well on Saturday Jason and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. I can’t believe it has been 5 years already. On one hand it seems like we just got married a few weeks ago, and on the other hand it seems like we have been together forever. (That is a good thing!) First we went out to see the Dark Knight, the new Batman movie. It so wasn’t my movie, but I had a short nap, enjoyed popcorn, and holding hands with Jason. I did think that Heath Ledger did an AMAZING job as the Joker though. His performance was creepy. It was all the little things that he did that made the Joker so scary. I thought the movie was way too long too. But that’s just me, and like I said it wasn’t my kind of movie at all. Then we went to one of my favorite places to eat, Red Lobster! I LOVE me some seafood.

Sunday, we left home in the morning and headed up to the Twins game. We paid $1 each for the tickets, thanks to an Applebee’s promotion! The seats were in the Home Run Porch, a place where we have never sat before, but still lower level. For $1 each, we can’t complain!!!! We paid more for food than the tickets!!! But for the first time we seen 3 home runs!!! Jason was ecstatic. I must admit it was neat and the Twins won, so that was even better. It was a fun game.

After the Twins game we headed up north and stayed at the Casino for the night. The pool was closed, yet again, and I politely complained that the pool was closed the last 3 times we stayed there, and that the “Double Beds” that were in the room, were more like singles. For our coupon rate of $25 we ended up with a King Jacuzzi room!!! That works for me. We put the Jacuzzi to good use and enjoyed snuggling in the king bed.

On Monday after meeting Ma for lunch at the Buffet we went the rest of the way up north at Ma’s house. Ma taught me how to can jams and chicken!!!! It was a blast!!!! With the assembly line process, it seemed to go very smooth and fast. We canned Blueberry Jam, Peach Jam, Strawberry Jam, and chicken. I will get you the grand totals of everything later, when it’s not sitting in the car behind me. All but one jar of chicken sealed!!! I LOVED hearing the sound of the jars popping and sealing. Music to my ears. Ma, you taking the time, and walking me through the process, really made me a whole lot more comfortable, and now I know I can easily do this at home in Roch. Though, I do wonder what I will do without yours and Julie’s help with the prepping!!!

I think that I have been going to Coldstone too much for ice cream. That evening I took some vanilla ice cream, some crushed graham crackers, some cinnamon and sugar, and some of the canned peach jam (it was nice and chunky!) and mixed it all together. Tasted like a really good peach pie with ice cream if I can say so myself! I can’t wait to try it with the other jams that we made.

Also on Monday, I met Julie’s boyfriend of roughly one month and 4 days. He actually talked to us and seemed really nice! I also embarrassed Julie by asking if I could snap a few pictures of them together. It took Jules a while to say yes, but I managed to get some. Once I edit them, I will share. Look for them coming up. It was so cute and funny that he kept apologizing for having his greasy, dirty, work clothes on. It was quite often, but it was so nice. He had manners!! I was impressed.

Then on Tuesday, which is today, when I’m typing this, Jason and managed to sleep in somehow until 9:30. Yikes! That’s late!! We showered, got ready and headed up to the North Shore. We wanted to visit Betty’s Pies again, like we did on our honeymoon. The meal and the pie were delish!!! I had a Spicy Apple Crunch piece of pie and Jason had Five Layer Chocolate. I stole a bite of his and boy was it ever good. While we were there, I picked up the Betty’s Pies Cookbook, so now I have tried and true pie recipes! I can’t wait to bake some and try them out! There was a Hershey Pie in there that Jason wants me to try. It almost sounds like a Smore type pie. I have a feeling I will make that tomorrow or sometime this week. I am so in the mood to bake!

Then we went and walked the Pier at Two Harbors, watched a ship dock up and enjoyed the sites. On the way out of town we stopped by the Chicken that we are all required to have our picture taken by and went into the little store there. It used to be such a wonderful store filled with great unique gifts and Christmas ornaments. But this year it was awful. It was mainly TY Beanie Babies and mass produced stuff that looked chintzy. I was disappointed as we used to get a TON of Christmas Ornaments there. Oh well. Everything changes with time.

Now we are heading home. Planning on stopping at Sonic for supper in the Cities (never been there before) and then meeting up with Jason’s mom, at our house I believe. Estimated time to get home is around 8 p.m. That works for me. More than likely I will get home, unload the car and crash.

Tomorrow I can’t wait to wash off the canning jars and put them on a shelf! Though I will have to make room, but that’s fine with me! I can’t wait to see all my jars lined up filled with food. That will make me so happy. I can’t thank Ma enough for taking the time to show me. It meant so much to me that she did.

Oh and one other thing. For the girlies, I’m thinking I should start giving them some things for their hopechest, so when they move out, they will have some things. They are 13 and 16, and I’m not so sure that they will appreciate them now, but I think I might try to embroider them each a set of the flour sack dish towels or something. I’m not sure what exactly yet, but I do hope that if I make something or give them something for their hopechest that it will go in there and they will appreciate it someday.