We're trying new things!

If you were to ask either Jeff or I what we like to eat, you'd get a resounding..."Anything but fish or seafood!" (Actually, there are probably a few other things that could be added to that list as well.)

Of course, over and over again, we hear how good fish is for you. Lots of people enjoy it.

So, we finally decided to give salmon a try. On a whim, I purchased some at the grocery store. I figured if we didn't like it, we'd only be out $5, and I'd know not to try that again.

Jeff agreed that I could make it for dinner. Here is the recipe I decided to try.

I thought I had lemon pepper, but I didn't. I did have garlic pepper, so it turned out to be way more garlic that lemon. I served it with mashed potatoes (instant) and green beans (canned).

It was my first time, of course, so I think I may have over cooked it. I thought it was a tad too dry.

I was surprised at how non-fishy it tasted. I mean, once you got passed the smell. :-)

It was...wait for it...actually all right. Jeff and I agreed that it would even be OK for me make salmon again.

Big Lake Wilderness Lodge

Last weekend, we took a trip up north to spend some time at the lake. The lake we chose was Big Lake near Ely, MN.

We went with my Dad,

Marna,

Emillio,

AJ,

and Selena.

We had so much fun, and we took a lot of pictures. Check out the slideshow on the right for a quick view. I hope to put some into scrapbook pages and post them in a future post. Right now, it's past my bedtime, and my mouse it almost dead, so I need to call it a night.

Hopefully this is enough to whet your palette.

Come back soon!

Strikes

In the last post, I mentioned that we were going to put in an offer on a house in St Paul.

I'm disappointed to have to report that we didn't end up putting in an offer because there were already two offers in, and we knew we wouldn't be able to outbid them.

STRIKE ONE!

So...we decided to put in an offer on our 2nd choice home. It wasn't in the same location, but we thought that it might be the house for us. We sat down with our realtor and filled out all the paperwork. And we waited. Last week, we found out that another offer had been accepted.

STRIKE TWO!!

We are going out house hunting with our realtor again tonight. Hopefully, we'll find something that we love! And we'll put in an offer! And they'll accept it! And we'll be able to close in a few weeks!

If we strike out again (three strikes, you're out, right?), we'll probably just look for a cheaper apartment--one closer to campus. You see, on June 30th, we put in our 60-day notice to vacate our apartment at the end of our lease. On July 1st, our apartment was rented. August 31st is our last day, so hopefully we'll have something lined up before that day comes...and it's fast approaching.

Wish us luck!

Update / Restaurant Review

OK, so I guess I've been pretty lackadaisical about updating our blog.

We've even taken some pretty cool road trips complete with great photos! We went to Lutsen, MN, in the beginning of May, and Nauvoo, IL (for my cousin's wedding) in the middle of May. Hopefully I'll take some time to blog about them soon.

About a month ago, Jeff and I found ourselves in a Slumberland Clearance center. While waiting to check-out, I sat on a couch by the register. I immediately fell in love with this couch! So comfortable, so soft! Too big, really, for our apartment.

So...we began again the discussion of whether or not to buy a house in MN. After much discussion, the search began. We found a house that holds lots of opportunity for us to really make it exactly what we want and that will fit our needs.

Being city dwellers at heart, this property is less than 1 mile from downtown St Paul, and within walking distance to the Xcel Center and the shops/restaurants on West 7th. We LOVE the location.

Unfortunately, we didn't get approved for nearly as much as we would've liked. Good news is, it is bank-owned, so hopefully they'll accept our very low-ball offer. If you don't mind keeping us in your prayers, we'd really appreciate it.

Last night, we decided to actually go out on a date--something we haven't done in quite awhile. Since I've always considered myself more of a Minneapolis girl than a St Paul, I thought we should go check out the area that we'll hopefully be moving to.

We decided to try El Patio.

This restaurant really helped sell me on the location and St Paul. We dined outside, and it was so relaxing! We leisurely talked about our future as we munched on chips and salsa. Our food was delicious and our server was great! I definitely see us returning to this restaurant and checking out the others that are close by.

Movie Review: 21

Jeff and I went to see 21 last night. Click here for a trailer. (You have to watch a brief commercial before the actual trailer.)


We both really enjoyed this movie!

This post was actually written on 4/19/2008. Not sure why I didn't end up publishing it. Maybe I was going to expand more on what we liked/didn't like...

New Favorite Sport

Last night Jeff and I went to our first Roller Derbie!

We were kind of skeptical (or at least I was), but it was actually very fun to watch. We took some pics (unfortunately, it was too dark for good pics) and some video. The videos that were turned out well are too large to upload to this blog. Maybe we'll be able to edit them a bit to get them down to an appropriate size.

My sister plays hockey, so we're trying to get her to tryout to be a MN Rollergirl. Tryouts are at the end of June. I told her I'd even tryout, too!

Visit the MN Rollergirls website for more about this exciting sport.

New Toys

We moved into a large 1-bedroom apartment at the beginning of February. Now we have all kinds of room and have begun the process of filling out the empty spaces. With both Jeff and I in school, we have decided to use all 3 of our desktop computers--one for Jeff, one for me, and one for entertainment (we run our TV through a computer). Using all 3 computers, presented us with a dilemma: we were short 1 monitor.


Our solution:

Yep, a 42" plasma TV. :-) It is SO nice.

For Jeff's birthday, I wanted to get him something really special. We'd been discussing this purchase, so I went out and bought a Wii.

We've been having lots of fun playing tennis in our living room. My family gave Jeff 3 additional games. I haven't tried any of them out, but I'm sure they'll be lots of fun!

We certainly enjoy our new toys. BUT now it makes it even more difficult to concentrate on our studies. So far, I think we've done quite well.

Wish us luck balancing school, work, and play. :-)

Don't Hug Me!

Another New Year's Resolution that we made was to do at least one cultural thing every month. We missed January, but we have a couple of things marked down for February.

We have a relatively loose definition of cultural. We just want to get out and do more things than just go to the movies or something. We want to experience more things in life. Our cultural events will include: plays, museums, zoos, galleries, lectures, etc.

Our first event was this past Friday evening (2/8). We saw Don't Hug Me at the Hennepin Stages Theater in the Hennepin Theater District. It was hilarious--so much so that Jeff really had exert quite a bit of effort to control some of his guffaws.

You know it's good when we are still quoting lines from the play two days later. :-)

It was a Minnesota love story--poking fun at the Minnesota cold, accent, and unique sayings (e.g. "Ya, sure, ya betcha!", "Oh, for sitting on a cat!" or "Oh, for fartin' in church!"). The acting was great!

My parents joined us for the play and the 4 of us went out to dinner beforehand at Zelo. This was fabulous! Jeff ordered a NY Strip and it was the best he'd had in a long time--definitely worth the price. My pasta was delicious as well, and their tomato basil soup was SO good. The atmosphere was really lovely, too.

Did you Caucus??

Last night was Super Tuesday--an opportunity for people in 22 states to attend their local caucus or primary.

It was an opportunity for Jeff and I to legitimately get out of class early. :-)

Well, that was our original desire to go. Neither of us had ever attended a caucus, and being 30 (and very nearly 30), we thought it was time for us to enter the adult world of political awareness. We didn't know what to expect at a caucus nor did we really know which (Democrat or Republican) we should attend. I believe that both of us had only voted once previously--one voted Democrat in 2000 and one voted Republican in 2004, so we didn't really feel that we were really aligned with either political party.

Even driving to the caucus last night, we were still undecided. We reached the turn for the Republican one first, so we decided to check it out. We were mostly interested in just observing to see what it was all about, because of all the people that we'd asked, no one really knew what one was or what occurred at one.

Here is what happened:

• We found the location of our address on a map to determine our Ward (12) and Precinct (4).
• We gathered into an auditorium where letters from the candidates were read.
• We were then divided into precincts and each met in a different room (Or at least that is what was supposed to happen. In reality, they were short on conveners, so our precinct was combined in one room with another one.)
• We nominated and voted on delegates and alternates. (I'm still unclear as to what this means and what the delegates do--except it's something on March 8)
• We took the straw poll on the presidential candidates. (Romney & McCain were tied in our precinct)
• We nominated and voted on a Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary for our precinct. (No one was volunteering for these positions, and the Republicans apparently need more volunteers in Minneapolis, so Jeff volunteered to be Vice Chair, and I volunteered to be Secretary. We were uncontended, so we easily got the positions.)

Even though there were 50+ people crammed into a classroom at Minnehaha Academy, and they were getting a little unruly, since most people just came for the straw poll, and probably didn't know all the other stuff that was going to happen, we still really enjoyed it.

So, now we've aligned ourselves with the Republican party--at least for two years, because that's how long our positions are.

What started out to just be a curiosity and an excuse to get out of class early, turned into our becoming more active participants in our community. Our friend, Catherine, would be so proud. :-)

A New Year's Resolution

Jeff and I sat down and wrote out a few resolutions that we'd like to accomplish in 2008. Throughout the year, you can look forward to updates on the progress we make on a couple of them.

One of our resolutions is to read together from the Book of Mormon everyday. We decided on the Book of Mormon because it is what we are studying in Sunday school this year. This way we can prepare together for the upcoming lesson each week.

We started on Dec 31st, and I am very pleased to say that we have been very diligent. I think we may have missed one day, but we easily made it up the next. It has been very good for us!

I know that the Lord will continue to bless us as we commit to reading together every day!

1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

This is a little delayed post, but I just received a digital copy of this photo from our ward's Halloween party.

These costumes turned out so cute!

The day after this party, my family ran the Gray Ghost 5K in Anoka, MN. We were a "school of fish." Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of our costumes, but it was the same general idea as this pic--except I was a "sun"fish and Jeff was a "paddle"fish.

I was dressed in all orange and yellow with orange and yellow pipe cleaners in my hair to form sun rays; Jeff was dressed in all green with a strip down the front and ping pong paddles in each hand. Then we had the fish head and tail pinned to us. Also in our school was a catfish, dogfish, 1 fish, 2 fish, red fish, blue fish, and monk fish. I brought along a ruler, too, to lead us in the ABC song. It was such a fun race. :-)

ABC's of Thanksgiving

Yesterday in Sacrament the youth speaker extended a challenge to all the congregants. She challenged us to make a list of things we were thankful for from A to Z.

We thought it would be a great idea for our Family Home Evening tonight.

We is a list of what we came up with tonight for our ABC's of Thanksgiving:

A: alphabet, agriculture, anthropology, astronomy, algorithms, aspirations, Atonement, anatomy, air conditioning, airplanes
B: botany, biology, beavers, bed, baptism, bridges, buildings
C: Clarinda, children, Christmas, charisma, chapels, Christ, candles, computers, calendars, creativity, Chicago, capitalism, conservation efforts
D: development, devotion, dads, day, democracy, dreams
E: elephants, energy, electricity, electromagnetic field, epistles, education, e-mail
F: fish, food, flowers, flour, family, fun, fantasies, freezer, Fall, friends, fruit, Family Home Evening
G: greatness, geometry, geology, geography, good grades, gospel, games
H: happiness, home, humility, hats, heaven, habitats, hearts, hygiene, history, holding hands, hugs, help, helicopters, Hamburger Helper
I: individuality, independence, ice cream, islands, intellect
J: Jeff, jam/jelly, jokes, journeys
K: kindness, Killer Bunnies, kites, kisses
L: lakes, light rail, libraries, liberty, life, laughter, light, landscapes
M: music, moms, marriage, municipalities, movies, mathematics, money, modern conveniences, manual manipulation (opposable thumbs), mass transportation, maps, Minneapolis, minimalism
N: nitrogen, night, nutrients, negotiations, New York City
O: outdoors, oven, ordinances, Olympics, old growth forest, oxygen, order
P: prophets, pursuit of happiness, privilege, posterity, pumpkins, public transportation, parachutes, photography, priesthood, Portland, play, processes
Q: quality, queues,
R: revelation, refrigeration, Restoration, reading, rest, reliability, respect, resourcefulness, righteousness, Relief Society, road trips, rainbows
S: Superarmitron, squirrels, silliness, spirituality, Seminary, spontaneity, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, skyscrapers, seasons, sunshine, scripture, sleep, Sundays, shade, scenic views, and of course our Scion XB
T: technology, trains, toys, time, trees, trade, taste, touch, temples, tunnels, TV
U: urban centers, umbrellas, unity, understanding
V: violins, vitality, vision, vacations, vegetables, variables, vitamins
W: water, walks, wellness, willingness, watermelon, wishes, work
X: x-rays, xerography
Y: youth, yogurt, yellow, Yellowstone National Forest,
Z: zoos, zippers, ziggurat, zoology

Waiting for my real life to begin - Colin Hay

Jeff and I just watched an episode of "Cane". The previews that we had been seeing for it all week had featured this song, and we watched the whole episode just to get to the end when the song was featured in the last few moments.

We love the sound, and the lyrics are beautiful, too. This video is just audio. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Another thing we love about our apartment...

Location, location, location!

Last night Jeff and I went for a walk. In about 7 minutes we were at Minnehaha Falls!

I LOVE the falls! The rushing water is so beautiful. It was dark, dark outside (I think it was around 8:00 PM), but still you could sense the power of all that water. I think we'll definitely be finding our way back there. It's fun how close by it is.

Here are a couple of pics. Sorry for the poor quality. We only had Jeff's phone with us. We have the exact same model of phone, but I think mine takes better photos. Go figure!

The other day, we also walked down to the Mississippi River. That was a fun walk, too, but no pics from that. We were too preoccupied doing Latin vocab. Ahh...the life of a student...and a student's wife. :-)

Dodsons are on the move...again...

This time we kept our move relatively local. We just moved from Eagan, MN to Minneapolis, MN. That's only about a 15-20 minute drive!

Our new address is:
4540 Snelling Ave #112
Minneapolis MN 55406

We found a lovely studio apartment in a fabulous building right on the Hiawatha Light Rail. You can visit the building's website: Oaks Hiawatha Station.

Our little studio has a decent sized kitchen including a dishwasher plus a washer & dryer in the unit!!

We are back in the ward that we attended when we first got married.

Life is GOOD!!

We are so overwhelmed with excitement about being back on our own in an apartment that we love!

Plus classes are going very well for Jeff--despite all the reading--and Clarinda is really enjoying her job at SC Johnson.

Oh, we will post some pics of our new place once we're all settled in.

Best Birthday EVER!!

I had my 30th birthday last Friday (Aug 10th), and it was so awesome!!

As I was biding my time at Keewaydin, waiting for 2 p.m. to come around (that's time to go home on Fridays, 'cuz of summer hours), I got a much anticipated phone call with good news! I was extended on offer to cover a 6 month maternity leave for the Admin Asst at SC Johnson Target Team in Minneapolis. I had interviewed for the position on the 8th and was very hopeful that they would choose me...and they did! How exciting to have something lined up for at least 6 months. Plus, now I can hope that at the end of my temp assignment, they will love me working there SO much that they will want to hire me. :-) Hey, you gotta have hopes and dreams!

Shortly after receiving this good news, I got a text from my wonderful husband saying that he was awarded over $31,000 in financial aid! Whoo Hoo! And the best part of that is that over $20,000 of that is FREE money (institutional grants). That was such, such great news!

Who could ask for anything better?!

Well, after work, I went and got my hair all chopped off. It turned out really cute! (Even now, days later, when I'm styling it myself). I went to a salon here in Eagan, Ficocello's. My stylist, Erin (I think) was terrific. I wasn't all that specific in what I wanted, and she created something so perfect. I love it!

Here are a few pics of my new haircut, and some of me/us all dressed up for my birthday dinner. I apologize for the quality of these photos. I'm not sure what the deal was, but Jeff took these with the camera on his phone. Our camera phones usually take much better pictures that this (at least mine does), but at least this will give you an idea of how sexy I/we looked for my 30th birthday dinner.



Jeff, my Dad, Marna, and I went downtown (Minneapolis, of course) to our favorite steakhouse. My Dad and Marna had actually never been there before. Morton's Steakhouse is phenomenal! We love the ambiance (very classy), and their steaks are to die for! So tender and juicy and melt in your mouth! Jeff and I actually split everything--a NY Strip, a baked potato (I honestly don't think that anyone could eat an entire baked potato on their own; they're HUGE), and garlic green beans! Delicious! Oh, and I can't forget the cake! Molten Chocolate Cake with Haagen Daz vanilla ice cream. Divine! It was a perfect ending to a wonderful birthday.

Riverview Theater

Jeff and I thought we'd splurge Saturday night and go out to a movie.

Well, we found this really awesome theater in the Longfellow neighborhood of South Minneapolis.

Here is a blurb from their website:
"Even though we feature state-of-the-art projection and sound systems, our customers enjoy the opportunity to "step back in time" and experience movie-going as it was in the 50s, when neighborhood theaters were in abundance. Some of our customers walk to the theater and enjoy arriving early in order to relax in the spacious lobby on the mod couches and chairs."

We were so impressed with the atmosphere of the theater. It really felt like a step back in time with the decor of the lobby. However, the actual theater (there is only 1 screen) was really impressive!

It was so much fun! I'm sure that we'll make our way to this theater again and again.

Oh, the best part, of course, is the prices! We got 2 movie tickets, a medium soda, and a medium popcorn all for only $9!!

If you've never been to this theater (and live in the Mpls area), you really ought to check it out!

Riverview Theater

The Bakken

Last Friday, Jeff and I checked out the Bakken museum in Minneapolis.

The public libraries in the area have a really cool program! You can check out passes to local museums, zoos, and historic houses. Each Museum Adventure pass that you check out allows free admission for up to 4 people.

I couldn't decide which pass to check out first. I'd wanted to visit the Bakken for quite some time, so I figured it was a good place to start. I really hope that Jeff and I will be able to check out all of the museums!

Anyway, the Bakken was awesome!

It is located right on Lake Calhoun, but that's not really what made it awesome. The museum is all about electricity. I learned a lot of things. It was a very interactive museum, too. If you've never visited this one, I'd highly suggest it. It's especially good for kids.

Well...except for the Frankenstein presentation. It's a little spooky and could frighten small children. Of course, it's great for the big kids that Jeff and I are. That was easily the best part of the museum!

Downtown Mpls

On July 9th, I began working a temp position downtown Minneapolis. We love downtown Minneapolis!! Jeff promised to send some pics of the old Federal Reserve Bank to his Art professor from PCC because they had studied that building in her class. So, after work, I walked down to Peavey Plaza to enjoy the water fountain. Jeff picked me up there and we drove down to where the old bank is and the new library.

Here are a few pics that I took with my camera phone while we walking around.

The Fourth of July

This is one holiday that always seems to be chock full of fun things to do.

This year, Jeff and I went to 4 picnics.

Picnic #1--The Christianson's
We stopped at the Christianson's for a little while. It was fun to catch up with John and Geri a little, and of course, chat with Lindsay and Dave. I also ran into Jessica Abrahamson (not sure what her married name is) who I went to seminary with many, many years ago. We weren't ever in the same ward, but our two wards did have early morning seminary together. I think her dad was even our teacher. She didn't really remember me though. :-( The food was good, and after a short while, we head out to...

Picnic #2--Uncle Rodney's
Every 4th of July, my Uncle Rodney invites everyone out to his house on Lake Minnetonka in Deephaven. Rodney usually takes a few boat trips out with the kids and whoever else might like to join them. Unfortunately, there isn't too much intermingling, but it's still fun for a once-a-year type of get-together. After some brief socializing, we headed out to...

Picnic #3--The Parsons'
McKenzie's birthday happens to be on the 4th, and she turned 30 this year, so we didn't want to miss out on this party. There was tons of good fun, and we were hungry again by this time. :-) Plus we got to visit with some friends from our old ward who we hadn't seen for nearly two years. It was fun to get reacquainted with a few of them. It was funny how one sister looked exactly the same as she didn't two years ago--VERY pregnant!!

Picnic #4--Back Home
Not really much of a picnic because no one was hungry from the day of gorging; it was more of a gathering place for fireworks. My family has scoped out a great viewing point for the Eagan fireworks. It's about a 1/2 mile walk, but you really can't ask for a better show! Corey, Lina, Trevor and Jeff stayed behind, but everyone else got to experience these fireworks up close and personal. I took a LOT of pics with my camera phone--some even turned out quite well.



It was a long, but very enjoyable, day!! Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th as well!