The Very Hungry Canerpillar

This is the second year Greg has been involved in a great cause: Canstruction! Greg's work put together a great team of people to build this replica of the classic children's book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to raise awareness and donations of food for the Second Harvest Food Shelter.

The event is organized by the Society of Design Adminstrators, of which I am a member and treasurer on the local level. Events like this happen all over the country throughout the year, so even if you're not from the Twin Cities, be on the look out for one near you.

Greg's team spent all day yesterday building this structure, and has spent the last few months organizing, designing, practicing, and fundraising/donation collecting.

This year's event raised over 14,000 pounds of food and over 14,000 cans which will be distributed to people and non-profits in need. As you can see, Greg's team did a fantastic job on their giant sculpture and were rewarded for their efforts with the "Best Use of Labels" and "People's Choice" awards as well as an honorable mention for creative and quality and creation of an icon. The other three entries can be seen below:

A Minneapolis Icon

The team from ATS&R took home the "Best Meal" and "Juror's Favorite" for this can-made replica of a Minneapolis icon: the cherry and spoon sculpture from the Walker Art Center & the skyline in the background. Their theme was "Tuna Salad in the Park" and was created from, among other things, the canned and boxed goods needed to make a Tuna Pasta Salad. The Juror's noted the great ability to carry theme through, the attention to detail (like the cherry is made with cans of cherry pie filling and the back of the sculpture is the logo for the event), and the quality as reasons for picking it as their favorite.

St. CANthony Falls

The part of downtown Minneapolis that is depicted here the St. Anthony area. The most iconic part of that district is the Stone Arch Bridge, which you see depicted here in the black and gold cans on the right hand "wall" of this sculpture. You can see the river depicted on floor, including a reflection of the bridge. The back wall depicts the city skyline. This sculpture was created by a team from LHB, who participated in the event for the first time this year. They were the only brand-new team this year, and were very perseverent...their structure fell down about a third of the way through the allotted construction time yesterday, and yet they started on over and succeeded in creating this sculpture by the end of the day. They were awarded an honorable mention for the sensitive use of organic foods.

And last but not least...

This can structure was done by the team from Cuningham Group and their theme was "wiping out hunger one can at a time". So they had this tornado tearing up the land, and aiming for the word hunger, which was most legible when viewed from above, but also legible from the side view. Considering the venue (Mall of America) where the upper stories of this area can overlook the sculptures, it was neat to see them play up the two views. This structure won the "Stuctural Ingenuity" award for the design of their tornado.

All of this....

This is what I started with this year (back in May). When I was growing up, my mom and I planted flowers on Mother's Day weekend. So, around that time in May is when I start keeping an eye on the weather to gauge exactly when I can start planting. As you can see, I waited long enough...my hostas and irises and lilies were already going to town. So, one fine afternoon I set out to the garden stores and filled up my basket with all kinds of lovely things (also shown above). Went home and spent about six hours planting, weeding, transplanting, mulching, and watering. About an hour after I got done, a huge storm blew threw town, dumping hail on my flower bed and just shredding all my plants. Needless to say I was pretty sad that all by efforts had been for nothing. Of course, it was still early in the season, and they did just fine...

...Lead to this...

As you can see, the hail ended up not ruining my garden in the end! Hurray! I was so excited to see how my garden filled in, and except for some planting at the beginning of summer, and good waterings throughout, it was pretty maintenance free! It has taken five years for the perennials to fill in like they have, and now I have things in bloom all season. I have really enjoyed this little flower bed, and look forward to the day when we have our own house with a yard (which equates to a much bigger canvas) to build a garden we can permanently enjoy. It's getting to be that time of year when you don't know how much longer these flowers will last, so I thought I would share them with you.

Kickball season end...sniff

We had our last game of the summer kickball season on Tuesday. It was a tie and because the games were already behind schedule we couldn't go into overtime. But that's alright. The other team showed up in punk wigs so that set the tone for a fun evening. Fall kickball starts up in a few weeks and I can't wait. My highlight of the summer season was kicking the game point a few weeks ago! Sweet.

Softball Tourney

This past weekend Greg and I went to Iowa for the softball tournament my work sponsors every year. We had a great time and are looking forward to next year's tournament. I did pretty poorly at playing...the fact that I haven't played since third grade proved to be a disadvantage for me, however Greg had some great games. Greg's mom, sister, grandma and our nephew came out to to see us for awhile which was great. The tourney is all day Saturday but we got from Friday to Sunday to allow time to tour the host office, meet people and tour the town.

Our company chartered a bus for us to get to and from Iowa. The ride there was pretty lively with food, drinks, poker, music and lots of talking. By contract, the ride back on Sunday was very quiet...everyone had fun all weekend long and took advantage of the long ride to rest up. The company also hosted appetizers on Friday at the Iowa office, meals at the tourney on Saturday and tee-shirts to commemorate the weekend! A great time was had by all.

The top photo makes me smile, it's Greg's softball uniform for this year. Greg wore that to the tourney and I wore a hot pink shirt that matched my hot pink and black glove. Needless to say we got a few comments...him on his swirly socks and me on my overall color coordination. One cool side effect: we were both so bright it was easy for our nephew to spot us on the field and cheer for us!

The bottom photo was taken on the bus ride down. We all chose to wear Hawaiian-themed attire. Another office all showed up with mullet wigs on! It was pretty funny.

Long time, no post

I can't believe how quickly the summer goes. It surprises me every year. Perhaps it's because it started so late this year. In any case, we've been keeping busy with softball, wiffleball, kickball and weekend warrior-ing.

Two weekends ago some girlfriends and I went on a weekend kayak/canoe/camping trip and had a blast. Well, minus the bajillion mosquito bites we endured! Yes, literally a bajillion! I have never had that many bites in my life combined before that weekend.

We went down the Kickapoo river in Wisconsin. Friday night we went to one of the girls' dad's house to spend the night because he lived nearby and that enabled us to get an earlier start on the weekend bright and early Saturday morning. Saturday we kayaked/canoed about 10 river miles, then set up camp along the river, about 10 feet up a hill so that we wouldn't get washed out by the storms that came that night. We played a dice/quiz game and cooked dinner over a campfire and enjoyed some adult beverages.

Sunday morning, we woke up to find a weird scraggly fishermad hanging around our campsite. Needless to say we scrambled to get our stuff onto the boats and boats onto the water ASAP! When safely down river a bit we stopped for breakfast and to load up on sunscreen. We ended up have to portage around a first obstacle where several trees had fallen across the river. We came upon a second that was impassable by canoe. We got two kayaks past and went further down river only to find more impassable obstacles. SO we kayaked back to the first blockade, told the group we had to pull out, and then the whole group (3 kayaks, two full canoes, and 7 lovely ladies) went back upstream to the last bridge we went under and pulled all of our gear up the bank to a dirt road. We were lucky enough to have a park ranger pass, so we flagged him down and talked him into escorting our outfitter back to get us and our gear and their watercraft. If he hadn't come along, we would've had to carry that all 1/2 mile down a dirt road to the highway (apparently, the outfitter is not allowed on park property normally).

In spite of all this, or perhaps because of all this, we had a blast and I can't wait to go again next year. The scenery was beautiful and company was even better.

Happy Fourth of July

I hope you all enjoyed the day safely! This was my view of the fireworks tonight...very Minneapolitan. Thank you to all of the servicemen and women who guard our freedom and keep us safe.

Happy Birthday Boys!

This weekend we celebrated my husband and my nephew's birthdays...ok, so we were a little late for J's and a little early for Greg's, but who's counting anyway?

We had a great time celebrating at my sister-in-law's new house with both her (our) family and her in-laws there. J and Greg had a fantastic time with their Pixar Cars-Themed birthday party, ice cream cake, presents and plenty of good times outside with family and friends.

Happy birthday, boys! You know I love you both so very much!

Camping

This weekend found us enjoying the scenery and beautiful weather at St. Croix State Park. We had to dodge some raindrops on the way up, and hail on the way back but all in all it was a pretty fantastic weekend. We spent the weekend with a friend from Greg's work, his girlfriend and her dog, and we even got to go canoeing.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has sent me emails or left me comments about my friend's death. That means a lot to me. I ended up being able to go home over Memorial weekend for her funeral. As strange as it may sound it was a good weekend. Of course it was sad, but there was a great amount of togetherness that weekend. Our classmates got together on Friday night at her sister's house and by the end of the night our tears of sadness had turned to tears of laughter as we reminisced about high school and all of the trouble we got into...mostly because of Jill :)

Saturday was her memorial and her sister and best friend had organized it and did a great job of celebrating the person that she was the what she meant to different people. That night her sister had another gathering at her house. I got to see her husband and kids again, so that was nice to be able to show them support.

Sunday, we hung out with family. Went to the botanical center w/ my mom and grandma then grilled with them, my cousins, aunt & uncle over at grandma's. Monday we headed back.

As we were driving back to mom's after the bbq on Sunday night, I snapped this photograph. This rainbow was even more intense than the photo shows and such a peaceful sight!

Still not Spring?

Mother Nature has been teasing us again! Warm, sunny beautiful days (we're almost talking short weather here) followed by cold, rainy and even SNOWY days. Yes, SNOW. In the end April.

I really thought spring was on it's way...and it still is, but just sidetracked I guess. We've barbequed several nights, and my plants are starting to poke through.

When I was growing up, my grandparents lived on an acreage, and I remember starting in late winter, they would scour the seed catalogs to decide what plants they were going to grow in the spring. They'd place their order and start their seedlings indoors on these lighted shelves my grandpa built and then after the last freeze, they transfer those sprouts to the flower beds on the acreage.

With limited space, I decided to try this on a much smaller scale...and so far, so good! I have one small tray of purple and pink sweet peas and one small tray of assorted pink/coral sweet peas growing happily in my kitchen window.

Also, sadly, when I stepped out this morning to snap a photo of the snow that actually stuck, I realized my irises were poking out and had snow around them. Hopefully they'll be OK. But assuming they're OK, I'll have irises, coral bells, and hostas that come back on their own and then I'll probably pick a few filler plants when it warms up and stays warm!

I got another layout done this week. This one is of my scrapgirls at our ornament exchange last Christmas.

In other news, Greg and I've had a fun, busy week. We babysat for a friends' little girl last week which took us to the Zoo and McDonald's Playland. We went to a small group game night with some friends church and Greg had softball practice and men's Bible study. Also, my supervisor at work treated my team to dinner one night this for Admin's week. So it was a fun, busy week! Tonight we have a karaoke party at a friends' house. Should be fun!

Spring?

Until this morning (when I drove through flurries on the way to work) it was really beginning to feel like spring. We've grilled several times (even had the first beer can chicken of the season...YUM!), Greg brought home some tulips for me (the first of the season...hint, hint), and we've been to baseball game (our first of the season, but only the second of the Twins season) with our friends AmyLee, Pat and Parker.

We may have even been in the presence of the youngest fan that day (Parker being only six weeks old). He even made it up on the score board:

I also had some time to scrap and stamp this weekend. I met a friend for some cropping one night this weekend and on Sunday I made some time to scrap too. Got some Mother's Day cards (which I can't show you because some of you may be getting them) as well as some other cards:

For my scrappy readers, the supplies for the cards are: Doodlebug black and white patterned paper, Making Memories magnetic letter stamps in Evolution font, Polka-Dot posies stamp set by Stampin' Up, Hero Arts "Heartfelt Thanks" stamp, rhinestones, red cardstock by Colormates, red and black ink, red rhinestones, misc. buttons and ribbons.