Raising Minnesota

This past weekend Q and I made it out to Medicine Lake for the Art Shanty Project. Since then I've been pondering getting involved next year and trying to build an ice shack of my own. I have no idea what I would do but you know it would be kid oriented.



You still have a little bit of time to make it out onto the ice to check out the wackiness for yourself. It all ends Feb. 14.

Cabin Fever

Tis the custom in my home
that after holidays
snot shall roam.

Every damn year we are blessed with spending the first half of January nursing runny noses and nasty coughs. That combined with the usual frigid temps this time of year, has once again brought me to the brink of insanity. We NEED to get out of the house... and from what I can tell there are a lot of other parents in the same boat sinking into the frigid waters of stir crazy. But, there are a few life rafts out there.

• Get your Minnesota on! Forget Pond Hockey, THIS is what Minnesota winters are all about. The Sixth Annual Art Shanty Project on Medicine Lake in Plymouth brings creativity to the already rousing sport of ice-fishing. It's like Burning Man with snowsuits instead of nudity and PBR instead of LSD. This festival on ice runs from Jan. 17th to Feb. 14.
• Rock The Cradle. Sunday, Jan. 25th. Fun. Fun. Fun... despite it being as packed as the State Fair on a nice day... just fewer pro-wrestling t-shirts.
  
• If the kids are still sick and your actually giving a damn about the well-being of other children prevents you from venturing out into the public domain, might I suggest watching the new MAKE show on PBS with the kids then get out the tools and tinker the sniffles away.
  

Minnesota Parenting

Today, Ozzi's nap time was interrupted by our neighbor working on his ice fishing auger. Such is the burden of the stay at home parent in the Great White North.

Economic Stimulus Part 1+1+1+1+1

Oodles of hand made crafts, art, and contests with celebrity judges. Need I say more? No Coast Craft-O-Rama this Sat. and Sun. at the Midtown Global Market.

Get Yo Green On

If you're looking for something to do this weekend and have some environmentally conscious individuals on your holiday shopping list, might I suggest the Green Gift Fair at Midtown Global Market. There will be several vendors hocking their earth friendly wares and even some live music. Of course, all the usual shops and restaurants will be open for your enjoyment and perusing as well.

If you have a little one still on the baby food, make sure you stop by the Sweet Cheeks stand and talk to Lori.

And if you want to have the best damn flan this side of Zihuatanejo stop by La Sirena Gorda. Mmmmmmm, flan.

The Green Gift Fair is this Saturday, Nov. 15 from 10 am - 5 pm.


Thanks to Lori from Sweet Cheeks for the heads up on this one.

The Nook is Dead. Long Live The Blue Door Pub.

Ok, the Nook isn't dead, it's actually bursting with life and that's the problem. We're just blocks away and it is impossible to even get in the door. Well, a couple of ex-Groveland Tap guys have come to our rescue. They just opened up The Blue Door Pub and it is St. Paul Restaurant Heaven.

The Blue Door is a family friendly neighborhood pub with a real Cheers-like atmosphere. The staff is AWESOME friendly. A waitress turned one of the tv's to cartoons for Q as soon as we sat down. Even if there wasn't cartoons, Q would have still had the chalkboard wall to keep him occupied until the food came. In true "Small Paul" fashion we already know one of the waitresses from her days at Java Train. Like I said, family friendly.

The Food. Ohhh the food. Pub food perfection. They have successfully combined the Minnesota virtues of quality ingredients, inventiveness, and a little kitchiness (Spam bites and tater tots). They take the Twin Cities' favorite burger, the juicy lucy, to a new level using a veriety of cheeses and other ingredients to stuff the burgers. The deep fried green beans are a must-try that will go great with your Surly or Schlitz and if wine is more your speed, they have a nice selection as well.

Alas poor Nook, I knew the well.

Update: HOLY CHRIST ON A STICK! It looks like the word definitely got out. Friday it took over an hour to get a table for the 3.5 of us... and we showed up at 5:30. It didn't help that on a few occasions groups hanging at the bar that showed up after us saw a table clear off and jumped on it before the waitress could seat the people on the list. Maybe I should have grown a pair and did a little yelling but it really isn't in my nature.

Can I get an apple Red Bull with my apple cider, apple muffin, apple pie, apple donuts, apple...

We met some friends at Pine Tree Apple Orchard today. Pine Tree is definitely kid friendly, but I think their core audience is more the 70+ crowd. At least, that was the most heavily represented demographic when we were there. The hay-free "hayride" was a fun little tour of the orchard with some nice views of the surrounding area from "the highest hill in the county" and there was plenty of room for the kids to run wild. The highlight for Q was the close proximity of the train that went by.

In the end, the visit felt a bit too much like a factory tour and not enough like a visit to a family farm. I'm not saying it was a waist of time. The kids still enjoyed themselves and that's pretty much the whole point. It just wasn't what I was expecting I guess. Maybe it was just the surrounding skyline of McMansions that put me off. Or maybe I'm just crabby from not getting any sleep the last few nights because Ozzi is fighting off a little ear infection. He was feeling much better today thankfully.


...and I still think my guy at the St. Paul Farmers Market has the best damn Honey Crisp Apples out there.

Back to school shopping season

As we so often do, the boys and I stopped into Siji Kids while out for a casual stroll through our hood. They seem to be ready for fall with a second mortgage worth of sweet looking duds for the kids. They have a boat load of new stuff from monster republic, one of my favorite kids labels. We talked to Kyle, co-owner with his wife Macy, who showed us a rockin' robot shirt with some old school Space Invaders on the back. This reminded me of Blik. Or at least the kick ass wall decals they have. I forgot the actual Blik name.

Kyle seemed pretty interested in the decals so I jogged my memory and found them online again. Then I went to sijikids.com to get a contact email to forward him a link to blik. While in search of an email address I discovered that Kyle's photo studio, Siji Studios, has one of the coolest and fun to just play with websites I've been to in a while. As if they're not busy enough, the Siji Empire also appears to includes graphic and web design. And to tie all this together, The Siji Blog.

Buying Locally in A Global Marketplace

When looking for events for the the whole family on the weekends, I've found that the best way to get K8 on board is to find something that bears possibility of her getting unique handmade earings. That was the case for the Stone Arch Arts Festival and is the case with Art in The Market at Midtown Global Market this Saturday.

Art in The Market has been happening once a month since March up through August 9th so we're jumping in at the tail end. The event showcases 10 local artists and their paintings, photographs, jewelry, etc that were all selected by a panel of judges.

If you've never been to the Midtown Global Market you should check it out this Saturday... or any other day if supporting the local art scene isn't your thing. If for nothing else go there sometime for lunch for the exotic array of food all under one roof.

Weird Science

The Science Museum of Minnesota, every Monday, has a poorly publicized event cleverly dubbed "Pre-school Playdates". Even less publicized is that if you're a Children's Museum member you can get into their playdate for free. The free admission doesn't get you into the special exhibits like the current Star Wars geekfest. But since Q has yet to see any of the Star Wars movies, I figured all that stuff might end up taking away from his experience of seeing the films for the first time anyway. The little extra playdate activities are certainly not anything special and most of the exhibits are a bit over the head of your average pre-schooler. But as long as it's free, then getting in to see the dinosaurs and to play with light 10,000 different ways is worth the occasional visit.

Update: Preschool Playdates has been moved to Tuesday.

Grand Art!

I'm really looking forward to Grand Old Days this Sunday. Not only are we going to a friends house that is even closer to Grand than our own, but my favorite local artist, Jao, will be performing at the intersection of Albert and Grand.

If you plan to go to Grand Old Day make sure you check her out. She will be performing at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30.



Now if only I could convince her to paint something for the wall in our newly remodeled office. More on that tomorrow.

Quote of the Day

Today we went for a long walk and ended up at the park next to the Y-Dub on Selby. It's a nice little park, well shaded, and usually pretty quiet. We haven't been there for quite a while since we only went there after we went to the Y-Dub and obviously my fat ass hasn't been there in quite some time.

Anywho, when we got there today a German speaking group of parents and their kids were there. Q started running around with a few of the kids. At one point one of those kids, a 4 year old girl, from the top of the play equipment kicks it old school. "Intergalactic planetary. Planetary Intergalactic. Another dimension. Another dimension."

Ok, so Hello Nasty isn't exactly "old school", but it was out well before she was born. Man, those Germans sure now how to raise a kid right.

Thanks Mo!

The City Pages was right. Wild Rumpus is the best children's bookstore of the Twin Cities. Everything about the store is great. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to get to from St. Paul we would be there every other day.

Q got a pretty big kick out of Mo Willems and the new The Pigeon Wants a Puppy book, but at 3 years old, the animals managed to get more of Q's attention. Mo absolutely packed the place. We now have an autographed copy of There Is a Bird On Your Head. I only wish I could have gotten my copy of You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons sign too.

My stalker skills need some work

I don't know how I missed it. Being Mo Willems unofficial Twin Cities pimp, you would think I would know when he is coming to town to make appearances at Wild Rumpus and The Red Balloon bookstores. I'm constantly extolling his books as the greatest children's books of our time on the web and on the playground and I check his blog and other websites on a semi-regular basis. So its pretty surprising that I didn't know about the visits until a mom in our ECFE class told us about it. I guess that's what I get for not signing up for the Red Balloon newsletter.

We've been meaning to check out Wild Rumpus for a long time now. This is definitely going to be the best reason to get over there that I'm going to find since I can't make the Red Balloon 7 pm appearance. With all the different animals running around, Wild Rumpus sounds like a blast. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not taking Q there until now. But with the Red Balloon being a short walk from our house, its a little tough to justify loading up the car and driving across the river just to find another independent kids bookstore. For Mo though, we'll make the trip.

Ozzi's first visit to Mattocks Park is an exciting one.

It was finally nice enough outside today for Q, Ozzi, and I to reclaim residency at our fair weather second home, Mattocks Park. Our first visit of the season (first ever visit for Ozzi) was certainly not without excitement.

Shortly after our arrival, while Q is bouncing on the metal bouncy thing, I notice a small cylinder covered in duct tape attached to the bottom of it with two magnets. It looked like a miniature version of a pipe bomb. Very homemade. Very suspicious.

Now, I'm not a paranoid parent thinking danger is lurking around every corner. I could think of several, much more likely, things that this little cylinder could be. Ultimately though, I just couldn't ignore the voice in my head saying, "but what if it is, and you do nothing?" So, I called 911.

After a few minutes of quietly rapping the chorus of K8's favorite Public Enemy song in my head two cops showed up, shot the shit with me for a while, then agreed with my guess that it was a geocaching thing. Ignoring my understanding of procedure for suspicious packages, one of them pulled the little pipe off the playground equipment, shook it next to her ear, "Well, its not ticking." and opened it. Safety first. It was luckily, as we suspected, a piece of GPS dork treasure.

Though I'm obviously thankful it wasn't anything dangerous, I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed they didn't call in the bomb squad to remote detonate the thing with the cool robot. That would have been awesome!

The rest of my time was spent demoing the Phil & Teds for the small group of moms that were ogling it. Seriously, where the hell is my commission check?

Mark your calenders.

Here are a few upcoming dates and events worth remembering:

Thursday, April 24 - Dining Out For Life. Participating restaurants in more than 45 cities throughout the U.S. and Canada will donate a percentage of their profits for that day to help The Aliveness Project, a community center for people living with HIV/AIDS. There are 134 great Twin Cities restaurants on the list, so get a babysitter and make reservations.

Fri. & Sat., April 11-12 - Free Electronics Recycling. Find the closest of the 5 drop off sites in the Metro here and remember to show up early. Remember the lines at the Mall of America last time they had this? At least this time there are 5 sites instead of just the one.

Saturday, April 26 - St. Paul Farmers Market returns for another season of beautiful locally grown produce. Mmmm.

Sat. & Sun., May 3-4 - Living Green Expo. Huge showcase of all sorts of different ways to make your life a little, or a lot, more earth friendly. From electric cars to home improvement to C.S.A.'s, this show has got it all... and its free!

Saturday, May 10 - Pangea Day

Livin' La Vida Local: Art, Crafts, and The Internet

Thanks to Pumpkin Girl, our new internet friend in Minneapolis, I've discovered a whole new world of great local artists.

Saint Paul Craft Mafia, of which Pumpkin Girl is a member, is a local gang of crafty revolutionaries. Many of them are selling their wide variety of wares on their own websites and sites like etsy, which is definitely worth regular perusing.

Turns out Adam Turman has done all sorts of illustrations and paintings that I have seen on everything from beer labels to the cover of Vita.mn without realizing that they were all from the same local artist. I really like the cityscapes of local landmarks that he does and will be getting a hold of him for all custom painting that I dream of getting on the boys future skateboards, snowboards, etc. Now that I think of it maybe I should look into getting Q's skateboard/bike helmet done. Or maybe I should just stop spending money for a while.

Then thanks to Turman's post about his new custom pillows made by his friend Nate, I can fall asleep dreaming of a custom Vinyl-Lux laptop bag or some flashy orange robot pillows.

The best (kid friendly) coffee shop in the Twin Cities

On a tip from one of the moms in my ECFE class I took the boys to Java Train a few weeks back and we are hooked. I'm putting aside Friday mornings as our weekly visit but we will probably be there more often than that.

Why is this place so damn special you ask? Well, lets start with the train theme. Just having the word train in it's name makes Q want to go there. I know there are a few other coffee joints around town that have little play areas for the kiddies but this joint has a two story kiddie caboose with toys inside and a model train running on the top of it. Its toddler heaven.

Now I'm not a big coffee drinker but I do love a good chai and frankly they have one of the best chais in town. On top of that they have a great looking selection of steamers, lots of great food, and to top it all off Izzy's Ice Cream! Mmmmmm!

The last thing worth mentioning is the location. Though I would love it if it were across the street from our house, the location is still pretty great. Its just close enough to Como Park/Zoo to walk there but far enough that you don't smell the giraffes.

See you there on Friday mornings!

We love Pacifier.... Now where did I put those money tree seeds?

Imagine our good fortune on Thursday when Pacifier calls to tell us that they are all out of the Super Grover shirt that K8 ordered online. Bummer, until K8 asks offhand if they happen to have the Phil & Teds Sport stroller, in orange of course, that we've been drooling over. Not only do they but it's 15% off! They even offered to assemble it before we got there.

When we go to pick it up that evening we get a full demo on assembly and it's variety of functions. With everything else in the store 25% off right now, it's a surprise we made it out with only a hat, a book, and the stroller.

If you're looking for a way to spend some of that x-mas money on some super cool stuff for the kids definitely stop by Pacifier. Just be ready to be patient with the parking.

The Oz-man Cometh!

I feel a bit bad that I haven't mentioned the new offspring residing within K8 yet. We already know he's a boy and we're calling him Ozzi. No we are not Ozzy Osborne fans. Anywho, he will be getting ripped out from the warm and cozy world that he knows on Dec. 14th. We're as ready as we can be and very excited to see him. Even Q seems pumped.

As a special pre-push present for K8 I just reserved two tickets to a special local premier of the new film Juno at The Walker on the 13th. Juno was written by former City Pages writer Diablo Cody, who will be there to speak after the screening.

Being that the movie is a comedy about a Minneapolis teenager being knocked up, I figured it would be a whole lot of fun to bring a super pregnant K8 (not a teenager) the night before the baby is born. It's not like we would be able to fall asleep anyway. Plus, Q will be at Grandpa's so it's probably our last chance for a date night for a very long time. The movie looks awesome and I can't wait to see it.