Last of MN trip

We left MN about 6:30 in the morning on Monday. It was a beautiful day. Sunny but cold. The temps got as low as -26 as we were leaving Minnesota. Then it got warmer and warmer as we drove South.

Here's a pic of a wind farm in Iowa. They were on both sides of the road about as far as the eye could see.

Jason snapped this neat picture of a rainbow with the sun in the middle. It was beautiful!

These 2 little boys are some travelin' fools! They were so great the entire trip. The never complained about riding. They kept busy watching movies and playing games. We can't wait to travel with them again!

Big Snow Drifts

We were glad to get home to our own beds on Monday evening. What a GREAT trip!!!

Game Time

We walked in the doors of the stadium right at 10am when they opened. Kick-off wasn't until noon, but we wanted to get full use out of our tickets, so we got there as early as we could. We just wandered around the stadium looking at the vendors booths, watching the warm-ups, etc.

We made our way to our seats to check them out.

Game Time!

The Vikings running out of the Viking ship tunnel. Led by the Viking man on his motorcycle

V-I-K-I-N-G-S

Lots of fireworks

The Viking dude on his motorcycle. This guy is hilarious!

Coin Toss

Mom and Dad LOVIN' it!

The Vikings were slaughtering the Giants. Rhett started to feel a little sad and outnumbered when his team was losing so badly and whispered to me that all he wanted for his birthday was a Brett Favre jersey. He wished he had picked them to be his favorite. We felt sorry for him, so we got him a t-shirt. He was proud!

Mamma and Rhett having fun!

Vikings Win!

Family Photo after the game

We are SO glad we got to go! It was awesome. We hope to make the trip again next year.

The Vikings are an awesome team.

We got a cab back to the hotel and spent the night resting and hanging out. We left the room around 6:30 am the next morning to drive home. We made it in 11 hours, including stops. Not bad at all!

A few more pics to end the posts about the trip coming tomorrow.

Pre-Game

We had room service deliver breakfast at 7am on Sunday morning so we could get to the stadium early. After we ate and donned our team's gear, we put on our hats and gloves and started heading that way. The stadium was only 2 Light Train stops from our hotel, but we had to brave the FREEZING COLD wind for 2 blocks to get to the train station. And we had heard that the train gets really backed up on game day, so we might have to wait outside for up to an hour.

We saw a cab sitting right near the hotel, but we had heard cabs in the city were really expensive and figured it would cost too much to take a cab, so we kept walking. We got about 1/2 a block and Jason looked at me and grinned and said, "The heck with this!" and told us to go catch that cab. We got in a very warm cab and our very nice young cab driver from Nigeria drove us right to the stadium for $10! It was WELL worth it!

The boys on their first cab ride

Outside the Metrodome

Yeah, baby!

Braden's favorite guy- Adrian Peterson

After just enough time to take these few pictures outside, we were so cold, we were miserable. We looked over to the right of the big banner above Braden's head and saw a vending trailer with Vikings gear and they were putting out big heaters outside of the trailer for customers. We headed there right away and decided it would be worth it to buy something to warm up a little bit.

After about 20 minutes we figured we had outstayed our welcome hogging one of their heaters, so we decided to go checkout the "Party on the Plaza". That was the real reason we showed up to the stadium almost 2 hours before the doors opened. They had advertised all kinds of fun stuff. Activities for the kids, pictures/autographs with players, etc.

Here's one of the kid's activities they had set up

So cool!

But it was so cold outside, the boys begged us to leave the "party" and go find somewhere warm to go. In fact, there was only about 10 people walking around the "party" and some of the promised activities weren't even happening. Including the pictures/autographs with players. That's the only part we really even cared about. I'm sure those players were inside going, "There ain't no way I'm goin' out there in that cold!" And... I can't say that I blame them. I've never been so cold in my entire life. In just about 5 minutes of exposure, you couldn't feel your extremities and you hurt all over. Man, those northerners are tough to be able to live in that climate. We were miserable.

So, Super Daddy decided to go in search of shelter. We still had over an hour before we could get into the dome! He found some indoor bathrooms and decided we should split up and just spend some time hanging out in the bathrooms. As we were walking to the bathrooms, we found a huge tent that said it was the "Vikings Fan Club". We didn't know what it was, but decided to play dumb and just walk in. Worst case scenario, they'd kick us out. Come to find out, it was just a place for fans to go in and get warm! They had heaters in there that you could stand by and get warm. HALLELUJAH! We got a table and looked through the game program that we bought.

When it was about 20 minutes till the doors opened, we decided that we could probably handle the cold for 20 minutes, so we left the tent to go check and see if any of the players had ventured out. Well, they hadn't. So, we quickly checked out the others tents that were there. We found a facepainting tent and got the boys faces painted for the game.

They had a nice propane blower heater in their tent that I went and stood by, but it was still SO cold! They must be in it for the money though... they charged $6 per cheek.

Yes, the lady has plastic gloves under her knit gloves to try to keep the air out and keep her hands warm!

The guy doing Rhett's, pulled out a thermos of boiling hot water to pour in the cup to use to wet and clean his brushes. It's a good thing it was hot, because his paint was frozen! He had to put some of the hot water in the paint to be able to use it!

Vikings Fan!

Eli Manning Fan!

Well, we didn't make it the 20 minutes. After the boys got their faces painted, the boys begged us to go back into the heated tent. So, that's what we did. Then after about 15 minutes, we were able to get into the stadium!

Stadium and game pics coming tomorrow!

Haiti

I'm taking a break from my regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important information.

We've all heard of the devastation in Haiti. If you're like me, you feel helpless and would like to help but don't know what to do.

1. Pray. We can all pray.

2. Give. We are so blessed to live in the USA. To whom much is given, much is required. Here's an easy way to give a few dollars to help, that won't wreck your budget.

text "Haiti" to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross relief efforts
OR
text "disaster" to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion's relief efforts
The $10 will be on your next cell phone bill.

There are other ways to donate as well. For instance, you can go to either the Red Cross or Compassion's websites to give.

If you give, please leave me a comment that you gave and where you gave to ( I don't need to know the amount) and I will donate an additional $5 per comment up to $200 to Compassion's efforts.

Minnesot-AH!

We left out, headed North at about 6:00 in the evening on New Year's Day. Our plan was to make it to Des Moines, Iowa and then get a hotel for the night. Our GPS said we'd get there about 11:45pm. As we got into Iowa, we could tell they'd had a lot of snow and the roads were a little slick in places. So, we slowed down and we ended up getting to the hotel closer to 12:30.

The temperature in our driveway as we were leaving the house was in the 40s. As we headed North, we were shocked to see this:

7 degrees below 0!

The windows were freezing from the INSIDE! We'd never seen anything like that before! We stopped to get gas and Jason wrote on his window. It was FREEZING!

Breakfast the next morning

The scene outside the hotel the next morning

The temperature FELL as we headed North into Minnesota

This is not a figment of your imagination. It really was 19 degrees BELOW zero!

I have never experienced anything like that cold in my life. We had the heater in the car going full blast and it was still cold. We got out to go into McDonalds for a potty break and just walking from the car to the door our skin was hurting. It was so bizzare!

Minneapolis!

After we got to our hotel and unloaded the car, we headed for the nearest Light Train Station, which was about 2 blocks away. And we almost froze just walking that short distance.

We rode it about 45 minutes to the Mall of America.

The Mall of America is HUGE!

There is a Nickelodeon Universe theme park inside the mall! This is just a small part of it. There were 4 big roller coasters in addition to at least 20 other rides!

We ate at the Rainforest Cafe. It was the boys' first time to eat at one. They thought it was really cool.

We were all so tired and we had planned on leaving the room by 8am the next morning, so we decided to skip going to the Aquarium (yes there is a huge aquarium in the mall too!) and head back to the hotel and get in bed early.

We made it back to the Light Train Station a little before 8pm. The train was supposed to leave shortly after 8. Then we found out there was a dely of 15-20 minutes. LONG story short... a car had gotten stuck across the train tracks in the downtown area, which is where our hotel was. So, it was about 1 hour and 45 minutes before a train actually showed up to the station to get us. We waited inside most of the time, but a whole bunch of people headed outside at some point and we didn't want to miss the train. So, we headed outside too. We waited outside in the WELL BELOW ZERO temps in the COLD NORTH WIND for almost 30 minutes. And we weren't dressed for that cold.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 11pm. I had windburned cheeks. It felt like sunburn. Ouch!

We got our warm jammies on and got in the bed ASAP after we got back!

Come back tomorrow for....

The rest of the story!

I Heart Brett Favre

Jason and I have been together for almost 14 years. He has been a Brett Favre fan for as long as he can remember and I became one almost 14 years ago. :) A few years ago when Brett announced his retirement from the NFL, we decided we'd better go see him play because we would never get another chance.

We planned to travel to St. Louis to watch him when they were there playing the Rams, as that was the closest location to where we lived. But our new business wasn't stable and the finances fell through. We weren't able to go. It was sad, but we were quite used to scrimping and doing without in those days, so we just let it go.

Then early that next year, to our surprise-- he decided not to retire! But the Packers, whom we'd been fans for MANY years, decided to "move on" with a new QB. I can't say I blame them, all things considered... Our main man Favre went to play for the Jets. Again, finances wouldn't even let us dream of going to see him play, so we just cheered for his new team on tv. (Yes, we follow the man, not the team!) Then he retired again at the end of the season.

Then, early the next year, to our sort-of-but-not-as-much-as-last-year surprise, he decided not to retire! But he wouldn't be playing with the Jets again. No sir, he was going to the Minnesota Vikings! Why be excited about that? Well, just to name one reason, 2 words. Adrian Peterson. But there were many other good reasons. Our man was going to a team with some crazy good talent. Would there be a chance for him to win one more Super Bowl ring? We hope so!

All season, we'd been talking about going to see Brett play in person. It just didn't happen. Life happened, as usual and it didn't look like we'd be able to go for one reason or another. So we watched on tv, delighted week after week as our gray-headed QB showed up all the young-uns. (There were a few games that didn't turn out so well, which I refuse to talk about...)

Then the boys caught wind of one of our "wishful" conversations and they started begging. I mean begging. They said they wanted to go to a game as their Christmas present!

So, we set some parameters and said, "If this and that and this happen by this date, then we'll go." (Scientific, huh?)

Well.... God is good.

This AND that AND this ALL happened by the set date! There was only 1 game left in the season. And it was a home game. Which was awesome, because we really wanted to see them play at home. Plus, they play in a dome. (And this time of year, it would be pretty brutal to sit outside at a game!)

So, I spent 1/2 the day that day making all the arrangements. Tickets, check. Hotel, check. Babysitter for Gracie, check. (The weather was supposed to be freezing, BELOW 0 the entire time we were gone, so we were a little concerned about having her in and out in that weather. Plus, at that late hour, we were unable to find 5 tickets all together. Well, technically there was 1 set of 5, but they were $1,000 a piece tickets and that clearly was not going to happen... So, the ONLY way the trip could happen is if we had somewhere for sissy to go. It was SUCH a blessing to have a place for her to stay! Thank you guys! May you be repaid more than double for your kindness to us!)

January 1st... We headed out for our big road trip! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here's 1 little sneak peak of the man in action. (#4, just in case you don't know!)

Much more on the trip in my next post!

Mamma's Day with the Boys

It was New Year's Eve. We had no plans for the day at all. Gracie was at preschool. Daddy was working. Mamma was also working, but at some point, decided me and the boys really needed to get out of the house for some special Mamma and Boys-only fun.

We had a blast!
(And we spent more time and money there than Mamma had originally anticipated as well. But, how many more chances in life do I have to do stuff like this with them??!!)

BOWLING

GO-KARTS
LAZER TAG

AND VIDEO GAMES! OH MY!