Pie Pops, Dahlias and a Trip to the Twin Cities

It was Bunco night two Fridays ago and I decided I was going to try making some pie pops. They were first on Luxirare but thankfully Bakerella did a batch too that she blogged about with instructions. Not that I couldn't have figured it out but it is still nice to have some directions to follow. Both have far better pictures than I do but here are how mine turned out.




I didn't even try any because they were cherry and I don't like cherry pie. I was going to make more with apple pie filling but I ran out of energy. Though easy to make, they are time consuming and I was over it by the time I was finished with the cherry pie pops. I was told they were good so that was a relief- I was a little nervous about giving them out to eat when I hadn't even tried them first. It was a good night at Bunco with the fun snacks and I even won. Yay for that!

The next morning (last Saturday 9/19) we left to go to Minneapolis. We have never made it downtown since I have major fears of going across bridges, particularly ones that have previously collapsed and resulted in death. I tried to talk myself into it this time but I still couldn't do it so we stayed around the southerly end of the Twin Cities area. We went to the Mall of America, the Minnesota Zoo and IKEA. It's hard to get out and do much when you have to go back to the hotel twice a day for naps but we had a nice time being on vacation and away from home for a few days. We ate out at a few restaurants and Rex did great and especially enjoyed the Rainforest Cafe. Here are some pictures but there are more on my Flickr page.




Since we've been home, Rob has been helping Rex put together some of our IKEA purchases.



Yesterday was super windy and I think today is even worse. I had a hard time pushing the cart into the store today just going from the car to the front door! Sadly though, my dahlias have had the worst luck with all the wind. I noticed today that the wind had knocked nearly all of them down.



I tried to save as many as I could and brought them inside to make a little bouquet of them. I doubt anyone would think a florist put this together but, for me, I think I did good. And everything is out of our yard too which I think makes it pretty cool.



So that's what we've been up to for the last two weeks. Oh, and I've been reading a bunch lately too and we finished the John Adams miniseries on dvd finally. I read Janet Evanovich's Finger Lickin' Fifteen (love all the Stephanie Plum novels) and I read Twilight (not the last person on Earth to read it but probably pretty close). I enjoyed Twilight much more than I thought I would. Now I'm on to New Moon and soon will need to go the video store to get the movie to watch...

I was going to end it there but I just remembered a funny story about going to the video store on Friday. Rex and I were running a few errands and I decided to stop at the video store and get Wolverine since I didn't get to see it in the theater. Boohoo. Anyhow, while waiting in line, Rex starts smiling and keeps telling the cashier "hi" and waving even though she was helping someone else and we were waiting behind them. It was very cute and he had been quite a charmer with the lady at the bank (who wanted to give him a sticker) and quite a few ladies at the grocery store. So when we got up there, I gave the lady my card and the movie and she tells me, "Oh, you have a free movie on your account. There's no charge today." Hmm. I have never gotten a free movie there and as far as I know, they don't have any kind of reward programs. All I can figure is that my very cute and charming son got us a free movie. Awesome. Rex, now go on down to the video store and rent Twilight for mommy!