First Weekend of Fall

Whew! I'm glad it's Monday.

Mom and Dad came over fro an improper visit on Friday night. They do that sometimes when they miss seeing the little guy. Mom starts going through withdrawal if she goes more than a week without seeing her grandson. I think she actually start physically shaking.

Jen and I quickly seized the opportunity to head to our favorite place: The Washington Square Bar and Grill in downtown White Bear Lake. Eating a hot meal, together, and not in shifts was a wonderful change from our normal dinner routine. For the life of me, I can't figure out why their burgers are so darn good. There is only so much that you can do with a 1/2 pound of ground beef, but they satisfy you more than a steak dinner on most nights. Maybe the beer or cocktails have something to do with it. Everything is always better with a good beer.

On Saturday I ran my first and only competitive run of the season. The Bear Water Run is a 10 or 20 mile run around White Bear Lake. Since the longest run I've done all summer has been about 6 miles, I opted for the 10 miler. Far out of prim running shape, I had hoped to finish in 100 minutes or less. As it turns out, I finished at about 1:27:30 or 87 minutes. That's about an 8:45 pace which if a little slower than my 5K pace of about 8:30. I think the marathon bug is back.

The balance of Saturday was spent cleaning up the house, playing with the little man, and having dinner with some friends. Jen moved everything out of our 4 season porch and moved all of AJ's toys into there. We now have one completely child proof area of the house! We can leave him unattended in there for short periods of time and we don't need to worry about him hurting himself or destroying anything. Why didn't we do this months ago?

Sunday was really day at our church. The weather didn't really cooperate, but we had a good meal and got the chance to socialize with some folks. I quickly hauled a bunch of brush off to the compost and then we headed to visit some friends who moved to a new house in Rosemont. It really made me want to own a new home - especially now that I don't need to commute. It's something we'll need to keep mulling over. One AJ starts school moving probably won't be an option.

I tried two new creme brulee recipes over the weekend. The peanut butter fudge recipe turned out well. It was a little rich, but very satisfying. The eggnog recipe was not quite what I was expecting and Jen said I added too much brandy to it. I tend to do that.

I am listening to the new Iron Maiden album on Rhapsody. They still sound good after all these years. Maybe they'll tout some time soon. I've never had the pleasure of seeing an Iron Maiden show. Better late than never I suppose.

Time to start work. Monday Monday.......