Happy Fourth

As another blog I read pointed out, the Fourth of July is a holiday where we get to celebrate rebellion against government...take that for what it's worth :)

The theme for this week has been birthday - Erin's birthday as well as the birthday of our great nation. Tuesday night, friends came over to celebrate with Erin spending all afternoon making a wonderful dinner (salad, cornbread, and chicken cordon bleu, as well as homemade bright-blue frosting cake). Wednesday, Erin's actual birthday, cousins Brent, Cindy, and Andy took us out to dinner at the Olive Garden (for my birthday too, which is coming up on the 13th, as well as Brent's which is also on the 13th - which we both share with Patrick Stewart and Harrison Ford, but I digress...) Thursday good friend Caryn was in town with boyfriend Andy whom we had never met, so we went to Fridays and then back to our hours for more cake. Each of those nights, Erin was sung to, including both restaurants - which he hates - but seemed to take ok :)
Friday we got up and headed to sister Erin's good friend Carrie's in Eagan, where we met up with Carrie, Erin, mom, and all the kids for some lunch, and just general fun on this most beautiful of days. All 4 kids are just terrific and a lot of fun to play with. Keagann insisted that we do something for both her "uncle's" birhtdays, so they made cupcakes which sister Erin cleverly decorated - see the picture. I got a cool looking dice game and a Star Wars musical card, and Erin got some cookbooks and a Happy Feet musical card. Keagann brought along HER musical card which plays the Hamster Dance song, and we had all 3 musical cards going. The littler kids Laynie and Perrin were also making faces and having lots of fun - and Laynie is ALMOST walking (she can walk if she has a chair or in this case a Tonka truck to lean on).


But the day was not over! (you may be seeing a recurring theme with me, that I can't sit still) At about 5:00, we headed over to the Mall of America to meet up with my bestest friends John & Jen who I went to college with. Conveniently they were driving back from a week further north in Minnesota at the lake, and wanted to come to Mall of America. So we met them at the Rainforest Cafe, and got to see Julia and the newest Finch, Jaycie! We hung out at the new Nickelodeon amusement park until 8:00 when the mall closed.

Other "News"

Hit some more balls at the batting cage today lefty - I am still convinced I am a lefty batter even after my first night of doing it wasn't so good. Debbie Gibson, for some odd reason, has been dominating my iPod playlists lately, must be some sort of weird nostalgia kicking in. The trail between my house is almost done - the trail is done but they haven't put the sod back down yet. 50th Ave is now offically closed and they are already ripping everything up - I'm hoping this will go faster than the two months they have planned. It will be very nice for us when it's done! Erin and I have been watching "Lost" which is kind of intriguing, and we only have two seasons to watch so hopefully can borrow the rest somewhere else. Finally, this morning my iPod shuffle seems to have died...I'm going to have to dig up the receipt and see how long I've actually had it. It's funny that my 5-year-old 40G iPod which can't even hold a charge anymore is still just chugging along, but my solid-state less-than-a-year-old iPod died...