Vacations are great but there is two things that always happen when you take a little vacation. First off, they are always too short. Second, it seems you always come back exhausted and it takes awhile to get back to normal. We headed up to Minnesota for a four day weekend. Cece, my parents, my aunt and my uncle all made the trip up to spend some time with my cousin Darrick (my aunt and uncle’s son) and Carmen (his girlfriend). Thursday we got in town and met at Lucky 13′s Pub for a beer and then headed to Jake’s City Grille for dinner and drinks. One of my favorite parts about vacation is the food. The spinach artichoke, pepperoni and four cheese, wood fired, pizza was probably one of the best pizzas I have ever had. I also got a side of sausage and shrimp chowder to go with it. I claim to not like soups but that was equally amazing. Friday the guys headed out for golf in the afternoon at Boulder Pointe while the girls spent the day shopping. My golf game was nothing to brag about but that may have been because there was water on 14 of the 18 holes! The golf course was really nice and scenic though. Friday evening was bar hoping in downtown St. Paul. We ate at Patrick McGovern’s Pub, then stopped at a nice roof top bar (that I don’t recall the name of) and the last stop was Eagle Street Grille. My favorite part about the bars was no Bud Light on tap but they all had Blue Moon and Guinness. Saturday the guys went golfing in Wisconsin but I opted to spend some time with girls. We made a quick stop at the Mall of America and then it was off to Stillwater, Minnesota. Stillwater is down by the St. Croix river. The streets are lined with a mix of trendy shops, antique stores, art galleries and local foods. It made for a great shopping experience. We grabbed a beer at the Dock Cafe and then hopped on the Avalon River Boat and strolled down the river at about 6 mph. They served a nice dinner and drinks, of course. It ended up being about a 2.5 hour trip so we didn’t go far and it was really cloudy but the atmosphere was great. One more beer at another bar after we got off the boat and it was time to head back to the hotel. Sunday we got up and headed for home. The weekend was very busy but it was a blast.

I suppose the great trip is the reason this work week is going so slow but it was worth it. My peppers are producing well this year. I have picked about 40 jalapeno peppers, 40 cayenne peppers, 30 kung poa peppers, and 20 habanero peppers already. That is good for me because I have never even had a successful habanero plant in past years. I have been working on the image gallery on the website in my free time but it is a lot of work. I have been slowly adding pictures but anyone that knows me should know I have a lot of pictures. I tend to carry my camera almost every where. Editing, posting and writing the content for the shot takes a lot of time though. The end of September is going to be the family cook off and the theme is hamburgers this year. In the next month I need to come up with my award winning burger and practice a lot, so if you’re hungry let me know.