Meanwhile in Red Wing...

...Shannon and Drew head to Red Wing for their one year anniversary. Red Wing is a cute, little town on the Mississippi riverfront with an interesting history, at least one fancy, old hotel and a very large boot.







Drew and Shannon go to a vineyard and then out to a fancy dinner.

Back at the hotel, Shannon gets a disturbing phone call. "What! There are ghosts in this hotel?!"


Drew attempts to steal the money out of a very old cash register.
It gets to be too much for Shannon, so she heads across the street the train depot. "Will the train ever come?"
Oh, there it is.
So long, Red Wing!

Winter Wonderland

It's winter time here in Minnesota and what a winter it has been! We picked a pretty tough one to be back in Minnesota. But, like most things, there is more than one way to view the situation and attitude matters. Winter can be ugly... but it can also be beautiful. It can even look magical at times - just not as often as it does in other seasons!

I've been hearing talk along the lines of, "the worst is behind us," and "spring is coming." We can only hope... ;)


This is what I consider the ugly side of winter. Scraping the car off (this year, we had to actually shovel the snow off the car first), unable to leave the house (well, sometimes that is nice), and cold, cold, cold (never nice). That is our car on the right:

This is our other car next to the bus:

Under there somewhere is our sidewalk and street:



Ahh... here is some sunshine and time spent at the cabin:


Our giant kitty checking out the deer:





Sparkly days at the cabin! We walked out to the island on the fresh show.

The loon's will be back here in the spring: