July 4th Weekend

Thursday
Thursday was my friend Dee's wedding. I was supposed to be her personal attendant, but since I recently started a new job I wasn't able to get the time off work. Fortunately, she managed just fine on her own.

The wedding was at the Great Hall in downtown Saint Paul. She and Dan both looked stunning, and it was a beautiful venue. As a surprise, they had a step team/drum corps perform. It was fantastic in every way! The food was catered by The Strip Club, so the beef satays were delicious, Dan made a garlic yogurt dip, there were caprese salads on sticks, a watermelon soup and some other goodies. Instead of cake they went with traditional Lebanese and Italian desserts made by their respective aunts. Another fun thing was the photobooth where you could keep a copy of the shots and the other half of the strip was pasted into a guest book that you could sign for the couple. Many of the photos turned out very funny.

Friday
Friday we puttered around the house in the morning, then went to Dee and Dan's Open House at her brother Nick's condo around 4. He's got a nice place in a good location. Josh and I were busy mentally "remodeling" the party room into our new residence.

Next up was Taste of Minnesota, which Josh had never been to. It's your basic outdoor festival with music and food on a stick. Whitesnake played at 6:30 and Judas Priest at 8:30. Whitesnake wasn't that good and David Coverdale clearly thinks he is way hotter than he actually is. Judas Priest was actually much better, even though I only knew three of their songs. We watched the fireworks and then headed home.

Saturday
Saturday we ran some errands and then decided to have lunch at Pairings Food & Wine in Minnetonka, which is fortunately just 5 miles from our house. What a great place! When you enter, to the left is a gourmet-style lunch area and to the right is a wine shop. You can purchase a bottle of wine at the shop and then take it over and crack it open for lunch. We picked up a bottle of pink moscato that was quite yummy! Jeff, the wine seller, was very helpful and friendly.

For lunch I had a duck confit pizza, which had duck, goat cheese, butternut squash, dried cherries and arugula. Unbelievably good! Josh had a Cuban pork panini or similar. After lunch we popped back into the wine shop and wandered around a bit; I accidentally bought four bottles of wine.

Later that afternoon we went to see "Public Enemies" at Southdale. My overall reaction is "ehh." Most of the shots were zoomed in far too close for my taste, and the camera was shaky a lot. I realize this was intentional, but I found it distracting.

Sunday
On Sunday we decided to take the motorcycle out for a ride and I suggested heading down to Cannon Falls to check out the Cannon River Winery. What a cute little spot! Our wine pourer knew even less about wine than we do, but she was friendly and chatty and we had a nice time. We tasted easily a dozen or so wines, from whites to roses, reds to a port. I particularly liked one called GoGo Red, which was fruity like sangria.

The ride down was nice as well. It was a beautiful day and getting off the main road reminds you what a truly lovely state we live in.