Minneapolis, Part 2

We started out Sunday by heading to Jerri and Mark's local farmer's market. We had lots of delicious treats and picked out pumpkins and gourds and even brought home a stalk of Brussels sprouts, which Zoe did a good job of helping to carry. It was a beautiful morning to be at the market. After hanging out with the neighbors for a bit and putting away all of the produce, we hopped in the car and drove downtown to the Mill City Museum. Zoe thought it was pretty funny to pretend drive in the driveway before we left:

The Mill City Museum was outstanding. I really enjoyed the film at the beginning of the visit and the interactive elevator ride and viewpoint from the top. The museum is housed in an old flour mill and sits right on the banks of the Mississippi.

You can see the Guthrie Theatre complex from here. I've been in that little yellow box on the side of the blue theatre building when I visited Minneapolis to ring in 2008.

And here is a cute shot of all of us at the top of the museum, overlooking the Mississippi River.

The museum also had a little demo kitchen with homemade play-dough for kids to use. Zoe and Jerri had quite a good time rolling out dough and cutting pretend cookies.

After the museum we headed out to dinner, and after much indecision ended up at a great Italian place that has awesome happy hour food and drink specials all day on Sunday. We called Joey at the last minute and he joined us for dinner, too. He mentioned that he needed to create a poster for his upcoming cabaret that night and I offered to help him out with some photoshop skills, so after dinner we headed back to Jerri and Mark's house and worked on our computers. It was actually quite fun.

On Monday, Jerri and Zoe and I headed to Stillwater, MN to enjoy yet another beautiful day. We had lunch, walked around to a bunch of shops and finally stopped for a snack at this cute little cafe and shop where we got sorbet and cupcakes. Now Zoe doesn't eat a lot of sugary treats, but when she does she really wants to savor every bit! Right down to the crumbs on the cupcake wrapper.

After our snack we walked along the St. Croix and enjoyed the view of the fading fall colors. It was really a lovely day.

On the way out of town we stopped at a Scenic Overlook and got to see some hot air balloons, too. It was great to see a part of MN that I'd never been to before.

On Monday evening Mark and I went to see Joey perform in a cabaret. We sat right by the piano and had a great time listening to great music and watching him play.

Tuesday was my last day in Minneapolis and Zoe came in to my room in the morning after she woke up and was really cute and chatty. We talked about books and looked at photos and played silly games. It was a nice way to really connect with her before I left.

Here we would both slowly move in towards each others' noses until we were cross-eyed and started laughing! After I did it once, Zoe said, "Do it again!". It was really cute.

We took the morning before I had to get to the airport to walk around Dinkytown and the University of Minnesota campus. We got to see Trinity working at the One Stop desk in the same building as this great sculpture. It's a new building on campus and full of all sorts of fancy things and new technology. It was cool to see.

And then we walked across campus and got a nice little view of the skyline and parts of the campus on our way to see the Art-o-Mat that was just installed in the health center.

We had a quite a good time choosing our art from the Art-o-Mat and taking photos of ourselves in the mirrored front.

I got a nice little painting of a Minnesota farm scene and Jerri got a little painting with an orange as the sun and Zoe picked out a photo from The Smooch Project. It was really fun to see her interact with the Art-o-Mat.

I think she was a little scared at first, but after a while she warmed up to it and thought it was pretty neat:

After the Art-o-Mat we went back to Dinkytown and grabbed a little snack before heading out to the airport. Jerri and Zoe dropped me off at the airport with big hugs and I was on my way back to Princeton! It was such a fun-filled, action-packed trip! And the good news is that I'm planning on being back in town for a conference in March, so I'll get to see them all again really soon!