mumsey's birthday dinner at the bachelor farmer last weekend has us feeling pretty enthusiastic about the minnesotan nordic experience.  we ate seafood toasts and duck and swedish meatballs in a perfectly delightful converted warehouse space in the north loop.  this place, where farm to table cooking meets old-country scandinavian charm, is so quintessentially minneapolis.    

wanna get even more in touch with your stoic northern side?  minneapolis is a smorgasbord of scandinavian treasures.  tour the castle at the american swedish institute.  have a swedish coffee break at FIKA.  buy scandinavian gifts and interesting meat products at ingebretsen's.  or there's always IKEA, if you like a cheaper meatball.        

  
from our independence day, now almost a month ago:
shameless early-morning cocktails at barbette,
and the hidden beach on cedar lake

summer in the city in full swing.

i'm excited about biking and rollerblading on all the epic bike trails in minneapolis.  i'm excited about farmers markets.  i'm excited about lake swimming.  i'm excited about home cooking (after five summers of unsavory national park cafeteria food).  

i'm even excited about nannylife, though it's fairly beige and not that photogenic.  i'll bring my camera along one of these days...      

this is montana.  

and for a complete change of pace: tomorrow i start my minneapolis nanny job.  

i just got back from montana after a month of deep-cleaning historic hotels and hiking around glacier national park.  i kinda can't believe i ever left this place.  it is undoubtably the most fun place in the world.

these are from glacier view mountain in the whitefish range.  

one summit, six people, three growlers of IPA.    

it turned into summer overnite, and minneapolis won me back immediately.

i'm leaving for montana in the morning, but only for the month of may.  after that i'm spending the whole summer in minnesota.  nannying.  and now that the sun is shining, that seems like a spectacular idea.  a whole summer riding bikes and chilling at the pool.

i'll be without internet or phone for the next few weeks.  see you in june!

this is springtime in minneapolis
a winter wonderland that i was not expecting.

plus the end of the exposed film.  oops.

glenwood springs, frisco and copper mountain on film.
(from a thriftshop camera that i didn't know how to operate. i definitely exposed the film, but i kinda like when that happens!)

i miss colorado already.  hope to be back there in the fall, but the best laid plans of mice and men...