One Step Forward

• The quality of the chips or fries served with the burger does effect it's rating.
• The quality of the restaurant's service, decor, etc. does not matter.
• The quality of the overall experience, such as who he is eating with or what the occasion is doesn't technically matter, but these things may make him subconsciously more inclined to enjoy the food.

1. Milty's, Lansing, Iowa. Aug. 3, 2007. Standard cheeseburger with American cheese and fries.
2. Western View Diner, Route 66, Albequerque, New Mexico. March 26, 2009. Standard cheeseburger with American cheese and fries.
3. Wild Onion Cafe, Grand Marais, Minn. Aug. 8, 2009. Pictured above. "Sol burger," which is venison and smoked provolone, with homemade rosemary and sea salt chips. (This is interesting, as Mark claims to not like rosemary.)
4. Liberties, Red Wing, Minn. Jan. 6, 2009. He can't remember the details of this meal but insists it was really good.
5. Greatwaters, St. Paul, Minn. April 2009. Swiss and bacon burger with great fries.

Mark bought me a Keuring coffee machine for Mother's Day. Lately, I've been on a quest for the perfect a morning treat, rather than just a boring cup of coffee.

In either case, the treat was screaming for some fresh whipped cream. I did make some the first time around but it takes long to whip then to enjoy, thus negating the treat of it. I don't suppose you can buy real whipped cream, already whipped can you? If so, how long does it last?

Yes, you read that right. We took the kids to Hooters on Sunday. (Isn't that a great follow-up to our wholesome Mary Poppins fun?)

We spent the afternoon at the Mall of America, just browsing around. We bought a Christmas present for our nephew, got some info at the Tmobile store about adding internet to our service plans, played with Duplos at the Lego store.

We were considereing watching the Packer game at a sports bar or some such place with TVs but decided to go home instead. When Grace found out we were going home, she started crying. Not whining, pouting, being a general pain in the keester, but shedding huge, sad, crocodile tears. I didn't hear what she first told Mark, but it appears that she thought we were going TO the Packer game. Not sure how she got that idea. Since we had toyed with the idea of staying at the mall for some of the game anyway, we decided to do that to try to cheer her up, which she did.

We happened to be at the mall exit right by Hooters at this point and Mark suggested we just go there, rather than wait for the elevator yet again and go down to the third floor and find another place to eat. It wasn't crowded and they did have plentiful TVs, so I gave in despite being skeptical about bringing the kids in.

Grace spotted the balloons as soon as we walked in. We got two. Grace's floated to the ceiling within seconds because the girl can't keep hold of a balloon to save her life. We managed to keep Connor's through the whole meal and get it to the car.

I was a little worried that Grace would ask why the waitresses were dressed as they were. She was too busy playing tic-tac-toe and eating French fries to notice though. whew.

Then, in the car yesterday on the way to school, Grace looks at the balloon and says "What does 'I heart H-O-O-T-E-R-S' spell?" I was able to ignore this once because I was talking to Connor at the time, but I had to answer her the second time she asked. I said "It says 'I love Hooters.' That's the name of the restaurant where we ate yesterday." So now, let's hope she doesn't announce to anyone that she loves hooters or knows how to spell hooters!!

I've been meaning to write this post for two months and was finally pushed to do it by a digiscrapping challenge.




We were having a picnic with the Bollingers on Sept. 12, when Becky B got a call that a friend had two free tickets to that night’s 7 p.m. showing of Mary Poppins at the Orpheum. Becky had already seen it, but knowing it was Grace’s favorite movie, wanted to see it with her. We were told small children could sit on an adult’s lap without a ticket. So Grace, Becky and I went home, changed into nice clothes and headed out. Linda volunteered to stay at our house with Connor because Mark was at the Gopher game with Joe.

When we arrived at the theater, with just a couple of minutes before show time, we were told even lap-sitters need a ticket. We ran back to the box office and got Grace a $20 student ticket and ran to the theater. We got in just as the curtain was rising, so we had to stand in the entry for the first scene, which was quite long. Grace stood there with her eyes WIDE open and her mouth hanging slack while all kinds of magic happened on stage.

In our seats (third row of the balcony) Grace struggled a bit to stay awake, especially because she was snuggled in my lap and having a hard time seeing over the people in front of us, but she never got cranky. After intermission, we moved to the first row of the balcony, where nobody was sitting. So Grace got her own seat and could see better. This worked out much better.

During one scene, Bert walks up the wall, across the ceiling and down the other wall. I said to Grace, “Look, it’s magic.” She nodded a bit, pointed and said “strings.” She didn’t seem to realize though that Mary Poppins’ flight over the audience was more strings than magic.

On the way home, Grace sang “Let’s go fly a kite, up to the highest kite” over and over until she trailed off and fell asleep midstream.

She’s been asking to go see “Mary Poppins the play” again ever since.