Juicy Lucy

As planned, we (my wife and 3 boys) headed to the 5-8 Club Monday night to have our first Juicy Lucy. The 5-8 is one of two restaurants in Minneapolis that claim they were the establishment that 'created' the first Juicy Lucy. We took a poll on Facebook and the 5-8 Club won out as the place to go...by 1 vote.

We invited several friends and family through an open invitation through Facebook to join us for dinner at the 5-8 Monday night. When we got there, it was a line up out the door with a seat your self sign. So people stand inside the back door waiting for someone to get up and then a dash to get to the open booth before someone else gets to it. My sister Sarah, who goes to church next door, went and found the patio on the far side had open seats that couldn't be seen from the door (and if you've not been there before, you don't know about the patio) and got plenty of seats for everyone. We couldn't all sit together, but that was fine.

A quick apology for anyone that came a little late and didn't see any of us because we were on the patio, that was not well marked. Some pictures below...

The 5-8 Club in Minneapolis

The Top 10 at the 5-8

Friends Dave, Tonya and Carrie at the 5-8


Friend Matt and his son Tommy at the 5-8

My Juicy Lucy at the 5-8

(you can already see the cheese oozing out)

The video below is when waiting in line at the backdoor...a quick scan of the 5-8 Club's dinning room. Not a big place, but a popular place.

One of the patrons, who was in line behind our group, said he had never seen it this busy before and had never seen so many kids. He was wondering what the deal was. I wonder if a mass invitation through Facebook had any reason for the crowd Monday night.

Best Weekend Ever!

There used to be a show on VH1 called The Best Week Ever! While I never watched the show I imagine it was a look back on the week in entertainment and was presented in a way that it was The Best Week Ever!

In the spirit of the show that I've never seen I want to say this past weekend was the Best Weekend Ever!

It started with Joseph's basketball game Friday night. On Saturday we went to Kallsen & Parker's basketball game. Then it was a quick trip to Wal Mart (always fun for children) and then home. While Momma, Joseph and Kallsen got lunch ready and prepared for the day, Parker and I had some one on one time going to the dump (another big event in the life of a child) and then it was off to Moonshine Mountain.

Moonshine Mountain is about two hours away. We spent a majority of the time in the car on Highway 11 going across the most northern part of Oconee, Pickens and Greenville Counties. Beautiful views of the mountains and mountain lakes on an unusually warm February day. There were lots of motorcycles and regular bikes taking in the beauty of the day.

Once we arrived at Moonshine Mountain there was a wait of 45 minutes to begin tubing due to the large crowd. We took that time to do a helicopter ride. Joseph rode with another group and Kallsen & Parker rode with me. That was a lot of fun and something that I had wanted to do my entire life...a helicopter ride. Once the helicopter rides were done, it was time to start snow tubing. You can see pictures and a video on the previous post on the blog and see more pictures and video on my facebook page.

Joseph on Helicopter

After snow tubing we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant before the drive home. We got home Saturday night sometime after 11:00.

Sunday morning the radio station had some issues so I ran to the station the fix the problems. When I got home, the boys were having lunch with hopes of finishing before Daddy got home so I could take them to the park.

Kallsen & Parker at bottom of slide

I grabbed a protein bar and off to the park we went. We spent time sliding and playing on the playground before moving to another part of the park to swing. After swinging the boys wanted to go to the picnic shelter, where all the dry leaves were piled up, and play in the leaves. After playing in the leaves we headed back to the playground where some kids from the boys pre-school were playing and they played even more. Between all these events the boys also found time to play Frisbee.

Parker Close Up on Playground

Once we got home, three hours later, we had a snack of apple slices and then it was back outside where we rode bikes, played basketball, played Frisbee and taught the neighbor kids the finer parts of disc golf putting and driving. The day outside ended with a great game of Frisbee 500 with Joseph and some of his friends.

Sunday night, with the boys fully worn out (no naps for any of them...and our boys always take naps on the weekends) they went to bed really well and my wife and I enjoyed watching an episode of West Wing before it was our bedtime.

It simply was the best weekend ever.

Trip Farm

On Saturday we took the boys to a farm to see some pigs before they (the pigs) got too big. Kallsen and Parker had a blast. Joseph kept his nose plugged the whole time we were at the farm.

I made friends this summer with Scott and Joyce Griffith. They farm a couple hundred acres and raise pigs. With Kallsen loving to look at and read books about farming and Joseph needing to understand where everything comes from, a trip to a farm was needed.

Other than looking at the pigs, Scott showed us a number of his tractors, old cars and projects he has been working on. A nice time was had by all. I think Scott (he's 64) enjoyed our visit as much as we did.