Downtown Adventure

This week Max and I went on a downtown adventure with my parents. Believe it or not, we had never been on the light rail, so we caught it at the MOA and took it downtown to have lunch with Dave! I was a little worried about how max was going to do on the 40 minute train ride but he did really well as long as one of us was singing to him, or showing him something out the window or reading him a story or or or....

Spring Has Sprung.....on the 8th Floor of Macy's

Since spring refuses to come to Minnesota, we have to go find our own spring. What better place than at the Macy's Flower Show? This year it was titled The Painted Garden and had a cool Indian vibe. The Macy's flower show is a tradition in the Amos/Hromadko family and it usually includes lunch at The Oak Grill on Macy's 12th floor. The food is not all that fancy, but there's dark paneling on the walls, white table cloths and popovers so what more can you ask for, really? And it just brings to mind generations of families coming "all the way" downtown to discover what new, exciting things the (then Dayton's) 8th floor display had in store for them. Can you tell I'm a sucker for tradition?

Easter!

It seems strange to be celebrating Easter when there is still snow on the ground. Spring is late and Easter is early!

Easter basket fun

I could not get enough of Max in this suit coat! So ridiculous and so adorable. 

We celebrated with my family for lunch, and like usual, I only got pictures of the kids. 

We celebrated with Dave's family for dinner and.....I didn't take any pictures. But there were nine kids age eight and under running around so I didn't really have a chance! It was a very busy (read: fun!) place. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter celebrating the love and sacrifice of Jesus! He is risen!

weekend adventures

One of the things I have looked forward to as a mom is taking my kids to museums and exposing them to all kinds of different things culturally. In my head I have kind of reserved 18 months as the perfect age to start this special kind of outing. Well.... Max isn't quite 18 months, it's sprinter (a sad sad word depicting our spring that is actually still winter) and we needed to get out of the house! So on Friday we ventured to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Max loved it! Success!

He ran from one room to the next excited to see what was in each one.

All the excitement wore him out! 

This will surely be the first of many educational/cultural adventures for us. 

It was a full weekend because we also ventured to Como Zoo! We took Max to the Zoo last fall and he enjoyed it then, but he LOVED it now. 

He was pointing at everything and making all the animal sounds that he knows. 

It's so fun to watch him experience new things. Three cheers for family adventures!

where everybody knows your name

For most of my life, or at least since I was old enough to watch shows like FRIENDS, I've always wanted a "place." You know, a neighborhood place, preferably a coffee shop, that I frequent enough where they know me and I know them. Doesn't everyone want that?? It's just so appealing isn't it?

In FRIENDS it was Central Perk

In How I Met Your Mother it's Maclaren's Pub

And of course the quintessential "place" Cheers

Well, I'm happy to announce that I think we finally have a "place"! When we moved here four years ago there were essentially zero coffee shops in our town, at least none within walking distance. Moving here from uptown where there is a coffee shop on every corner made this realization even worse! I'm sure I cried. 

A super cool neighborhood restaurant called Victory 44 added a coffee shop/cafe and it has become our place! I have been taking Max there once a week and we are trying to get to know the baristas and staff. We are not to the point yet where everybody knows our name, but we'll get there. We must. It's our Place!