St. Paul weekend

On Friday morning, Jeff and I along with Stephen and Rachel headed down to St. Paul to meet up with Sarah and spend the weekend playing together. We stayed at the Best Western Bandana Square. We stayed there in November and enjoyed the location and was the closest to where most of our activities were.

We picked Sarah up and checked out a surplus store and used book store. Only our family would be equally excited by gears, sprockets, wire, leather and used books. It was fun to wander through both stores and just enjoy laughing together. For dinner Friday night we had dinner at Osaka a sushi and hibachi restaurant. We sat at a hibachi grill and watched our dinner be cooked. It was marvelous. Jeff had chicken, Diane had salmon, Stephen steak, Sarah swordfish, and Rachel tuna. We all tried a bit of each others and had fun comparing and sharing.

Saturday we had a lazy morning then headed to the Source, the comic and game store that no trip to the cities would be complete with. We spent almost two hours wandering the store, reading game boxes, comic books. We also purchased two new games for the family. "Who Would Win?" is an argument game. Two players draw an action then each draws a character. Each then has 20 seconds to argue their case for why their character would be better at the activity. Then each gets a 5 sec. rebuttal. We had a lot of fun playing that one Sat. evening. "Fluxx" is the other game we got. It is a card game with changing rules depending on the cards drawn and played. Rachel and I really enjoyed that one.

After the source we went to India Palace for a buffet lunch. Stephen has spent very little time in the cities and didn't have many ideas about what he wanted to do. But he did want Indian food. We all enjoyed the experience.

After lunch we took a trip to Sarah's new lodgings. She will be moving next Friday to a house in north Minneapolis with 5 other students from International Falls, most of whom are students at the Art Institute. She will have her own room and we are excited for the change for her.

We then went back to the hotel and settled in. Several swam and sat in the hot tub. Some played games and we all talked and laughed. We had planned to go for ice cream but were still full from the India Palace and were tired, so we just settled in for the evening.

Sunday morning we were out of the hotel by about 9:45 and went to Robert Street Keys cafe for a wonderful Sunday brunch. We again enjoyed the time together talking about summer plans and goals for the next few months. Stephen then headed west to Morris and Jeff, Diane and Rachel headed back to International Falls.

We aren't very good at remembering to use a camera and then when we do remember don't always get very good photos but here are a few from our weekend.

Enjoy.