Madelyn is 5!!

 Happy 5th Birthday  Madelyn!! 

We stopped over Friday night to give Madelyn her birthday gifts and some cute cat cupcakes. Cats are her favorite thing right now! 

She picked the orange cat cupcake! I love how they made different colored cats. 

We got her all cat theme items, cat slippers, headband with cat ears, shirts and pants with cats a moving stuffed little cat, socks and underwear along with a Hello kitty bowl and chopsticks and some puma slides. I wanted to give her gifts before the kid party today. I figured she would over look all since she will have so many to open tomorrow. I also wanted to get her some special cat themed cupcakes. Super cute and were made by Hyvee. 

Sip wine and paint

A fun night of wine and painting!! Don set us up to paint at the Cannon Falls Winery since he knows the owner from the gym. We were lucky to get into this full event! 

We all did great! So many variations of the same painting, but all turned out! 

It was fun to see how everyone did something a little different. 

It started out looking sketchy and turned into the above!!

GroomIng

 Zoey's fur grows fast! Didn't I just groom her? She is good for the most part, but she does not like her paws touched. It's always a just do it as best as I can, but it's never perfect. I'll need to pay someone to trim her nails. I can hear them clicking on the floor which means they are too long. She does look good when she is trimmed short! It's her bath time today! She will just air dry since her fur is so short. 

Before 

                                                                     After, all beauty!!

Kendra's birthday brunch. I forgot to take photos during the party! My bad!!

I also forgot to serve her pumpkin cheesecake! 

And I forgot the cheese in the quiche!! lol. It was one of my better quiches too. Goes to show you, forget the cheese and it turns out even better!! 

I'll make this again!! 

Wednesday.

 It's survivor TV night. Tomorrow is out to dinner for Halloween. It's also going to be chilly/cold tomorrow. Right now it's warm, only got down to 70 last night, but now the temp will be dropping all day. Bummer! Well, at least we had a nice 80 degree day yesterday and temps into nov look to be around mid to upper 50's with even a 60 and sunny day too. Nice!! 

I hammock and biked yesterday with Steve and Celina. We went to Black Dog Park on the trail that runs along the Mississippi River. So pretty!!

It was  nice day to just sit and relax and not worry about the leaves! 

Probably the last of the biking? Well, I do see a 60 and sunny Saturday this weekend. Maybe I'll get the bike out one more time? 

80+F Oct 29th!!

 This is the last 80 degree day this year, October 29th! I'm already planning my afternoon to be outdoors as much as possible to soak up the warmth and sun! Yesterday was 74/75 degrees so I worked in the morning and then when it warmed up around 12:30, I went for an hour ebike ride going 13.6 miles. I'll do that again today along with laying in the back yard hammock one more time before I take it down for the year too. 

When Steve got home we had a few mocktails with pomegranate juice and seltzer. So delicious and not too sweet either. 

I've been trying to keep up on the leaves. Most are down on the trees but the maples hang on to end. I probably could mulch up the front yard again too, but not sure I really want to? It doesn't take long, so maybe I'll save that for around 4:30/5pm? When it starts to cool down at night. 

I'm going to miss going out in the back yard this winter. Too many months of being inside! I do see mid 50 degree temps till mid November and maybe a 60 or almost 60 in there too, which is above normal. So not a bad fall so far! 

It's going to rain tomorrow through the weekend. We do need the rain, but that just means no going outside and enjoying any of the 60 degree days.

I got up early to hopefully, head to the gym today. I've been doing 1 mile of cross ramp most mornings. I did miss a few last week, but I did other exercise instead like mowing both front and back yard or biking at least 9 miles. I'll keep up my cross ramp miles and keep adding more. I'd like to get back to doing any hour and enjoying it! 

I booked Logan's Thanksgiving train ride home. We are all ready for him to be home for the long holiday weekend. We aren't sure what his Christmas plans will be, if he gets an internship over break. I'm of course wanting him to get an internship, but also wanting him home for the month break. Only one more semester left and then he graduates!! I need to book a hotel and the Uhaul asap! 

I've been enjoying watching football, Vikings and Chiefs. I never used to like football, but now want to watch it and understand it more. So we have plans on Sunday night and Monday night to watch both 7pm games at home. No other plans this week. 

We can't hand out candy with Zoey being crazy when the trick or treaters come to our house. So we are just going out to dinner and using a gift card. We will just make Halloween fun for us! 

Fall Colors

 Just a few fall colors. The leaves are dropping fast.  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday next week will be the last of the nice warmer days. I saw a 70 degree day in there. It's almost the end of October, so we can't expect to have any more warm 70+ days. We were lucky to get 83 on Monday and 75+F on Tuesday. Now back to semi color 55 degree temps. That's still, above average for this time of year. We've gotten snow by the 31st in past years. / Last year! I don't see snow in the forecast till the end of November, but that's a long way out and things can change. 

I'm cat sitting this weekend, so not going anywhere. It would have been fun to do one more last car camping trip. It would have been chilly, but still do able. I'm not even sure where we'd go? 

On my bike ride Monday I took a smaller path going through a neighborhood in Rosemount. 

SATURDAY

I had a Groupon for St. Paul's Downtown cafe for breakfast.  It was like a time warp in that place. The portions were huge so we shared an omelet, hash browns, toast and some bacon. Delicious, but nothing we couldn't have made at home. It was only 8.34, plus I had to spend a little extra on tip and the extra bacon. $10 dollars. So $18 in all for breakfast. It was something to do on a Saturday morning. 

After we drove to Kaposa Park in IGH the park is full of maple trees. 

Always turns bright yellow and orange. It's been so dry, most of the leaves just turned brown and fell off. It was still pretty but not spectacular like other years. 

We decided to make food last night for dinner. Treated ourselves to Beef tenderloins, mashed potatoes, Mac and cheese with a side salad and some Wine spritzers. Since it was nice outside, we sat by our fire table and ate dinner. A nice night. It would have been a nice night for a bonfire, but with the fire burning ban right now. Can't do that! 

My food with added herbs from my pots and mushroom caps too. 

Wine spritzer playing around with filters on my cell.