Geocaching and Dreaming

Kris: This past weekend we drove out to Maplewood for a Breakfast Buddies event.  Living on the west side of the cities, we don't get too many opportunities to hit up the east side so it was fun to have geocaching as an excuse.   We met at Old Country Buffet and there was probably 50 cachers that showed up.   There were quite of few familiar faces but lots of new ones too.  

Breakfast was super yummy.  I tried to fill up on fruit first and then go back for eggs, bacon, potatoes...

We plotted out a few area caches to grab.   The first one we found was under a cute troll bridge and from the picture below I'm sure you can tell this would be a little more difficult when the water isn't frozen.

Then Mark wanted to introduce me to Posen caches.   Posen is a local MN cacher that is known for his very interesting containers.  Many of which he makes himself.   Below is my first encounter with a true Posen cache.   It was called "The First Olympian"

Mark: If you're in the Minnesota area, I highly recommend that any geocacher look up and find a few Posen caches. They are mostly in the Roseville area of the Twin Cities and most of his caches are definitely worth the time. Creative, Unusual and Head Scratchers.

Later that day is was off to cruise through the Home and Garden Show.   It's more of a place to go and grab all the samples you can and oogle at all the  fun things we can't afford for our house and landscaping.  Our first stop was through the restaurant area where we not only sampled some Paella from my favorite kitchen store Kitchen Window and then we tried some coffee at the Keurig station.  I went for the Donut Shop flavor.

One of the more fun parts of the show to walk through is the huge landscaping section where we found some beautifully decorated trees with gardens and lanterns.

And a statue of a drooling moose chewing on grass.   ???

Then we found this really cool table for your outdoor patio that has water running through it.   It was a hit with everyone.

(And yes those are a dozen roses I'm holding. Mark was super sweet and bought me roses from a booth at the show. I'll let him explain the reactions we received from other people at the show ;)

Mark: OK, so while we walked through the show, why is it that every woman that commented on the flowers said that I did a great job by buying Kris flowers and all the guys comments, all of them older 50+, the first question they asked was "What did he do wrong?" Seriously? Why is the assumption that the only reason I would buy Kris flowers is because I did something wrong and I am trying to make up for it?

And one of my favorite finds at the Home and Garden Show.....tell me this wouldn't be an awesome cache container!!!

Sunday we went out looking for a large enough cache to drop a travel but I have had for about two weeks now.  It's a book that helps you solve a puzzle cache in the area.   First we went by Lake Calhoun, grabbed a virtual at this bunny statue.

And then went by a spot we are going to hide a cache together to check out what kind of container we would need.

Then it was back to my house past a few large caches to see where we could drop the book TB.  We went through a stroll in a nearby park and with the weather being a little warmer it was actually a nice opportunity to get some fresh air.   We also was some cool natural snow/ice sculptures along the road.

The afternoon we went over to the Landscape Arboretum to a wedding expo to see if we could get some ideas for our wedding and also check out the rooms they have available for rental for our reception.   We spent over 2 hours there talking with people and got some great information and ideas :D

That evening we went out to dinner with Mark's mom and then downtown to see the Chieftans at Orchestra Hall.   Dinner started with a bang.   Literally....because I managed to shut my finger in the car door.   Ripped a big hole in it.  Could have been worse and luckily I had a band-aid in my purse.    So that was throbbing all night.  Luckily it was my right hand ;)  So we finished up dinner at Claddaugh's and headed downtown for the show.   I've never seen the Chieftan's, they are an Irish group and were pretty good.   I'm not the biggest bag-piper fan but overall the show was pretty entertaining.

Mark: I have seen the Chieftans before and I love Bag Pipe music! I really enjoyed the show and my Mom was excited to see them as well, she is a big fan.