Mark's 40th Birthday weekend

Kris: This past week we had a few fun things going on.   Last Friday night I bought tickets for Mark for his birthday for us to go see "My Run" which was playing as part of the 2010 Minneapolis/St. Paul Int. Film Festival.  To quote the website the movie was this:

"My Run tells an amazing true tale of two incredible journeys. One took place in 1996, when Terry Hitchcock ran from St. Paul to Atlanta in 75 consecutive days, covering the equivalent of a marathon a day. Terry’s “mega-marathon” was an incredible feat but it wasn’t even close to being his greatest challenge. That began 12 years earlier when Terry’s wife Sue, a woman of incredible warmth and strength, died of breast cancer and Terry suddenly found himself alone raising three small children. That marathon was the tougher journey, one much harder emotionally and spiritually than running 2000 miles from St. Paul to Atlanta."

I would recommend this film to everyone.  It was very well done.  After the screening, we went over to the after party at Zahtar restaurant.   That was a fun little fancy hangout with appetizers, drinks and cake.  The special was the My Run-tini which we were going to get one to share but as we were impatiently waiting at the bar for a bartender, a couple next to us said they ended up having two extra Run-tinis ordered for their table so we could just have them.  Nice, free drinks ;)

The next day was crazy busy.  It started out early with a run at Hyland park.  Mark and I signed up with my friend Mandy and Mark's friend Steve to do the 50k Trail Mix relay race.  We each had to run 7.75 miles on the trails.   It was a beautiful morning for a run and I loved it.   We all wore ZapEvent hats to do a little advertising as well :)  I will detail more of my run experience in a following post on my blog.

Then Mark and I parted ways for the afternoon as I had to go to a baby shower for my good friend Becky and he headed home to work around the house.  But what I told him was that he needed to meet me back at my house at 6:30 for "plans".  Pretty sure he knew it was something relating to his birthday but he didn't know what.   I actually have spent the past few weeks putting together a surprise 40th birthday party for him at my place.   So he got to my place and walked into a crowd of family and friends, obnoxious "Happy 40th" decorations, lots of food and even a pirate cake I had made for him.

Mark: I knew Kris was up to somthing and way in the back of my mind I wonder if she would throw me a suprise party but then I thought that I don't have enough frineds so I dismissed the idea. I was suprised and I guess I do have enough frineds. Thanks Honey!

Kris: The party was so much fun and lasted until well into the evening.   The weather was fantastic so thanks to a borrowed grill, we got to grill for dinner and have some fun telling stories in the fresh air.

Sunday we got to sleep in  (YAAAY!!) well not as much as I would have hoped since the calvary (the dogs, well mostly Truffle) decided we needed to be up for breakfast shortly after 7am.  It was another beautiful day so we just moved slowly, went to our favorite spot for breakfast the Good Day Cafe, then went back to my house to clean up from the night before.   After that we headed back to Mark's to do a few house projects.  His main floor bathroom has been out of commission for quite awhile and due to water damage needs a chunk of the floor replaced so we started tearing into that project.   We got quite a bit of work done before we needed to get cleaned up for our evening plans.

Mark: That project will take a few weekends to finish up. Sigh... I think getting started is the hard part of any project.

Kris: Our evening ended up being a TON of fun out with Mark's brother Michael and his wife Cari.   We started with dinner at OM Restaurant (thanks to Groupon we had $100 in gift certificates that we only paid $50 for)   Food was incredible and we got a good start on the wine here as well ;)

After dinner, we headed over to the Orpheum to see Avenue Q.   That show is a total riot.  Think of Sesame Street puppets but a Rated R version.   Terribly funny!  Especially when we added another glass or two of wine :-P

Mark: Cari is very entertaining when she has some wine!

Kris: Monday we decided we were going to go geocaching after work after a quick run along the river since usually Mark goes geocaching every year for his birthday.  Since our weekends have been so full, we decided this year was just going to be a week night since the weather has been so great.   Well our caching starting out horribly with 2 DNFs!   Our geo-senses and high muggle traffic were making our start quite frustrating!  Luckily we made the find on the 3rd cache and then picked up a nearby Earthcache on the walking bridge over St. Anthony Falls.

Final grab was a quick PnG and we added it to the list since it had a cool coin in it and luckily it was actually there too :)

Tuesday, Mark's actual 40th birthday, we unfortunately were both working all day but I did pick up a few quick groceries the night before so I could cook him breakfast of blueberry pancakes, maple sausages and orange juice :)  I was out for an eye appointment mid day so I picked him up for lunch and we went to a restaurant which is another special spot of ours.   Black Sheep is where we went on our first official date :D and is in between where he works and where I work downtown.

That evening we went to use another Groupon gift certificate to go try out the restaurant Moto-i.  We had $50 to spend there on dinner.

Mark: I really liked Moto-i, the food was very tasty and more then a little bit spicy.