Monthly Archives: March 2013

Norf Shore

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Couple weekends ago (I know, I’m slacking) Em, Step, Alicia, TaterTot and I headed up to that North Shore.  BigBernie made the trip for us and it may have been one of, if not the, most beautiful drives I’ve been on.  I’ve been been up there before but the weather changes almost ever hour, the lake is massive, and the forestry / surroundings are quite enjoyable.

The four of us ponied up and stayed at a rent-a-cabin that was basically plopped on top of a mountain overlooking Superior. The driveway was the steepest grade BigBernie has ever climbed, I shit you not, 40-45 degree incline – #NBD. The cabin was so cozy and high quality. If I recall, the visitor log had entries starting in 08-09 so it was fairly new.

Emily shot a gun for the first time. It was tremendous. She is actually quite the marksme…markswoman? First she started on Step’s scoped .22, basically a pea shooter.  It was quite a jump from that to the .20 gauge but she knocked down a couple clays, did a happy dance, and was only reminded a couple times ‘muzzle awareness Em!’  Once she got all thuglife on us with that 9mm, jaws started dropping. I don’t know what to say, I am not a horrible shot, but I certainly aint like her, ya heard?

Speaking of how awesome Emily is, what a gal she was to spend the weekend up there stone sober while the three of us just drank our eyes out.  I gave a toast of recognition to express my gratitude to her but it needs to be said again. Thanks darlin.

Alicia and Adam brought up raclette for dinner, that was stoops delish. Raclette may be one of my new favorite things and if it weren’t for the fact that the last thing the Goon household needs is another sporadically used cooking appliance, I’d book it.  To those who’ve not yet treated yourself to raclette, don’t think about it, just do it.

Step and I hit up that sauna big time Saturday night. At the hottest, the thermo was reading 190 degrees. After boozing all afternoon / night, the sauna is crucial to sweat out the booze.  On a side note, I am so f’n glad to have Step as my sisters bee eff. I think of him as a brother and he’s just such a damn good guy.  All my friends get along with him, he’s always ready to shweel even if he’s hungover, and I like to think we’re similar in sense we both work hard / play hard.

Anywho, pics of our stay here:

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Unc is old

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Ever since I was just a young lad, I’ve always looked up to my Unc (Mom’s brother) the police officer.  He was such a cool dude, seemed to do well with the ladies, had fun / debaucherous friends and gifted me baseball card boxes for Christmas. This weekend we celebrated his 50th birthday. Hot damn.

Fifty.

How did he get so old so quick? I guess I shouldn’t talk being that I am *gasp* one year away from the big three oh.  For his fiftieth, I wanted to make absolutely sure his present was not a let down and this was not an easy task. I found that a fifty year old with a wife and two kids doesn’t really ask for / need much (guarantee this won’t be true when I am fifty. ooompsk)

After conferring with auntie she told me he loves Chipotle when he’s rollin in the black and white. I was hesitant.  “Chipotle?” I thought. . . seems so cheap and not personal but then I thought back to my main objective and I ask you Internet, “Who wouldn’t want $50 worth of burrito monies”?  It will absolutely positively for sure get used! “Gee, I had a great birthday but I wish I wasn’t gifted so many free burritos from Chipotle” – said no one ever.

Happy Birthday Unc.

A few pics:

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Making Pizzas and Drinkin Dranks

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Yesterday, Em and I had a nice lil Saturday. Home Depot, time for Bed Bath & Beyond, etc.  Jokes.  We hit up the Eagan dog park since it was such a sunny beautiful day to let Tot get his juke moves on (many dogs lost their shorts).  Even though he’s not a young spry two year old pup, he still sooo speeedy… for a couple of seconds.  I got to test out the new camera a bit and got some great shots of his little Einstein face goin full beast mode. Click on the pic for full gallery:

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Later on we hosted Step and Alicia at our place to make pizzas and booze a bit. We sweet talked Carbone’s to get uncooked to-go pizzas and topped them ourselves with chickens, spinach, pepperonis, mushrooms and veggies ++  Step and I got into that Crown Royal Maple a little bit and hot damn is that stuff delicious.  Many Scattegories later, Em won *rolleyes*, played hearts till after 1:00 a.m. and Step helped me shoot the moon because it was gang-up-on-Emily time. Yours truly took the hearts W. #Oooompsk

Click pic below for gallery:

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Preggers

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So my wife is preggers and I was originally looking forward to blobbing the crap out of the pregnancy but honestly *I am rigorously knocking on wood here* it’s been extremely smooth sailing thus far.  I was anticipating the worst and I don’t know if my wife is just cowboy’n up big time or if she’s just really fortunate.  I’d like to think a little of both. I mean, she’s married to me AmIRite?

Either way, Em has a good size bump now so I think I’ll start taking pics every other week to document the progress. I mean, you only have your first kid once, let’s make’r a good one.

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Another the baby note, the nursery is done, donezo, finito. I remember the day Emily found out she was pregnet, I could see the look in her eye that she was already all antsy in her pantsy to plan for the nursery.  A week later or so she had color samps and wanted help planning at which point I did everything I could to convince her to wait till we found out the sex.

She obliged me, thank goodness.

Fast forward to now, after she only asked me a hand full of times “do you like this” or “would you choose this or this” the nursery couldn’t have turned out better. It’s not at all lame over the top baby blue bleh and I truly love how it turned out. Check out Larry’s new digs:

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Out with the old, in with the new

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So tax refunds are here and it’s something I look forward to each year.  It’s like a get-out-jail-free card to spend a bunch of money that isn’t ours, even tho it is.  Here’s to psyching out myself.  #Ooompsk.

I’ve been into (read: like to fiddle with and pretend I’m all pro n stuff) photography since I got my first SLR in ’08.  The ol XTi is a great camera still however, it was time to step up my game a bit. I didn’t really want a new camera at all but having a baby coming up, I needed to get a new one, you know, for the baby. . .

Here is the first test shot – ridic detail:

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