Winnie's Big Trip to the Twin Cities

A couple of weeks ago, my sister Winnie had a conference in Bloomington, MN, and extended her stay to visit with us for a couple of days.  Her visit coincided with the closing of the house, and so I haven't been able to blog about her trip yet.  I know she's been anxiously waiting to view her trip on the blog, which is interesting considering Winnie has never checked the blog or contributed at all.  I believe her actual words when we discussed this were, "Well, the blog is only interesting when it's about me!".  Typical.  

Anyway, one of the first things we did with Winnie was close on the house.  Could we be any more excited?

We went inside to celebrate the closing with some champagne.  Mitch enjoyed the champagne...

 
I really enjoyed the champagne....

and Winnie was practically bursting with joy.

After the closing, we ventured into St. Paul to do a little bit of sightseeing and eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Cosetta's.  It's this great Italian place where you can get anything, and has a full deli and bakery attached.  It is totally awesome, and if anyone comes to visit, we'll surely take you.  We had a smorgasbord of Italian beef and Caesar salad - 

and pizza (definitely the best in the Twin Cities - it gives any other pizza serious competition).

I think Winnie liked it - she barely said two words while she shoveled it in.

On Saturday, we had a lazy morning, then went for a long walk (Mitch stayed in bed) and moved a couple of things over to the house.  We then went into Minneapolis to do a little shopping.  Our first (and only) stop was to Macys, where we were on the hunt for a new purse for Winnie.  The last (and only) purse that Winnie bought was easily four years ago, and she's used it every day since.  It was totally falling apart and she's needed one for a while, but saved her purse-shopping for when she came to visit me.  Isn't she sweet?  Anyway, we found one suitable to her needs, then went to have dinner at Brit's, a restaurant and pub downtown.  The food was typical English-pub stuff, and was very good.  The highlight (or lowlight for some of us there) was Mitch asking the waitress about an item on the menu, listed below.

When the waitress came to take the order, Mitch asks her, "How big are your cod pieces?" and giggled a little bit.  The waitress didn't get it.  And I just rolled my eyes.  :)

After dinner, we adjourned to the upper level of Brits, where they have an open-air deck.  It was a beautiful night to be out, and so I captured a couple of pics on the roof.

You also could see a great view of the skyline from the roof.

The greatest part of the deck is the lawn.  Yes, an actual lawn on a roof.  And in good English fashion, they play lawn bowling! 

Right above the lawn is the main rule for playing, a motto of sorts, that sums everything up - 

Awesome.

Any patron can lawn bowl (you just put your name in), and they also have leagues during the week.  Apparently there's a ten-year wait to even get your team into the league.  While we opted not to play, we did have entirely too good a time watching others.  In particular was a group of four older men nearest us, who we began watching, rooting for, and creating elaborate nicknames for each of them.  

First, we have the Bus Driver,

and then there was Wind Pants, (after every bowl, he would put his thumbs in his elastic waistband pants and adjust.  It was absolutely hysterical, and will be posting a video of Winnie impersonating all four men soon)

Powder was the rowdy one of the group, 

and finally, we have Styles.  His wife, Boof, visited them on the lawn a couple of times.

They were so into the game, they even had tape measures to see who got closest.  

I don't think I've laughed that hard in a really long time.  

Mitch and I had a great time with Winnie, and would be happy to host her and Walshie anytime they wish to visit the Twin Cities.  Hope you're doing well in FL!