Happy Birthday eStetson!

Stetson and I have been friends since I moved to Colombia two and a half years ago. He is a fellow Minnesota-born & Wisconsin-educated midwesterner with a similar passion for country music (and music in general), reading, movies, coffee and mocking other travelers who do not have their s*** together. While we have bonded over all these things as we became friends, it is really only in the past year or so that we have become close friends.

Stetson is a person I can always talk to about what is happening at school. He is an excellent teacher, and as the 9th grade science teacher, he gets all my former students from the previous year so of course we can talk about all of them. He is always professional at work and is a great person to bounce ideas off of. 

Stetson is also someone who is always equally down for a quiet Friday night at the movies as he is for a night out on the town. He is funny, sincere and genuine.  And in Colombia, where I am not surrounded by three little brothers for the first time in life, it is nice to have a guy friend around who feels like a little piece of Minnesota home :)

This past weekend was Stetson's 30th birthday! As someone who generally doesn't like to be the center of attention, naturally Kelsi and I found it essential to throw him a surprise birthday dinner.  We began with a somewhat-not-so-stealth attempt to distract him with a casual Saturday movie date to New Years Eve (LOVED IT!). While we go to the movies a lot with Stetson, we don't usually wear cute outfits, heels and jewelry so he probably knew something was up. We finished the movie with lots of awkward stalling by needing coffee, the ATM, a stop in Mundo $3,000 for Christmas gifts and a shopping date to buy Stetson a birthday tie before heading off to his (and our!) favorite restaurant in Cali, Platillos Voladores.

We blind folded him with the tie during the cab ride and led him into the restaurant where our friends were waiting to yell surprise. I don't think Stetson was necessarily in shock about where we ended up, but he seemed to have a great night celebrating his birthday, and that is all that matters. The wait staff even engaged in our birthday shenanigans by providing ridiculous birthday hats and "Happy Birthday" confetti on the table. 

Cheers to a fabulous 30th year Stets!

Surprise!

The crew ready to celebrate Stetson!

Birthday dessert & a birthday dance by the birthday boy!

Happy Birthday friend!!!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

When we first discovered that Kelsi's 29th birthday fell on a Friday we were pretty excited for some weekend festivities..... AND THEN we discovered it was also November 11, 2011 AKA 11-11-11. Whaaaaaaaat? Hello fantastic reason to have a ridiculous party in our apartment.  Lucky for us we were able to convince our friends that creating entirely new costumes just two weeks after Halloween was a completely necessary life-task AND I even got this guy to come down to visit and celebrate with us for the weekend. Lucky me ;)

Our friend Cassie also had a birthday on the lucky date, so we planned a joint party and asked everyone to come celebrate with their "favorite ladies from the 80s". Catchy, I know. I made it up, obvio. A weekend trip to centro for beverages and decorations, several shopping trips to various stores for miscellaneous costume pieces, and a condensed version of VH1's "Best of the 80s" later and we were ready to party! 

Kelsi and I made snacks beforehand - including salsa, guacamole, apple-berry fruit salsa, empanadas, and more. Cassie contributed with quite possibly the coolest cake that anyone I personally know has ever made - appropriately crafted in the shape of a Rubik's cube a la 80s fun. About 30 friends ended up attending our party filled with lots of ridiculous dance moves, hammocking on the patio, movies like Goonies playing in the background, and of course a celebration of the birthday girls at 11:11 PM on 11-11-11. Yes, it was fabulous. 

Here's how it looked...

 Michael & me! Didn't he do an amazing job pulling this outfit together??? And yes, he does own those sneakers for real. So there's that ;)

Birthday girl & me!

Ladies of the 80s in a range of workout gear, Madonna rock style and just general fabulousness that was the 80s. 

Rubik's Cube cake!!! So cool looking and tasted amazing! 

To say they got along is an understatement...I believe the phrase we they are using these days is "besties".  

Gentlemen of the 80s. 

Happy birthday Cassie and Kelsi!!!

Don't stop believin'....

Happy Birthday Kelsi!

Yesterday my roommate Kelsi turned 28 and we celebrated before, during and after school! We started the day off with some eggs and toast for birthday breakfast in Buddha bowls. Buddha bowls are made by a Canadian company and they are made to sit perfectly in the palm of your hand! Perfect for oatmeal, coffee, tea, soup or whatever. Kelsi mentioned she wanted one sometime last year, so I bought them (you had to buy at least two!) online and had her sister bring them down in September.

The Buddha Bowl!

Birthday breakfast!

I decorated our apartment the night before with Feliz Cumpleaños (Happy Birthday) balloons, neon green streamers and taped up a list of 28 fabulous things I love about Kelsi around the apartment walls.

At school Kelsi's students opted out of the traditional "Let's throw our teacher a surprise party for her birthday that is really more of a party for us and less for her" and instead were just nice to her all day long and brought her presents! So cute :)

Last night we finished the birthday celebration with a few friends over for sangria, wine and desserts. Kelsi made her famous sangria and I crafted some brownies with Brazilian nuts in them - and we ate them with Juan Valdez Mocacchino ice cream. Soooooooooo delicious. No wonder I woke up this morning with a stomachache!

Blowing out the candles on the birthday brownies!!

Roommate love...and rosy cheeks me.

This weekend the celebration continues with a mini-getaway to the mountain town of Manizales, Colombia. Set in the heart of the coffee region and about a six-hour bus ride from Cali, this town is famous for coffee farms and the snow-capped Nevados Mountains - we plan to visit both!

Until Monday - stay fabulous friends :)

Happy Birthday Joe!

Happy Birthday Joe!!

Love you, miss you, think about you all the time and cannot wait for you to come visit Colombia in January! I hope it will be the beginning of many wonderful travel adventures together.

Photo: Taken this summer when I spent a few days visiting Joe in our college town of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Nothing like playing bags with your brother and enjoying some of Wisconsin's finest brews at sunset. :)

The Real OC: My First Trip to California

During this busy summer of travels I made some time to go out to California to visit my friends Lindsey and Alex, who are living there while Alex goes to grad school at UC – Irvine. Before this trip, I had never been west of Colorado, and living in Colombia for the year had really awakened in me a sense that I have not explored enough of my own country, so I was psyched to be traveling again!

The trip started with a flight from MSP to LAX during which I witnessed entirely too much PDA from the couple across the aisle from me. However, I blocked out the ridiculousness by listening to the Glee soundtracks and playing iPod Free Cell, so really it’s a pretty win-win situation for everyone.

In California, I stayed with Alex & Lindsey at their townhouse located right across the street from the campus, which worked out awesome. Their place is perfect for the two of them, but big enough to have visitors, and decorated in a way that totally reminds me of both of them. Since I was visiting during the week, they both had to make some time for work, but we also got the chance to do a lot of exploring!

Some notes, including my reflections, comments and corrected misconceptions of the other Cali:

In general, California is not as hot as I thought. Without the Midwestern humidity, things cool down quite quickly at night. Frozen yogurt, better known as fro-yo, is actually as delicious as my roommate Kelsi told me it was – I recommend YogurtLand. The LA Angels are known as the “wealthy” team with a nicer/newer stadium (they played hosts to the 2010 All Star Game) located in Anaheim, while the Dodgers are more of the “common person’s” team with a stadium from the 60s built overlooking downtown LA. Dodger fans are angry people and the same four letter words that would earn you frowns of disapproval in Minnesota are commonly yelled throughout the stands to roars of crowd approval. Palm trees are kind of boring to look at after a while. Marine layer – ever heard of it? Me neither. Turns out the clouds from the ocean generally hug the coast of the Pacific Ocean, so many times it isn’t even sunny at the beach. Despite my horrible track record with four legged creatures, I managed to live in the same townhouse as a cat for a full five days. The majority of The OC was filmed in LA County, NOT in Orange County. The pier diner from The OC is a real place on the Redondo Beach pier - I celebrated my birthday lunch there with fries and a white chocolate mocha. LA traffic really is the worst thing known to humans and if I could write an open letter to the person who set up Dodger Stadium so that only one highway exit and one road lead to the parking lot and stadium, I would probably use a lot of the vocabulary used by Dodger fans. I have now been to five of 30 Major League Baseball stadiums – oddly I have seen more National League stadiums than American League stadiums. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is cool but probably the biggest tourist trap in America outside of Wall Drug and the Corn Palace in South Dakota. Surfers are naturally gorgeous – all of them. Not seeing some of your best friends for 11 months really doesn’t change a whole lot about your friendships. Jamba Juice in Huntington Beach celebrates happy hour everyday from 5-7 by upgrading your smoothie to the power size for free. WIN. I am forever indebted to Lindsey for introducing me to roasted red pepper hummus. Santa Monica is by far and away the coolest pier to hang out on with the most delicious corn dogs outside of the Minnesota State Fair. Huntington Beach is the coolest beachfront with more beach volleyball nets than I could count.

Combination of many different types of fruit flavored tart yogurt - yum!

Seeing the Pacific Ocean from the US!

This is the REAL OC diner - located on the Redondo Beach Pier.

Seth & Summer at the diner - see it is the same!!! :)

Lots of sand volleyball at Huntington Beach.

Dodger Stadium

Dodger meltdown that included a discussion with the head coach, entire infield and four umpires. Brilliant.

Walk of Fame + me

Santa Monica

Santa Monica Beach - care for a swing?!?

Santa Monica Pier

Bench at Santa Monica Pier

Lindsey, Alex and me at Dodger Stadium for my 23rd birthday.

Overall, I had a fabulous time visiting and celebrating my 23rd birthday California style! They are going to be out there for at least another few years so I am hoping to get back for a second visit at some point.

Until then, California is pretty great in my book.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Yes, I celebrated it with my students today. I also may or may not have written it on the white board and outlined it with coordinating red and blue bubble outlines. Whatever, don't judge. He's fabulous, an amazing catcher, a batting champ, a golden glove winner, and a true home grown down-to-earth Minnesota boy. I hope he had a fabulous birthday!! :) Cheers to the Twins being 9-4 on the season so far!

p.s. Speaking of catchers and adorable-ness have you seen our new backup catcher???!?!?!! Don't get me wrong, I miss Mike Redmond....but, Drew Butera, who we got from the NY Mets in 2008 in exchange for a trade involving Luis Castillo, is gorgeous. He made his debut last week when we played the White Sox and based on appearance he will fit in perfectly with the rest of the Twins. Do we have the best looking team in baseball, or what??

Random baseball trivia fact: His father Sal played for the Twins from 1980 to '82 and again in 1987. They are the first father-son combo in Twins history.

Happy Birthday Maria!

"We might be laughing a bit too loud, oh but that never hurt no one."

Happy Birthday Maria (aka Roly Poly)!

When I was thirteen years old I went to Camp Sonlight, AKA church summer camp, for a week in June. At this camp I made some serious lifelong friends, and traveled back for a few years after as a counselor. While times change, people change and you change in response, Maria and Anna have been constants in my life over the last ten years. At times our lives have felt creepily parallel and similar, and we really went through many of life's "firsts" together.

From the time Maria jumped up into my top bunk and scared the pants off me coming back from the camp bathroom to the fabulous going away party she held for me before moving to Colombia, she has kept me laughing out loud at her quirky, fun-loving, hysterical attitude. Almost all of my funniest stories from high school involve Maria in some way or another.

Today she turns 23, so Maria Rose - as you embark on your 23rd year of life, I hope you continue to enrich the world around you with your humor, your sassy spark, and your overall love for what life has to offer you.

All my love,

happy birthday Jesus!

Well, here it is, Christmas 2009. This was my halfway point for the year. This is the point when I was going to decide - can I do this? Am I happy? Can I stick it out? Do I need to buy the next available one-way plane ticket to Minnesota?

I am happy to report I will not in fact be running terrified from the country of Colombia, as fabulous as it might be to see the people I left behind in Minnesota. I love my life here in Colombia - my friends, my students, my apartment, the culture, my job, and everything. I can definitely do this. After all my fear of wondering what I would decide to do with my life post-college graduation, it turns out there was probably not just one right choice, but many options I could have been happy with. As I sat and debated my future during spring of 2009, I wish I would have known that everything would work out in the end. In the end, we have the experiences we have and they just happen. Our personality and decisions influence them, but at the end of the day you aren't nearly as much in control of your life as you might way. As a very organized, somewhat intense, control-oriented individual, this kind of freaked me out at first, but I am learning to deal with it. :)

What was I talking about at the beginning of this post??? Oh yeah, Christmas. Tis the day of Jesus' birth according to Christian tradition, and around the world friends and families are celebrating the love and grace he exemplified.

In the past, Christmas has been a day spent with family, either my mom or dad's side, and also a day of traditions. My immediate family still gathers around the Christmas tree to open presents from Santa on Christmas morning. We still leave milk and cookies out for Santa, even if my youngest brother is 15. We still all go to church together in the morning. I still call my 5-year-old, kindergarten best friend Ilse every Christmas afternoon to tell each other what we got for Christmas. Later in the night, I call my college roommate Kirsten to discuss and debrief any craziness that her wild family got into throughout the day. I go to sleep at night wrapped up in flannel pajamas and tucked into the same bed I have had since age 2. I fall asleep thinking about how incredibly lucky I am for these people in my life.

This Christmas, dear friends and family, I may be 3,000 miles away, but I am no less grateful for your presence in my life. You never know the love and support you have from people in your life until they are forced to go to great lengths in order to communicate with you. After five months here I am amazed by those who continue to make time in their lives for phone calls, emails, Facebook messages and Skype dates. I love each and every one of you with my whole heart, and your kindness is appreciated more than you will ever know. So on this special holiday, celebrate Christmas together, and remember the profound love we have for one another. And think of me often, as I am most certainly thinking of you.

All my love, especially to Mom, Dad, Joe, Michael and Danny - you are wonderful & irreplaceable. A piece of me lies with each of you today in Minnesota.

Merry Christmas!!

Happy Birthday Papa Rads!

My dad is difficult to explain if you haven't ever met him. Whenever I meet new friends I always give it a try, but you cannot really understand until you have had a conversation with him. He's quirky, weird, loving, contemplative, sarcastic, witty, a rapid fire typist, an encyclopedia of baseball stats and lyrics....and so much more. Let me attempt to explain....

He loves baseball more than most people I know. He doesn't just love the Twins, but he loves the game. He appreciates the integrity of players who play the game well - and the gorgeous stadiums they play in, for example, Wrigley Field.

...but beyond just being a sports lover, he is a loyal fan. I think the first time I remember seeing him cry was when Kirby Puckett (former Twins player) passed away. He loves Minnesota sports, and he has always been willing to take us to games. Here's a game from 2008 that I went to with him, my mom and brother Joe.
Beyond sports...he is hilarious. I'm a 22-year-old woman and he's a 50-year-old man, yet all the same things make us laugh. This might be a result of his efforts to stay young and adopt the phrases I get caught up in...for instance this time on the North Shore of Minnesota when I adopted the phrase "Baller!" whenever someone did something really excellent.
My father is a creature of habit. He does his thing every day, goes to work, fully admits there is no way he could survive without my mother, drinks some coffee, and does his very best to fit in some work to his busy schedule of surfing the NY Times website, Bruce Springsteen website, etc. One of his habits - owning the blue thing. Reference the blue thing pictured above. This blue cotton pullover has gotten more wear than any other item of clothing in his closet. He brings it everywhere and refuses to buy a new blue thing, insisting the old one is just fine despite faded color and holes.
And then there's the hat. I think he bought it 6 years ago or so, mostly to wear on our annual North Shore trip. He thinks it makes him look like Greg Brown or Bob Dylan. My mother and I think it makes little children scared when we are out hiking the trails.
He is a pretty darn good Dad though. He is always willing to listen, has advice for anything you could ever ask him, and transfers money to your bank account when you tell him you bought a plane ticket to surprise your mom in New York City. :)
...he's a good Dad. Just crazy sometimes. File this under the "proof he's quirky file".
NO this isn't me! He looked way younger when I was born, don't worry. Along with being a good Dad to me, he is a thoughtful participant in his own family. Unlike many busy people nowadays, he makes a distinct effort to tell people how much he loves them and how much he cares about them. He doesn't assume they know, and he doesn't assume they remember from the last time he said it. He gives his unconditional love without asking for anything in return. He cares deeply about me, my brothers, my mom, his parents, his siblings, his extended family, his in-laws...and my gorgeous goddaughter Stefanie (pictured above).
So he's all about appreciating people and telling them he loves them. However, he isn't all above the Republican love. This blog isn't supposed to be political, and it's not really, but the state of our nation is important to my father. He wants the very best for everyone, including the people in his country. This leads to some very serious discussions and debates where he tends to get long-winded (even if I do agree with him!), but it also leads to some charming email banter on the state of the union and disliked Republicans. It also lead to a 4 minute, 23 second voicemail at 7:15 am on Tuesday, November 7th, 2008 while he described to me his voting experience in a post-G Dubbs era.
My love of lyrics, music and concerts undoubtedly comes from my dad - a man who has been to more Bruce Springsteen shows than I can remember and will pay darn good money for great live shows. When Bruce comes to town he doesn't call me to tell me the ticket price, he calls to tell me when I need to be there. I mean this in the most un-sacrilegious way possible, but in many ways going to see Bruce live is like going to church for my father. He goes to be inspired, to hear that there is something better out there for our world, and that yes friends, we will get there someday.

At the end of the day, he has so many unique character traits he seems like more of a character than just my dad - but I wouldn't have it any other way. Every day with him is exciting and every day with him I feel loved, so to me, he is perfect.

Happy 50th Papa Rads! I love you!!