Petar arrives and joins the family

We passed a few pre-meeting emails but today was the day that Petar and I finally got connected face to face.  Davide and Danny had already seeked him out and had not scared him away!
Once again I got a good one - Petar is a great guy!  He is from Serbia - a small town on the Danube across the river from Romania.
We had the atlas out and were getting totally oriented to all of Petar's spots on the map - and getting early reports on his new adventure in Minnesota.  
As my sixth student in seven years I have fallen in to a bit of a routine.  We had a perfect fall afternoon and took a bit of a tour of the metro.  We finished off the evening with a bbq and lots of laughter and conversation.  Danny, Davide and Patty were able to join us for dinner and had more than enough advice, that comes with upper class experience, to fill the evening. 
Petar loves ice cream and ate enough that he figured he would wake up feeling much heavier in the morning...so I sent him home with leftovers!

Labor Day Weekend...the summer is coming to a close

Great Labor Day Weekend so far...good friends enjoying it all until the mosquitos chased us inside.  Fortunately, dinner was ready to go!

Minnesota weather - gotta love it

I got 2 bike rides in this week Monday when the head index was 105F.  And this morning we had our weekly Saturday ride - and based on how it was reported the day before based on windchill it was 38.
Welcome to the wonderful and crazy world called Minnesota.

Minneapolis - Lecy Design does the Iron Chef

Great night at Saffron in downtown Minneapolis.  The owner competed on the Iron Chef.  It was an Iron Chef evening for all of us.
Everything served was stunning and almost too beautiful to eat.  We got over that and enjoyed it all!

Dawit Graduation...finally some of the videos

We seem to have some upgrades to the blog site and they are letting me load larger videos.  We will see if I can get the good ones loaded as well.  This gives you a bit of a taste of both early and a bit later in the evening!

Saint Paul Minnesota - Aunt Liz arrives from the East

We completed a month of July visitors and Aunt Liz started the August group.
She arrived for our hottest, muggiest and ugliest week of the summer - but just another day to a veteran resident of the Washington DC Area.
Davide rolled in as well from his summer travels and work. >
So the house was full the air conditioners got their work out.
We gathered, found enough to fill the table and covered the summer and laughed the evening away. 

Red Wing Minnesota - a day on the farm

Oh the stories to be told over the 35 plus years at the Mason-Johnson farmstead.  And a few were recalled as we enjoyed great Saturday afternoon...and many more have been blocked or forgotten to never be told again.