Thursday Mishmash

So first a bit of housekeeping - the Thrift Style Thursday gals are taking December off, we decided it's too hectic with the holiday season and that sometimes it's enough to just keep up with blogging at all, let alone a weekly thrifted outfit post.  We'll be back fresh in January with some new ideas and new fun, so make sure to watch for that!  And now on to today's post!

Today's post is a bit of a mishmash of things - a recap of Ollie's birthday yesterday and an outfit of the day.  Cause it's my blog and I'll share a million pictures and multiple subjects if I want to!

Yesterday Nate and I were lucky enough to have the day off so we could spend the entire day as our little family of three for Ollie's first birthday.  We took him to Macy's 8th Floor in Downtown Minneapolis so he could see Santa (when I was growing up, that was THE Santa, so I just really wanted to bring him to this one) and the Day in the Life of an Elf display.  We went in the morning after Ollie's nap and it wasn't too busy which was nice.

He isn't tired in the above picture, the flash made him squinty.  Anyway, here we are in line for Santa. It was really hard to get good pictures, it was kind of dark lighting, so we did the best we could.

A nice lady offered to take a picture of all three of us which was really nice.  We only had to wait about three minutes for our turn with Santa.  I'll have to scan in the picture we got of Ollie with Santa, it turned out pretty good I have to say.  He wasn't afraid of him at all, he sat nice and only cried after the pictures were done because he wanted to get down.

I let him crawl around a little bit while Nate paid for the pictures and then we had to do my favorite part - stop and get a gingerbread cookie.  They used to make them fresh on this floor and you'd smell them the minute you got off the elevator, but now they make them downstairs and bring them up. They're still delicious though!  Ollie enjoyed it too!

We made a quick stop in the gift shop on our way out and picked out a book for Ollie to open up later so he could have one present on his actual birthday.  We'll give him his other presents at the party on Sunday.  While Nate was checking out we got a mommy/Ollie selfie.  I should see how many of those I have from the last year and make a collage of those, ha!

I realized I hadn't gotten many good Ollie/daddy pictures so we stopped before we got on the elevator in front of some pretty trees so I could get one.  Ollie's patience was wearing a bit as he was hungry for lunch, but he humored me for one more picture!

After we left Macy's we took Oliver to a restaurant we enjoy called India Palace.  They do a lunch buffet which is great, we could make a plate of food and share all of it with Ollie and it gave him a chance to try lots of different things.  He pretty much loved it all.

We finished that up and headed home to put him down for his afternoon nap which he thankfully took - fingers crossed the nap strike is over - and during that time I ran and got a quick haircut and then set out to put up and decorate my tree finally and I guess it was a good thing I did...I moved the tree box and saw water on the floor around our water heater.  Guess what else Ollie is now getting as a birthday present?  A new water heater!  Hope you enjoy it kid!  Seriously though, we knew this would be happening soon given the age of the heater we had.  So today I get to work from home for the afternoon while our plumber installs a new one!

We didn't let that little incident put a damper on our day though.  When Ollie got up from his nap we gave him his present.  He wasn't sure what to do with the wrapping paper but he tried!

We gave him a soft sided book about a lion who helps his friends.  It's pretty cute.  And then we pretty much just played with him, ate dinner and put him to bed.  It was a full and wonderful day.  I look forward to his party this weekend too, but I'm glad we took a day for just us.

Today as I said I'm at work for a half day, but I liked the outfit I put together so I wanted to share it since I haven't done an outfit post in a while!

 Sweater - Mossimo (Target), Pants and boots - Old Navy

Cami - Gap, Necklace - Zulily

As usual I'm following along with some Instagram fashion challenges and one of the ones for today was "Gingerbread Neutrals" - I thought that this look kind of fit that theme a little bit!  It's comfy and warm too which is also always nice!  That's all for today, kind of a long post, if you made it this far, well, thanks for reading!

TIGF

Hosted by Ashley, Laura and Nay
In my opinion, there is no better time than November to focus on the things in your world you're grateful for.  I understand that there are folks out there who are very antsy for and already starting to celebrate Christmas and you have my love and respect on that - but I still champion the sweet holiday stuck between Halloween and Christmas.  What can I say,  I just love the turkey.  We also have several (and by several I mean almost every member of our family) birthdays that fall the week of Thanksgiving, so you'll just have to forgive me for not jumping on the Christmas bandwagon quite yet.  So, I'm all about the thankfulness, I'm all about the gratitude (I'm also all about that bass, but that's not what this post is about).  So anyway, I don't always do the weekly TIGF posts, but I most definitely will every Friday in November in the spirit of Thanksgiving.  So, here is what I'm grateful and thankful for this week!
New goodies from the Gnarly Whale and freebees - shout out to one of our TIGF hosts Ashley and her shop Gnarly Whale.  I started using these products late in the summer and I tell you the Tea Tree toner has saved my life.  I will always have some form of cystic acne, but this toner really keeps it at bay more than any I've ever tried.  So even though I am still on a project "use it up" for most things, when I ran out of my toner I had to get some more.  They were running a special if you spent enough you'd also get a free pumpkin cheesecake lip balm, so I picked out a body spray too that reminds me of my favorite Snowcake scent from LUSH cosmetics.  Anyway, my package arrived yesterday and Ashley not only included an extremely sweet card, she also gave me some freebees that are amazing - the pumpkin shampoo???  I want to use it every day until the end of time.  So anyway, gush fest over, but if you haven't checked this awesome shop out you should.  And you should also check out Ashley's blog because she is awesome as well.

My furballs - Oh these kitties.  I heart them so.  I love when it starts to get colder outside, you will almost always find them sleeping together somewhere.  They may not love each other more than about 50% of the time, but they certainly do love each other in the winter.  I'm so proud of Taylor too, we seriously thought she'd be the one to have a hard time with Oliver, but she's been so good to him.  He adores her, chases her, grabs her fur, tries to pet her (usually ends up hitting her a little) and she just puts up with it.  She doesn't lash out, if she has enough she just walks away.  Pippin still is very leery of Ollie, but she just keeps her distance for now.  I think she'll come around more when he less jerky in his movements, so you know, when he goes to college.  They're both good cats though and they've put up with a lot from Ollie.  They both get rewarded with pets and cuddles at night while we watch TV after Ollie is in bed.

This boy - I know, I say it a lot, but I am still so amazed he's mine.  I can't believe a year ago we were mere weeks from meeting him for the first time.  Sometimes I get a little nostalgic for those days - not to be so heavily and uncomfortably pregnant (it was an easy pregnancy but the last month definitely was the hardest) - but for all the things Nate and I did together, we took a lot of time for the two of us as it would be the last time we'd be just us two.  But, I wouldn't trade where we're at now for the world.  I thank my lucky stars every day for this amazing little boy and I will never stop shouting it from the rooftops.

Living in an awesome place to raise a kid - We have so much culture in our city, so many great places to explore.  We took Oliver to our Science Museum last weekend and it was so fun.  They have a live butterfly house exhibit right now and it was just so fun to walk around and let butterflies land on you.  Ollie was more interested in crawling around than really looking at the butterflies.  It was just a great place to hang out on a cold day.  I look forward to taking him to our Children's Museum, History Center and when he's a little older, our Children's Theatre too.  We have a great aquarium at the Mall of America that I also want to take him to.  And I have talked a ton about the wonderful zoo in the middle of our city too.  This is seriously a wonderful place to be raising a child, there is always something to do!

So there you have it for this week!  I am also always grateful for all of you who stop by here to share in my life just a little bit!  I wish I could reach through the computer and hug every one of you!  Have a great weekend!

Norseman Distillery Tasting

Last Thursday Nate and I had an opportunity to do a unique date night experience.  You all know we're huge beer fans, but a couple of months ago there was a Living Social deal for a craft distillery near us.  It included a tasting, tour, two t-shirts and two glasses to take home.  We thought that sounded interesting even if we aren't as into hard liquor.  The options for the tasting were pretty limited, they offer two sessions on only two Thursday evenings a month.  I thought that seemed kind of odd, but it made sense once we learned more about them!

So, we dropped off Oliver with my parents and headed to Northeast Minneapolis.  Norseman Distillery is located in a warehouse type building.  We parked and headed inside.  As we followed the signs it started to feel like we were heading into a dungeon or something, it was way down in the basement of this old building! We finally found them and were greeted by this:

They had several barrels with bottles out and little glasses and they were pouring samples.  We quickly learned that this is a very small operation - it's a husband and wife team.  They have only been in operation since December and they're doing pretty well so far!  They make gin, vodka and rum and they're working on a whiskey.  We tasted the vodka and gin before heading in for the tour.  I'm not a huge gin fan, but I have to say, theirs is pretty good!

The husband led the tour as he does most of the work for the distillery.  He explained that he originally thought about brewing beer and getting into doing a brewery or something but then realized that there was nothing else like this on the market, so he decided to give it a try.  The response was overwhelming, they sold out of their projected amount of vodka for the year by February.  Slowly they've built up more equipment and are now actually going to be moving to a new space not far from where they are now since they are growing by leaps and bounds.

He explained the distilling process - it is very similar to brewing beer but there are a few more steps involved. Right when it comes out of the distiller it's more or less like moonshine and then you do some other steps to turn it into other types of liquor.  The equipment he has is pretty impressive!

As I mentioned, they pretty much do all the work themselves.  His wife even works full time still, so he ends up putting in some very long days on his own!  I was impressed to hear though that they have their product available in close to 400 liquor stores in Minnesota.  I think that's pretty darn good!

After the tour we were able to taste a little more, they poured their rum for us and also some strawberry rhubarb gin that unfortunately is no longer available for the year.  I think that one was my favorite, I might have even been willing to drink that one straight up!

We had a lot of fun checking out their facility, talking with the owners and tasting their product!  It was a unique experience!  We even stopped at the liquor store before we picked up Oliver to buy a bottle of their gin (Nate does like a good martini every now and then) and a bottle of their vodka to keep on hand. It's nice to support local businesses whenever possible!  I'd definitely recommend them to any of you local types out there!

NE Minneapolis Beer Tour

We live near an area of Northeast Minneapolis that has exploded with microbreweries/taprooms.  When Nate's relatives were here last week we decided we had to take them on a taproom tour!  Most of them are close enough together that you can almost walk to each one too which is awesome.  Thursday evening was warm, but a perfect night to explore!  My parents kindly babysat Oliver so we could be out and about for awhile.

We started at Sociable Cider Werks - which actually isn't beer, it's all hard ciders.  They opened up like the week Oliver was born or right around then and we were going to try to go sometime this winter, but just never got there as we really hadn't been doing much of this kind of thing until this summer really!  I really enjoyed this place, there are a large variety of ciders that they make!  They don't do flights, but they do offer small pours of their brews, so we ordered one of each and then between the five of us we passed them around and each got a taste of each one!

Nate's cousins and aunt are not huge craft beer drinkers in general (they live in Budweiser land after all) so we figured this was a good place to start the evening.  Everyone had at least one that they really liked, so that worked out well!

Nate, Scott, Linda and Tyler enjoying a cider

Down the road from Sociable Cider Werks are two breweries you can park in between and just walk from one to the other.  Bauhaus Brew Labs and 612 Brew.  Nate and I had just been to Bauhaus on our date night a couple of weeks ago, but decided they would probably like this one a lot as many of the beers they have are nice, light and easy drinking for even the most sensitive pallet.  They also do flights, so we were able to order a couple and share. 

They also had one beer on cask that evening (it's a different way of kegging beer) so we ordered one of those for everyone to try as well!

Nate's sister and her boyfriend also met up with us and they were happy to help us drink the beers too! Another nice thing about each of these breweries is they usually have a food truck on site so we were also able to purchase some food to nosh on as well.  Back at Sociable they had a Japanese style food truck with some of the best potstickers I've had in ages.

Cheers to MN beers!

We walked over to 612 Brew after we finished at Bauhaus.  612 gets it's name from the area code for most of Minneapolis.  They have never been my favorite of the taprooms near us, when we first started going there I used to wonder if they wanted to be a taproom or a dance club with how loud they pump their music (yes I am 90) but this time was much better.  I feel their beer has improved a bit too, though it's still not my most favorite.  We knew they also did beer flights though so we thought it would be another good choice to do some sampling.

Nate's sister will kill me for this pic when she sees it!

They have really nice paddles for their beer flights.  I'd say their most improved brew to me - at least from the last time I had it which was before I even got pregnant with Oliver is one called Mary Ann, it has ginger in it (nice play on Gilligan's Island!) and it was actually quite refreshing on a warm night!  The last time I had it I could barely taste the ginger, but this time it was definitely noticeable!

It was getting pretty late at this point - well late for these parents who needed to go get their baby at some point - so we decided to make just one more stop before heading home for the night and I was really wanting to take them to my favorite of the Northeast breweries for selfish reasons - I still hadn't been there in person since having Ollie.  So we headed to Indeed Brewing Company and ordered a last round there.  Indeed was probably not a great choice for their specific taste in beer, but I just adore this place so much I wanted them to at least see it and give it a try.  They did actually like a couple of their options as well.  And Andrew Zimmern's food truck was there so they thought that was pretty awesome too!

Enjoying a few last brews at Indeed.

Even though they aren't as huge into the craft beers as we are, his cousins and aunt really enjoyed checking all of these places out with us.  We ended up having them over to our house on their last night here and then they sampled Nate's beer and they said his beer was the best they'd ever had!  I thought that was really sweet, one of them even wants to try homebrewing now - so overall I think we taught them pretty well!