Getting It Together…Sorta

Kara and I are both huge procrastinators.

Likely the two worst in the world, and if not, we get honorable mention.

It is now T-Minus 4 (FOUR!!!) days until we load up the Penske and hit the road to Florida and tonight is the first night we’ve actually gone gung-ho on the whole packing situation. She gently crammed her amusement park cup and shot glass collection into a box last night, but that was the first of any packing for either of us.

For me, it’s not such a huge ordeal as I tossed most of my crap when I moved from Orlando to Minnesota in July, and most of what I did bring has been sitting dormant in boxes the whole time I’ve been here. For Kara, however…This may take awhile. On top of all the packing anxiety, she hasn’t been feeling too well this evening and I’m convinced is because of stress and uncertainty. We both know everything is going to be alright, but the fact that we’re finally getting around to actually getting everything taken care of is wearing on her.

This week, on the other hand, has been a food extravaganza! We’ve been making our Minnesota food rounds, trying to eat our way through the state; filling up on all the amazing delicacies that we will be missing out on once we get to the south.

Monday night we gorged ourselves at the amaaaaazing Mystic Lake Casino Buffet, where you’ll find anything and everything. I started off with a humongous caesar salad before moving onto my first plate of blackened grouper, mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, barbeque chicken breast and garlic cheese toast. That plate alone should’ve been enough, but oh no! One plate is never enough at Mystic Lake. Plate numero dos was egg pasta, some pepperoni and sausage pizza, and some more garlic cheese toast. The food extravaganza ended with a delicious mug of vanilla ice cream topped with hot chocolate and M&Ms.

Tuesday for lunch we headed to one of my new favorite burger places, Culver’s, and munched out on free cheeseburger kids’ meals, and topped the stop with homemade Rocky Road custard. But the food fun doesn’t stop there! Today for lunch we hit up Buffalo Tap and shoveled a large cheese curd basket down, and shared a barbeque chicken, bacon sandwich. Hopefully before we take off, we’ll get the chance to feast upon BD’s Mongolian Grille for one last time.

That’s this evening’s update. Most of my stuff is all packed and ready to go, now time to turn around and help out the Misses in her never-ending quest of sorting out jump, packing away memories and setting aside clothes for Goodwill.

Maybe we’ll get some sleep before Monday.

My 2009…

…Was amazing.

There’s really no other way to put it.

New Years 2008/2009 was spent with a bunch of my closest friends. We spent the night hanging out around a bonfire, playing games and just enjoying each others’ company. Soon after the New Year, myself and two friends from Chicago headed south to Gainesville and Orlando to celebrate the Florida Gators winning the 2009 College Football National Championship and theme park-hopping. It was in Orlando where the foundation was laid that would lead to so many life-changing decisions that would take place the rest of the year.

While in Orlando, my friend Corey played the middleman in bringing together me and the best thing to ever happen to me. Her name was Kara.

A few weeks after getting back to Tallahassee, I packed my bags and flew up to Minnesota to meet Kara for the first time. Now, I had a lot of big plans for this year, and none of them included visiting Minnesota, but it turned out to be the most life-changing trip of my life. I instantly fell in love with this girl and we enjoyed a short 5-days together touring the state, playing in the snow for the first time, visiting the Mall of America and getting to know this amazing girl.

Shortly after returning to Florida, I moved to Orlando with my friend Rob, and where I’d hoped that Kara would soon find herself as well. Things didn’t go the way I had planned, but my time spent in Orlando provided me a few months to build a great friendship with Rob and provided us the opportunity to have some of the best times of our life. The work situation was far from ideal (more like non-existent) and it really seemed more like a five month vacation, but the memories were irreplaceable and I’m grateful for having that time there. We spent all of our time hanging out, park-hopping, checking out the Orlando nightlife and becoming best friends with his puppy Corgi, Kumba. These are five months that I’ll always look back on, thankful that I got to spend all that time there having fun.

While living there, a month and a half of the time was spent living in Minnesota with Kara, and her visiting me in Florida. While out of state, we managed to hit a couple of parks that provided us great memories. In May we hit Silver Dollar City (Branson, MO), Six Flags St. Louis, Worlds of Fun (Kansas City, MO) and Adventureland (Altoona, IA) and rode a ton of amazing rollercoasters and made a bunch of great memories. In April, she visited me in Orlando and we enjoyed our time relaxing, as well as attending a boat wedding in Ft Myers and visiting Busch Gardens Tampa for the first time together.

Revisiting my earlier comment about Minnesota not being in my visit plans this year, July would provide quite a life change that was far from expected in that we made the decision that the best thing for our relationship was for me to move to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. And so it was, I packed up all my stuff into my little 2-door, threw away what I didn’t need, and hit the road on a 3-day, 25hr, 1,600 mile drive to Shakopee, MN.

On the way I stopped in Louisville, KY to stay and visit with my cousin Brett. it was great getting to see him as it had been awhile since we hung out. The second leg began with a quick stop at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom and ended with a stay with my friend Scott in Chicago, and the third leg began with a quick trip to Six Flags Great America. Finally arriving in Minnesota, I was afforded the opportunity to meet Kara’s mom for the first time. It was so great to be back with her, and I felt fortunate to finally get to meet the amazing woman who raised her.

My time spent in Minnesota has been all of a culture shock, a great learning experience, frustrating and amazing all wrapped up in one snowy package. For one, I LOVE the food here! Cheese curds are my new favorite snack/appetizer. I’ve got a new top 3 favorite restaurant in BD’s Mongolian Grill, and all the dives I’ve experienced have been amazing as well. If there’s one thing I’m gonna miss the most about this state, it’s the food.

What I’m not going to miss is the way everything is done. It took me six weeks to get my driver’s license. The highway system is absolutely absurd and whoever designed the roadways here needs to be shot. Also, there’s a saying here about people and it’s called “Minnesota Nice,” as in people are nice to your face and not so nice behind your back. I’ve definitely noticed that this is alive and well in a few instances, but there have been a few people I’ve met that this does not apply to. In fact, there’s a couple people who I’ve become friends with that I’ll actually miss.

In August (and again in October) we visited the Wisconsin Dells for Mt. Olympus, Timber Falls and general touristy stuff. That place is just amazing, and is easily one of my favorite places to visit now. Also in August we visited the Minnesota State Fair where we gained 20lbs each gorging on anything-on-a-stick (my favorite was Hush Puppies), checking out the portable rides and seeing Quietdrive in concert. We also witnessed (for about 3min before we got sick and had to leave) a cow giving live birth to a calf.

Let me tell you about how amazing Kara is. She’s never been a big football fan, but liked going to games for the tailgating and cheers. She had never experienced southern football, and my parents warned her that when football season began to be prepared for how crazy I am about it. She handled it like a champ. She put up with every Saturday being dedicated to sitting around with 4 games going at a time, and she was very considerate of my requests. She took to heart the fact that I couldn’t call up a bunch of friends at anytime to come over and watch the games, and did everything in her power to be understanding and enjoy the time together.

For the first game of the season we met up with the Twin Cities Gator Club and met a bunch of people and got to watch the game surrounded in orange and blue. It really made the transition a lot easier for me. The following week we headed to Michigan where we spent a day at the Michigan State-Central Michigan game, touring East Lansing and meeting up with a couple of her friends. We spent the rest of our time in Michigan visiting with her family, jet skiing on Lake Michigan, visiting Michigan’s Adventure and getting to know where she came from. It was an amazing trip and one I’ll never forget.

In this time I also tried getting back into school. I was determined to do it, enrolled and started taking classes at ITT before realizing that it was a sham and I got out before I took a hit. It felt good to get back in school, but that just wasn’t the right way to go, and after reading through other people’s experiences, I’m extremely happy with my decision to get out when I did. I also got a job here working at Dick’s Sporting Goods, which has been fun in that I’ve gotten to meet a couple of friends and have had, for the most part, fun getting out and doing something.

Thanksgiving we spent in Florida visiting friends and family. Our time was split between Tallahassee, Gainesville, and Orlando. I’m not gonna go all into this trip since I wrote a long post on this site recapping that amazing week, but suffice to say, I couldn’t have wished for a better holiday. Christmas was spent alone as Kara went back to Michigan to spend it with my family, and I had to stay in Minnesota to make up for not working over Thanksgiving. And New Years was a nice, relaxing night of having some champagne, playing Battleship and celebrating EST and CST New Years. It was a great time, and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate the New Year.

So what now?

WE’RE MOVING BACK TO FLORIDA!!!

I can finally talk about it! Two weeks from today we will be hitting the road and heading back to Orlando. Kara has finally had it with the winters here and wants to pursue her dreams of palm trees, grad school and a dream job. I’m grateful for finally getting out of this state. It’s been a great experience and I’m thankful for getting the opportunity to live in another state and experience a whole new world, but my roots are calling and it’s time to go home.

2009 will go down as the best year of my life, and with the upcoming changes, 2010 should be just as good if not better. I can’t wait to get back to Florida, and I especially can’t wait to live there with Kara. She turned me into a northerner, and now she gets to be transformed into a southerner.

That alone should make the year one to remember.

Birthday Date-Night

So last night, Kara and I embarked on a mid-birthday-week date night, that was funded almost entirely by coupons/free meals received via e-mail from local restaurants. She had the great idea to sign up for their newsletters, and in turn, receive free meal offers.

The plan worked out beautifully last night.

Our evening started with a great dinner at Noodles and Company where I loaded up with a large buttered noodle and crispy chicken breast bowl. We had eaten at Noodles once before, and I didn’t find it all that filling (we had trios), however, this trip was far different. My biggest knock on the place was the price-to-filling up ratio wasn’t in my stomach’s favor, but this time I was pretty close to bulging.

Once we conquered Noodles, we headed down the road to Champps Americana Bar and Grill, where we had a coupon for a free Mile High Ice Cream Pie. And MAN, they didn’t lie about the whole “Mile High” part!

This ice cream treat was about 9 inches tall, with each end wrapped in crunched up oreos, and whipped cream. Composing the rest of the “sandwich” was a layer of chocolate ice cream on each in, a layer of mocha ice cream on each end, and a thick layer of vanilla ice cream in the middle. The entire thing was sitting in a lagoon of hot fudge.

My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

We staggered out of Champps, full to the brim, and headed across the street to the Eden Prairie Center where we would venture to see Paranormal Activity at the AMC theaters. This movie was pretty much a last-minute decision as we had heard a couple of bad reviews and almost decided to see The Fourth Kind instead. So glad we didn’t!

This movie was pretty much terrifying. Kara kept repeating “it’s just a movie. It’s just a movie!” throughout the whole thing. For the budget it was very well done, and I’d definitely buy it on DVD. There were a few standard horror movie “scare tactics” used (and by that I mean quick, jump-out-at-you-kinda-scares) but most of the fear came from the unknown. Not knowing what was next, and the idea that this situation COULD be real.

Overall, it was a GREAT night, and I’m so glad we got to spend it together.

Stir-Fried Heaven

My eating adventures in the North have been both expansive and satisfying. I’ve been introduced to the wonders of cheese curds, Chipotle, Cheesecake Factory and everything-on-a-stick at the Minnesota State Fair.

And before today, I was almost 100% certain nothing could be better than those fine establishments I mentioned above…

Enter: BD’s Mongolian Grill.

This is a place that, apparently, originated in Michigan, and ever since I met Kara, she’s done nothing but rave about it. Finally, last week, the first one in Minnesota opened up and taking advantage of a birthday coupon I received in my e-mail, we ventured out to the restaurant today for lunch. I was hyped up but kinda nervous, because it seems like whenever I get overly excited about something, it’s always a letdown.

Not this time, my friends.

The place is set up so that you have full control over everything you eat. There’s an amazing salad bar off in the corner that rivals any I’ve had before, but the main attraction is the self-serve “everything bar,” as I’ll call it. You are supplied with a bowl that you load up all over your stir fried dreams onto before handing it over to the hilarious “Natural Born Grillerz.”

Your first order of business is hitting up the meat/sea food area. It is here where you have every possible meat under the sun ranging from chicken, to shrimp, to prime rib meat. All of the food is raw, btw.

Once you stack up your meat, you head to the veggies bar, and then the spices/dressing bar. Once your concoction is to your satisfaction, you get in line for the Grillerz to put it all together for you. Once back at your table, you have the option to eat your stirfry right from your plate, in a salad wrap or, as we prefer, in a tortilla with rice.

I cannot stress how amazing this place was, and reasonably priced, as well. I seriously may be addicted already, and it’s kind of scary to think about the fact that it’s located with two minutes of my job. Scary in a I’m-going-to-blow-all-of-my-money-eating-here-everyday kinda way.

Below are some pictures of my first BD’s experience. I just want to eat the screen looking at these.

And on top of my free birthday stir fry, the nice people here topped us off with an enormous desert treat.

I won’t be eating again for a week.