Christmas City of the North

Haley Bonar's show on Thursday night was great! I love that she lived in Duluth at the time Mikey and I were going to UMD. We have fond memories of seeing her play at Pizza Luce & the Brewhouse. She now lives in Portland, OR. The concert was at the Sacred Heart Music Center. It's an old church that was preserved as a music center. The only bad part about the place is that they have crummy drinks. I had 2 glasses of Franzia Chardonnay. I haven't had Franzia boxed wine in years. The only other option was 5 other varieties of Franzia or Michelob Light beer on tap. On the plus side, drinks are only $3!
Friday was a fun but busy day. I started out with Nutrigrain Cinnamon waffles with peanut butter, an apple and coffee:
Nikki & I did a killer workout at 1:00. We started with 30 minutes of cardio. I mixed my cardio up by doing 15 minutes on the treadmill at 4.3mph on a 10% incline. Then, I hopped on the elliptical and did a 15 minute interval workout. Next, we did a circuit of weight training. We did 10 different stations of a mixture of arms, legs, abs & back. Everything hurts today, especially my arms! I was anticipating a night of indulgences so I wanted to get a really good workout in.
I came back to my office and had squash pasta for lunch:
Check out these super cute booties that Nikki made in one night for one of her friends:
She thinks even I could master it. They are made of felt and mostly hand sewn.
I left work at 5:00 and picked up a falafel sandwich & fruit from Chester Creek Cafe on my way home:
I also had to make a pit stop at the Whole Foods Coop to pick up some skim milk to make Hot Chocolate. It's a winter parade tradition complete with Rumpleminze:
We've had this bottle of Rumpleminze for at least 3 years. It only takes a splash to do the trick.
Stirring it up:
It was totally delish! I've never made "real" hot chocolate. I always use cocoa powder. Chocolate syrup is where it's at! At 6:00 Nellie picked me up and we headed downtown.
It was the perfect night for a parade. It was ~45 degrees with very little wind. The streets of downtown Duluth were packed! The Christmas City of the North Parade marks the official start of the holiday season in Duluth. They always bring in a 50 foot tree to the MN Power plaza on Lake Ave & Superior St. and light it up at the start of the parade:
Again, a limitation of a point and shoot camera is that night shots aren't great. Hopefully you can see the pics well enough to get a feel for the atmosphere.
Here I am all bundled up:
And here is Nellie (she was shy for the camera at first but then obliged after some convincing):
I took this pic for Mikey. It's a float for the local PBS station and I think the character is suppose to be curious George:
We stayed all the way to the end to see Santa:
The parade lasted until 8:15 and so the night was still young. We decided to stop in to the Brewhouse on our walk back to the car. We split the amazing Artichoke Dip:
I sipped on a glass of Cline Cashmere wine and a ton of water. I think I was pretty dehydrated from the workout earlier today. At 10:00, the Randy Weeks band took the stage:
I had never heard of this band but they were really good. They fit in well with the Duluth crowd. I had another glass of Cline Cashmere during while the band played. Bruce and Mike showed up around 11:30pm (after getting off of work) and we decided to go to a Midnight movie at Zinema 2. We saw the flick Harold & Maude. It's a movie from the 1970s. I was very impressed with the theater. Super comfy seats and a nice size (seats ~100) so it was fun. There were probably 30-40 people at the show. The movie was cute. I dozed in and out of sleep during the show just like I do at home (and no, it's not because of the wine). I kind of had a feeling I wouldn't be able to stay awake for the whole show but I went along for the ride. Next time I'll have to take a cat nap before a midnight movie:)

I crawled into bed at 2am and slept like a baby until Anna insisted she go outside at 9:30 this morning. I feel like I could have slept 'til noon. I feel so mentally and physically exhausted.

For lunch today (Sat), I scrounged up a random lunch. Some veggie spicy nuggets & a scoop full of New England clam chowder.
We are out of coffee in the house, so I made myself a cup of hot chocolate (minus the Rumpleminze)!! Good thing the chocolate syrup is just about gone. I could have this every day:)

It's a beautiful day here today. It's so odd for it to be sunny and warm at the end of November. I'll take it! Anna and I are off for some exercise before the sun sets.