Dan & Christine's Wedding

We were out of town this weekend in beautiful middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin for Dan & Christine's wedding. It was a lot of driving for one night, but the wedding was beautiful and it was a lot of fun.

It'll still be you next to me

It'll still be me keeping you company

late at night, in the morning too

all my life it'll still be you

Melanie Weekend of Madness

I spent the weekend at a cabin near Sibley State Park with a bunch of girlfriends for a bachelorette party for Melanie, one of my roommates in college. We had a great time, even though the weather didn't really cooperate. We had plenty to eat and drink, we watched a couple movies, and we caught up with each other's very busy lives. Instead of boring you with all the details of the weekend, I will instead highlight the weekend with photos:

The blushing bride herself, enjoying drinking a margarita with a penis straw.

Mel is rather short so, as you can see, it was no problem keeping her from seeing her special treat.

Surprise! It's a penis cake.

Mel, always a good sport, dives right in.

I must be a little tipsy because I don't usually smile like a crazed lunatic...

At least I look a little more normal in this one...

Everyone bought a pair of underwear for Mel and she had to guess who bought which pair.

Playing a drinking game.

Playing another drinking game, which appears to be a lot funnier than the last one.

"Kiss the Man" game

All the lovely ladies.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend. It was really nice to get away and spend some quality time with the girls.

Mystic Lake Casino

I heart Joel McHale.

He is a comedian and the star/writer/producer of E!’s The Soup, which satirizes pop culture and current events, and also stars in the hit comedy Community on NBC.

We saw his show last year (story about that at the end of this post) and had a fantastic time. So, when we heard he was coming back, we made sure we got tickets right away. Since the show was down at Mystic Lake Casino, we decided to make a night of it.

We took off work early on Friday so we could try to beat some of the rush hour traffic. After checking in and getting settled in the room, we went down to the casino for some gambling fun. Andrew prefers to play blackjack while I enjoy playing video poker, so we split up and reconvened a little later for dinner at the buffet.

After dinner, we went back up to the room to relax a little while before the show. I got hooked on Wife Swap, so Andrew went down to the casino again for a bit.

The show was...fantastic. We remembered some of the material from the previous show, but there was definitely new material thrown in there too.

After the show we spent a little more time in the casino, then went back to the room and went to bed. All-in-all, it was a fun little getaway.

Oh, except that we came home to this:

(insert photo here)

Okay, so onto the story from the first show we went to...

We decided to go to the show at the last minute, so we didn’t have great seats and we had to go to the 10 o’clock show (there was also a show at 8). Since the first show started late, we had to wait in the lobbyuntil they got out and I made friends with the security guard.

After the show, Joel was down signing autographs. I bought a shirt and, after fighting off annoying drunk girls, got an autograph and my photo taken with him. I was incomplete heaven that night.

Unfortunately I somehow lost my shirt on the way back to the car and I didn’t realize it until we’d already left the parking ramp. I frantically searched the car and could. not. find. it. Shit. I convinced Andrew to go back and let me look for it. I searched around where the car was parked and inside in the hallway but didn’t see it. I retraced my steps back into the skyway...and found it! I must have dropped it after peering out at the new Twins stadium when I was putting on my mittens. I was so relieved to have found it and I must have clutched it to my chest for the entire car ride home.

Hit the Open Road: An Explanation

26. Start a Newlywed Map.
You can read about #26 here. I am absolutely in love with the end result.

27. Travel to at least 2 countries in Europe.
I really wanted to to make this 3 or 4 countries but when we discussed a trip to Europe, Andrew was very adamant about not trying to go too many places. I am a little disappointed, as this may be my only opportunity to travel to Europe, but agreed that two would be okay.

28. Travel to at least 4 different cities for weekend getaways.
Note that this item doesn't have to be out-of-state cities, though that would be much preferred. It just has to involve us staying at least one night outside of the twin cities. My guess is that most of these will end up being somewhere in the state of Minnesota.

29. Travel out of state 3 times.
Once again, I wanted the number of times to be greater, but with us traveling to Europe this year it is probably not possible. We've talked about visiting New York and Chicago, and possibly Arizona, so hopefully we end up hitting at least one of those places.