Hanging in the Cities & Mapleton

After chilling at John and Marcy's for the weekdays, and while Brian was in Canada, Mom and I drove up to the Cities on Friday morning. I wanted to fit in some fave mother/daughter bonding time shopping at the mall! We ended up shopping at Southdale in Edina and some of the surrounding stores. We were definitely successful in our efforts, and it sure was nice to be spending my British pounds, since it made everything seem like 1/2 price! By about 7, we met up with a number of my good friends from Gustavus at P.F. Changs in Edina.

Here's a good group pic of the Gustie girls.

As usual, we crashed at the Batz motel in Bloomington (I realize I don't have any pics from hanging with the Batz fam!). On Saturday, we finished running a few more errands and then took my cousin Anna with us to lunch at Wallys for a roast beef sandwich. Yum! Marcy had to head back to Mason City, and I went to my new cousin's 1-year old birthday party.

My cousin Patty and her husband Scott have two adorable girls, Ashley (about 3) and Hannah (just turned 1). Brian and I are Hannah's God Parents and it was so great to be able to be with her on her special birthday. She's grown so much since her baptism back in January.

Here's a cute pic of the Doyle family.

Saturday night I hung out with good friend Meghan for some drinks and good catching up on conversation. Sunday I went to church with cousin Katie and ran into an old high school friend Sarah Larson, who attends the same church as the Batzs. Brian also arrived back in the cities from his Canada trip mid-afternoon.

We quickly hit the road to get down to Mapleton to help celebrate Jackie's birthday with her. Al BBQ'ed some awesome steaks and we brought a cake, and it was just really fun and relaxing.