A busy weekend

A busy weekend that started Friday evening with Christine's double-nickel birthday celebration at Tosca in Linden Hills. Lots of laughter, good food and wine.

Birthday girl Christine at Sabastian Joe's ice cream parlor in Linden Hills.

Saturday is not represented in pictures. Started the morning with hill sprints in Theodore Wirth Park with my trainer and 4 other very athletic people. It is tough but feels good. Spent the majority of Saturday working on a home repair project replacing the trim around the house-facing set of windows. There was a lot of wood rot so all the trim had to be replaced.  I had previously prepped the area a few weeks ago. It went pretty well. Still needs to be painted to match the rest of the garage trim but I am happy with the near-finished project.

Sunday started early, too, with the Minneapolis Park Grand Rounds bike ride.  Friends Kelly, Dave, Bud and I biked 36 miles around the Minneapolis parks system and lakes.  It had rained over night but fortunately stopped and the roads were mostly dry.  We had a great time riding and talking.

Got back from the bike ride and baked a fresh apple pie. I had prepped the apples from my apple tree Saturday night and used a pre-made pie crust. The pie was for Tim, the chef and manager, at Old Chicago Uptown. OC Uptown was closing on Sunday. I met Amy and Bunny there to watch the Vikings game and work on the NY Times crossword puzzle. We reminisced about the good times, laughs, birthday celebrations, and all the friends over the nearly 20 years of OC Uptown as our hang out. I'll be honest I shed some tears when we left.

Amy got her 10-tour beer stein.

And the final and most wonderful event of the weekend was the wedding of Peter Couture and Duane Faber. The ceremony, dinner and reception were held at the Minneapolis City Hall Rotunda -- a beautiful marble and stained glass hall with a dramatic staircase and huge marble statue called Father Water. The ceremony was filled with song and speech and care and love. There were over 200 people in attendance filling the lower rotunda and the second level. I was so honored to be there and wish Peter and Duane all the best.

The groom and groom, Peter (left) and Duane (right),