April: the most wonderful month of the year

 Spring is hands down my favorite time of the year. Maybe it's because I am an April birthday girl, but there is something really special about the return of warm weather, the transition from brown to green, flowers popping up out of the ground...I love it all.  This April meant the coming of several visitors, lots of great happy hours and potlucks with friends, many bike rides and the start of my 23rd year of life! Here are the highlights:

Laura Pahlmeyer, one of my dear PLU friends came to spend part of her spring break with me!  We did some adventuring around the city and went to Hunger Games, but it was really wonderful to just catch up on recent happenings in our lives and share our thoughts on the direction we hope to see our lives go.  She is the best, it was great to have her here for a few days!

A couple days later, Dad and Courtney came for Courtney's spring break.  I was so happy to have them both!  After their visit, I was given the title of a drill sergeant host.  I tend to pack in as many things each day as I possibly can, so I wiped them both out at the end of their week...sorry guys! But if they never come back to the Twin Cities, they have seen my top 20 spots, so I would say their visit was a thorough one.  They came to volunteer at Open Arms for a couple of days, so now they both know what my day to day life is like.  We also went to Northfield,  St. Peter and Decorah, Iowa so Courtney could complete her Lutheran college tour of Augsburg, St. Olaf, Luther and Gustavus.  I have friends that went to each of those colleges, so I enjoyed getting to visit them too.

 

We also enjoyed a visit with the Miller family in St Peter.  It has been years since we both lived in Richland, so it was fun to catch up.

 

 Shopping at the Mall of America, walking around Lake Calhoun, lots of great restaurants, and good family time made the week a great one.  I miss them already!

 

 Easter was a special one this year.  Snow Grandma's cousin, Marie invited me to spend the day with her family. I went to church with them at the Episcopal cathedral downtown for a beautiful service, and got to meet about 25 members of extended family on the Gjerde side.  Very special to connect with the Minnesota side of the family!

 Easter evening was spent with Laura and her parents.  We made enchiladas, ate key lime pie and played a few board games.  No Easter egg hunt this year, but I had a great time.

 One of my favorite things about spring is the return of daylight late into the evening!  I love that it doesn't get dark until 8:30 now!  To enjoy it, we have had a number of barbeques, potlucks and cookouts, while eating on the porch.  Tuesday night porch parties with friends Pieter, Geoff and Laura are becoming a regular weekly occurance.

I turned 23 on April 20th, and had a great celebration as my first birthday out of college. It fell on a Friday this year.  My work had a staff happy hour at 2, and a staff and board of directors meet and greet party at 4, so I had several hours to celebrate with my wonderful staff. One of our bakers made me an incredible chocolate-peanut butter cheesecake, which tasted like heaven.  In the evening, my roommates threw a Titanic themed birthday party (as this was the 100th year anniversary this year).  We all just went to see the movie in 3D last week, so we were feeling ambitious to dress-up and enjoy the music.  I dressed up as the Heart of the Ocean and almost everyone else dressed up as someone on the ship!  We had a blast.  I have such fun friends here!

 The end of this month has meant a lot of time experimenting in the garden as well. My roommates and I put in several hours in the last 2 weekends pulling all the weeds and transforming our backyard space into a workable gardening space.  Spending some time at Open Farms (the organic farm that is a part of Open Arms) in the last week has given me some new insights into making our garden work. I am hoping we have some luck growing vegetables this year!  We spent all of Earth Day biking and gardening to celebrate. 

I love spring! Looking forward to more warm weather in the coming months.  Hope this spring finds you well!