Kings @ Wild: Kings and Traitors

I've been avoiding writing this post of a month.  Playoff hockey losses sting and the minute my beloved Canucks played my almost as beloved Kings (this would have happened had they played Nashville too) the Kings became the enemy.  So I wasn't going to blog about them during the series and in the immediate aftermath I was too upset to do it.  Fact, the Kings and the Predators will always be tied for my second in the west, I can't pick between them and I probably never will be able to. But a week or so later after I've realized I am more upset at the canucks for sucking than I am at the kings for finally getting it together and being the kings we thought they'd be at the beginning of the season.  So I forgave (mostly) them (the Kings that is).  So the last night of March, I went to St. Paul to see the Kings, and this is my story.

Seeing Sammy: Panthers @ Wild

I was awake for almost 24 hours on Thursday. Not that I'm complaining, it was a very eventful and fun day, but a little tiring for a variety of reasons.  Part of what lead to my long day was the fact that I went to St. Paul to see the Wild take on the Florida Panthers. This meant Mikael Samuelsson!! (And Tomas Kopecky and Ed Jovanovski).  I'd planned for weeks to come up with a sign for Sammy, and my Swedish tweeps translated it for me.

Flames at Wild or My Severe Fan-girl Moment

As you are all aware I don't hate the Calgary Flames and I have a crazy inexplicable love for Miikka Kiprusoff.  (Seriously, I can't explain it so don't even bother making me try.)  I went to St. Paul with my sister and two friends for the Wild Flames game.  And beforehand Jen wanted to know if I wanted to make a sign for Kipper in Finnish.  She is learning Finnish and got some of her Finns to give her something to put on it.  She drew it and I colored it.  It was awesome.  She had one for Olli Jokinen.  They were Finnish salmon jokes.  Mine said something to the effect of "No salmon in Miikka's fish trap".  I'm not sure what Jen's said but it was something about salmon.

Hockey Day Minnesota: Part 2

Hockey Day Minnesota.  Good time, fun was had.  And my sister and I went to see Minnesota's current team play Minnesota's former team.  (Norm Green sucks).  If there was one game I wanted the wild to dominate, it is this one.  There is always emotion when the stars come to town.  I was pretty little when the North Stars went south, but even I still have some emotional attachment to them.  The North Stars, not the Dallas stars, they do have some players I enjoy watching.  Kari Lethonen, Loui Eriksson, Eric Nystrom (scoring in his return).

Hockey Night in St. Paul! Sharks @ Wild

Josh Harding, stud.

There is nothing like a hockey game to get me blogging!  This time it was the Sharks @ Wild.  My sister and I headed up to St. Paul to see the game with a friend.  We had gone to the science museum earlier and in a kinda ironic (but not intentional) moment we saw Sharks on the Omniteater.  Adorable.  The other Sharks, not so adorable.  But hey, that is what makes for a good game.  And it was quite the feisty one. The Wild led most of the game, but seemingly fell apart with 10 minutes left.  The sharks pushed it into overtime and then the shootout.

In Color...

Nelis Dutch Village, Holland Michigan

So I have discovered an online photo editor that I kinda like.  And I was playing around there for the last week or so, and have discovered that I really like pictures that are in both black and white and color.  This is what I have spent the last week doing, now that my semester is over.  Bringing the Pleasentville treatment to my photos.  Most are flowers, I found they were the easiest to work with, but I have some animals, and some landscapes.  Those with vibrant colors were the most fun.

Old News

Ever look though an old newspaper or magazine to see what has changed.  I like to do that sometimes.  I like to watch old things taped of the television.  They are silly.  This post is gonna be like my blog version of that.  As I mentioned, I got a newspaper from 1968 recently.  So join me on this little walk through Christmas Eve 1968.

1968...

The super awesome exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul is 1968.  My sister and I went up to see it and to catch some hockey.  It was a good time, they also had their Dia de los Muertos celebration so we spent some time there too.  But as I am sure you can guess, that is another post for another time.  This one is all about hopping back to the past and the tumultuous time that was 1968.  So we get there and the first thing we get is a newspaper from December of 1968 (yes, there is a post about this too).  Nothing like an old newspaper image of the moon to get you in the mood for some history.   Not in any order and no captions, just the pictures. 

Randomness: Things in my room

Butterflies and hockey players... oh yeah!

Sometimes, when I don't know what to write about I do one of these take a picture of everything and call it random and post it.  With the hope that it will get my creative juices flowing.  I don't know if it does or if it just a cop out post.  But here goes, this edition of randomness involves the strange things I have floating around my room.

snow... Snow... SNOW

I'll let ya in on another secret, I love snow.  Not much of one I am sure.  No where near as dramatic as my last confession.  But hey, they can't all me that important.  And hardly too shocking cause I am from the glorious state of Minnesota and I spent 2 winters in the interior of Yellowstone at Snow Lodge and I've been skiing since I could walk.  So, yeah, one of those open secret things.  Well, I digress, it snow around the beginning of the month.  I don't remember the actual date but it was just wonderful!

A Confession: Flames @ Wild

Yeah, so I have a confession to make... I don't think it is a big secret, I tell people all time.  So it is probably a big open secret that you all are judging me for and still likeing me in spite of.  Here goes... even though I am a Canucks fan, I don't hate the Calgary Flames.  Now, I don't like them either, I am quite indifferent towards them.  Honestly of all the northwest teams, I dislike the Oilers the most, and then probably the Avs.  Calgary has Brendan Morrison and I can't hate on him ever.  But here is the true confession, I adore Miikka Kiprusoff.  Welp, I said it, Kipper is my favorite of all the Finnish goalies in the NHL.  I can't explain it; as I told my sister, you don't pick your hockey players they pick you.  Go ahead, unfollow or judge, mock me mercilessly, or whatever I can take it. :-)

Wings @ Wild or 1,120 Pictures of Nick Lidstrom

This was probably the most exciting 1-0 game I've ever seen.  Both teams had their moment of utter brilliance and whatever the opposite of that is.  The story of the game was the goaltending.  It was stellar on both sides.  And that is always something fun to watch.  I like going to Wings games, not that I have a burning love or anything, but I bit of respect and I adore some of their Swedes.  The majority of these pictures are going to be of the Red Wings warmup.  Why, cause I already have tons and tons of pictures of the home team.  And well, Nick Lidstrom.  Seriously.

I like taking faceoff pictures

There are a lot of Red Wings after the jump.  If this is not your thing.  Read it anyways.  We look at it, there really is not much reading involved.  But anyways Josh Harding was a rockstar,  Nick Lidstrom has such an amazing presence.

What a pumpkin

This post isn't going to be much but some adorable pictures.  Last month our adorable Gordon Setter Koal passed.  He was 14 so it was hard on all of us.  But I am comforted by the fact that he was 14 and had once hell of a life.  He traveled a lot.  He used to go camping with us when we were children, and then later with my parents in the RV.  He was the guardian of the feather comforter.  An outside dog for 12 years that adapted really quickly to being an inside dog.  Hoarder of toys, who loved to pull pop bottles of the table.  Unpacker of suitcases.  Wearer of silly shirts.  He was a pumpkin.  He was pretty loved.

Pre-Season Pics: Oilers @ Wild

So a week later I went to see the Oilers play the Wild with my friend Andrea and her sister.  Once again we were up in the 200 level, but the seats were great.  The nice thing about preseason, is that you can spread out.  Elbow room is a great thing.  This was Andrea's second live game.  And it was a good one for her to see.  I accidentally jinxed the wild in this one.  All I did was say that the oilers had 6 minutes if they wanted to tie it up.  And that I wouldn't mind seeing the young ilers (Omark, Paajarvi, etc in a shootout).  And literally less than a minute later they tied it up.  then a few minutes after that, Darcy Hordichuk, yes that Darcy Hordichuk, scored a goal.  (It was actually pretty too)  But it was called back as an oiler (I think) took a penalty.  And then what do you know, the wild lost in a shootout.  My bad.

Pre-Season Pics: Blue Jackets @ Wild

Holy crap guys, I have been busy!  Yeah, I know not an excuse but it is a reasons non the less.  Well this means there is going to be a blog explosion.  You bet.  I have like 2 preseason hockey games, a walk around La Crosse and a regular season game to post about.  Who knows I might just be on a roll and get a couple more posts there!   We have to start at the begining so the preseason Wild V Blue Jackets is next on the docket.  I went to this game with my sister and mom, we were way up in the 200 level of the X, but I don't really mind those seats.  I like the birds-eye view a lot of for watching the game, but I do like being close up for pictures.  Nevertheless, I still took a crap ton of pictures of this game.  I think I am just going to do pics after the link, maybe some witty comments but since I am still me, I doubt it

2011 MN Wild Scrimmage

Wild Captain Mikko Koivu

So I was at the Wild open scrimmage again this weekend.  You might be asking yourself why me, a Canucks fan was at the Wild's scrimmage (by the way it was a 1-0 game).  Well, I'll give you three reasons.
1. I live in Minnesota (And I do enjoy the Wild, not near like I do the Canucks.)
2. It was hockey
3. As long as Mikko Koivu is playing somewhere in the NHL, I will support him (his team to a point), even if it were something horrible like Anaheim, Boston or god-forbid Chicago.

Wild Thing: Sea Horsies

Sea horsies!  I was lucky enough to see several sea horse exhibits over last few years.  The Monterrey Bay Aquarium, the Aquarium at the Mall of America, the Minnesota Zoo, the Oregon Cost Museum.  Lots of them, and they are an amazing creatures.  They are so tiny and so perfect. 

Wild Thing: Frogs

So I was going through my pictures, I've been doing that lately.  I was looking at my trip to the Mississippi River Aquarium in Dubuque Iowa, and while I love the albino alligator, the frogs where what called out to me.  So cute!  I am pretty sure I've got frogs from several different trips.  But hey I guess we'll find out together.  The only ones I could find were from Iowa and one lone frog from a butterfly garden in Malaysia... odd.

Come Hell or High Water!

View from Science Museum in St. Paul

So the Mississippi is rising!  Not that is anything new, but it is always an exciting, tense time along The River.  The Mississippi is amazing.  I don't know how to explain the hold it has.  It is fun to watch the cycles, how it lives and breathes.  The frozen winter fishermen, the eagles and ice chunks in the early spring, the flooding of spring and summer, the low water of the fall.  Never ending cycle.  Always fun to watch.

It was a wet summer, fall, and winter.  Needless to say this ended up with some massive flooding in the following spring.  Which came early (or so it seems).  But it is not fully here yet, there is still some possible snow a coming.  It kinda snuck up on me, the flooding did.  You expect the river to rise in the spring, you count on it, you comment and you move on.  But every 8 or so years you get a big one.  1993, 2001... and we've had some good ones for the last few summers.  This last set of pictures is crappy cell phone ones cause I hadn't planned on heading down to the river.

Riverside Park La Crosse Wi

The grade between La Crescent and La Crosse

 

Play Ball!

So I went to a baseball game... I know what your thinking, but Kate, you don't seem to really like baseball, it kinda bores you.  Well yes, that is true, baseball is far from my favorite sports, but I enjoy it sometimes.  But needless to say I went with my sister home opening weekend for the Twins against the Oakland A's.  Not a huge twins fan, but I have a soft spot for them (Kirby and all).

It was fun, but cold.  Not as first but as the evening wore on.  (April is a little too soon for outdoor baseball in Minnesota in my opinion)  It was a 1-0 game.  It seemed like all they ever did was catch pop flys in the out field or throw 'em out at first.  And there was that one Oakland A who kept stealing 2nd.  That didn't seem nice to me.





I had no idea who the players were, except Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau (I know this because he is the bestest friend of one of my absolute favorite hockey players Willie Mitchell)  So I just kinda went along with the crowd.  It was fun.