{"id":1360,"date":"2013-07-21T13:15:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T18:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maryjoandwill.com\/?p=1360"},"modified":"2013-07-21T13:15:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T18:15:35","slug":"smattering-of-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maryjoandwill.com\/?p=1360","title":{"rendered":"Smattering of Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh my!\u00a0 So we have actually been doing a few things lately, but the ironic bit is that doing stuff doesn’t leave time for blogging!\u00a0 So here I am with a catch-up post of sorts.\u00a0 This probably won’t have a strong narrative, but at least I have a ton of photos that were sitting on my phone that I forgot about.\u00a0 That’s got to count for something, right?<\/p>\n

First, remember how Kari visited<\/a> a month ago?\u00a0 Do you also remember how we visited the Columbia Tower and got some great views?\u00a0 Yeah, me too.\u00a0 Here are some more pictures from up there:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0443\"<\/a> \"IMG_0447\"<\/a> \"IMG_0448\"<\/a> \"IMG_0458\"<\/a> \"IMG_0465\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Alright, maybe that last one wasn’t from “up there”, but it still counts.\u00a0 Oh, one more.\u00a0 Panorama (click for larger, but be warned – it’s really big)!<\/p>\n

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And one more from the Ferry we were on:<\/p>\n

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That’s all I’ve got from Kari’s visit.<\/p>\n

Not soon after Kari visited though, Fremont had its annual Solstice parade.\u00a0 Fremont is a hippie neighborhood, so every year they have this fair and big parade for the summer solstice.\u00a0 We missed it last year because that was when we were moving, but we finally got to experience it this year!<\/p>\n

We walked around the fair a bit before the parade.\u00a0 We were out and about at around 10AM, so it was fairly deserted.\u00a0 It was nice.\u00a0 One of the silliest things we saw was this car covered in Billy the Bass singing fish.\u00a0 I’m not kidding.\u00a0 It also have singing lobsters.\u00a0 It was weeeeeiiiiiird.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0477\"<\/a> \"IMG_0478\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And yes, they were all wired up together.\u00a0 The guy could sit in the back and fire off every single one of them into a cacophony of singing sea life.\u00a0 It was weeeeeiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrdddddd.<\/p>\n

The other big draw of the Fremont Solstice Parade is that before the actual parade, there’s a naked bike ride.\u00a0 Yes, this is a thing.\u00a0 People will strip down, paint themselves to look like superheros, animals, or any other weird thing that they come up with.\u00a0 Then they ride down the parade route.\u00a0 It’s so strange.\u00a0 It’s not legal at all, but they’ve been doing it for years, so everyone just kind of goes with it.<\/p>\n

This is what the view was from where we were sitting.\u00a0 (Can you tell that I’ve been messing with the panorama feature too much?)\u00a0 Don’t worry, this was before the naked bike ride even started. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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We put our chairs out early, so we had a pretty decent view.\u00a0 The parade itself was fun as well.\u00a0 It was pretty long though, like over two hours.\u00a0 They really commit.<\/p>\n

And that’s that.\u00a0 Next item: our recent trip to MN.\u00a0 This was a big one.\u00a0 We took a red eye<\/a> flight Friday night, landing at 6AM Saturday.\u00a0 We drove out to my parents’ place and spent the day with them.\u00a0 Sunday morning we drove up Alexandria for a little family thing with my Mom’s family.\u00a0 After that ended, we continued on up north to Duluth to see Aaron and Addy.\u00a0\u00a0 We played a ton of board games and Minecraft.\u00a0 It was great.<\/p>\n

Oh, and Aaron proposed to Addy.\u00a0 EEEEEEEEEEEE!\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 That was awesome.\u00a0 They were pretty pleased about it too:<\/p>\n

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There’s some extra video, but I’m still working on that.<\/p>\n

We never get to spend as much time as we want anywhere when we get back to MN, so before long we had to leave and drive over to Lisbon, ND.\u00a0 Ben and Jaci were baptizing Irena (Kit) there, and as godparents we were kinda expected to show up. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

We got to spend a few days chatting with family and eating, but the real event was the baptism:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0500\"<\/a> \"IMG_0501\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yeah, she’s a pretty cute baby.\u00a0 We didn’t get to spend enough time with them either.<\/p>\n

On Friday (so a week after we flew out), we headed back into MN to see Joni’s family, celebrate Kari’s birthday, and go to Halie’s graduation (niece).\u00a0 It was a good time.\u00a0 I also finally played about with the spherical panorama app I downloaded.\u00a0 I just did a quick shot at the park where the graduation party was held.<\/p>\n