Winter in Minnesota

It gets cold here. Really cold. About once a year I have to remind myself that I choose to live here.

With the snow, ice, bitter temperatures, salt, sand (yes, my neighbor sands our sidewalks - the floors in my condo look lovely), shovels, mittens, boots, etc., come some really fun, winter based events. My husband, Dan Dwight, took the pictures above this past weekend during the City of Lakes Loppet, a cross country ski festival that runs through the trails and lakes of the Twin Cities. It's a fun event that gets us city dwellers out of our warm beds to cheer on local athletes, drink beer, walk on icy lakes, and enjoy the season that, according to a certain groundhog I know, will be around for a little while longer.

Joe and Abbey

Abbey and Joe are getting married in October. They asked us to take engagement pictures for them so they could get Save The Date cards sent out as they have a lot of people who will be attending the wedding from out of town. Of course we were happy to oblige! Abbey is a good friend of Kate's and we had an awesome time taking these pictures. We started at the St. Paul Cathedral until our (my) hands were so cold we couldn't stand it anymore, and then we headed to the at Como Park.

After getting a ton of amazing pictures there, we still wanted more! We headed back to Rice Park to take advantage of the Christmas lights that drape the trees at this time of year. We got some amazing shots!!! I can't wait to see the Save the Dates.

Girl Scouts Annual Meeting

We shot the Red River Valley's Annual Girl Scouts Meeting this past weekend. It was inspiring to spend the day with the future leaders of our region. The young gal to the left won an award for saving a life. He fell into deep water and couldn't swim; she wasted no time jumping in to rescue him. A very well deserved award.

The event was based at the McNamara Alumni Center, an absolutely gorgeous venue. They also had two satellite locations and had live video linking the sites together. It was a really interesting use of technology to bring people together for an afternoon. We had a blast and were honored to be a part of this afternoon.