Our Journey to Forever: From Minnesota to Mattman

Thursday, June 30, 2011

From Minnesota to Mattman

Eddie had 6 days off for Memorial Day Weekend so we decided to go to Minnesota! Neither of us had ever been...so it was quite the adventure. It's also the first trip, other, than Hawaii, that neither of us had ever done on our own before going together! Our main reason for going was one of our Missionaries from the California Long Beach Mission had returned home on the 17th and was speaking in church on the 29th. We went to hear him speak! We were very excited that St. Paul has a temple. We were able to do 2 sessions. One on Friday and the first session Saturday morning. Elder Rasmussen had just been made a temple worker so that's where he first saw us. At first he thought we were just on one of our temple trips but then he figured out we were there for him.

It's a beautiful temple. Had a very strong, yet sweet spirit there!
After our session on Saturday, we went to the State Capitol.

There were parts of the capitol that were under construction. There's a cool gold chariot up there on top of the building...it's being worked on too. We wondered around checking it all out.

I loved the stairways and the arches. There were nice paintings and statues around the dome.

I love this picture. Lots of stairs and levels here!

We got to peek in the senate and supreme court and house chambers. We saw the hall where the Govenor's office is. We saw pictures of all the Govenor's including, Jesse Ventura.

This is at the front of the House Chambers. Really cool stuff there!!
You could see the Cathedral of St. Paul from the Capitol. It was supposed to be our next stop...but there was a huge mass going on and no where to park.

We drove around Minneapolis and St. Paul. This is the Landmark Plaza in St. Paul. We went there for one reason only.....Peanuts!

Charles Schultz was born in St. Paul, MN. There are Peanut statues around the little parks by the Landmark Plaza. Here's Lucy and Schroeder.

Down the street a ways you find Sally & Linus. They're sitting in front of an intersection!

My Sweet Baboo and Sally and Linus!

Sally, Linus and ME!

Of all the things we were able to see, these Statues were the BEST!

They just brought back a little bit of that feeling of childhood innocence and pure joy!

Charlie Brown & Snoopy. They are sitting under a tree a little ways behind Lucy and Schroeder, and then Linus and Sally are farther down the street.

In front of the Landmark Plaza is a park...that's where Marcy and Woodstock are!

Close by is Peppermint Patty!

We Loved spending time with the Peanuts gang!

After Peanuts it was back to the Cathedral of St. Paul.

Mass had been going on for almost 2 hours. The place was packed, but we finally found a parking space.

Here's Peter above....and Paul below....Mary was inside!!!

The architecture is just fascinating!

Granduer is a good word! Just huge inside. Dark, cold and kinda hollow! It was full of people and I was impressed because they were all dressed very nice!

It was a great adventure!

The place is so huge I couldn't even fit it in the frame from across the street!!!

They have Michaelangleo's Pieta. It's supposed to have been made from the same mold as the one in the Vatican.

Next we went and toured St. Mary's Basillica in Minneapolis.

It was still a huge church...just a little bit smaller than the cathedral.

More great architecture. The stain glass windows throughout this church were amazing. They have stain glass windows for lots of the Saints.

There were several weddings going on. One had just finished and a few were taking pictures and getting ready for their service.

The alter was unlike any I had ever seen before. We were able to walk all around the alter. It was pretty cool.

It was very ornate!

On Memorial Day we went to Fort Snelling. It's not far from the airport or the Mall of America.

This is the oldest house in Minneapolis, or maybe even Minnesota. I forget which one!

The Fort is open for tours from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We were there on it's first day. It was very interesting.

People were dressed in period costumes and they had soldiers that represented all the wars up until VietNam. Not sure why they didn't have anyone from Desert Storm or the current conflict!
We watched them inspect the troops!

and fire muskets!!!

It was HOT and HUMID!!! The days before had been stormy. They had a tornado touch down in North Minneapolis the Sunday before we got there!!!

Next we went to see the Sculpture Park in Minneapolis.

The Spoon & Cherry was our favorite!!!

That's St. Mary's in the background!

The reason for our trip....to see Elder Rasmussen! We had dinner with his family on Memorial Day Evening. Then we went to see if we could find Tim Woodland.

We found them in their backyard playing baseball. What an awesome example of Family Home Evening even after the kids are grown!!!! All three of their kids attend BYU and were home for the summer or at least a little vacation!