Happy Birthday! (imagine this said in a Frosty The Snowman manner)

Last year I wanted so very badly to get to Glensheen to see it all decorated for Christmas. It never happened.

About a month ago, while scrolling through Facebook, I noticed that Glensheen Christmas would open on November 18th this year. Which happens to be my birthday. I quickly declared that all four of us would be going to Duluth for my birthday, and we would ALL be happily touring Glensheen! Nate loves Glensheen, and he quickly and excitedly agreed. The other two agreed, but not as enthusiastically.

A week and a half before the big day, the weather forecast was for a big snow storm. So, I held off on getting tickets. I checked on the Monday before, and there were plenty of tickets left. Tuesday night a local news station ran a story on the upcoming Christmas festivities at Glensheen. Wednesday night I checked and all tours were sold out except the 5:00 tour. Crud....tickets were purchased that night.

We started our day by sleeping in a bit, thank you 5:00 tour. We headed to the mall to do some shopping first. Ben and Kyle needed jeans, and Ben needed some tops too. That kid needs to quit growing. Nate also found a New York t-shirt.

At this point we were all starving. So rather than proceeding with Pizza Luce as planned, we stopped at Texas Roadhouse for steaks instead. It was RIGHT there...and we were hungry!

It was yummy!

After feasting, we headed down town. First to return jeans for Kyle that didn't fit (note to any interested: Duluth Trading Co "Ballroom" jeans are apparently not appropriately named). We then headed over to Fitgers. I love wandering around Fitgers rarely do I buy anything, but I still enjoy it. Nate loved the opportunity to look through another book store, and bought himself a Hibbing book. I found some Aveda hair product, that I was having a hard time finding in Rapids due to the hours of the Aveda salon. Be Curly is AMAZING for curly hair for those out there blessed/cursed with curly hair. This also provided out first picture taking opportunity:

Perfect lighting! iPhone was just fine as the
good camera was still in the car.

Ben took this great one!

I believe I said something to the effect of
"It's my birthday you MUST stand by that
giant snowman so I can take a picture!

After finishing at Fitgers, we headed over to Glensheen. We were purposely early so we could get more pictures taken outside before the sun had completely set. It was pretty low light so it was hit or miss with the pictures, even with the good camera. However, we got some good ones:

Again Ben taking a great one!
I LOVE this picture of us! 

My guys, waiting for the butler to
let us in. We were cold and the
doorbell didn't work.

Once inside, we all really enjoyed ourselves. It was amazing to see the mansion lit by natural lights. It resulted in a calm quiet feeling that you don't get going through the mansion during the day. It was perfect for all the Christmas trees. There were very few other people on the tour (despite the sold out tours). It was very nice to see, but we couldn't imagine living like that. Again, the camera was nice to have on hand.

Love this. It is int he formal living room
and I think it captures that calm quiet
feeling well.

The entry way and staircase is
always impressive, but this made
it even more so!

Perfect family picture opportunity. Thanks
to one of the tour guides, Christmas cards
were SUPER easy this year!

Once we finished at Glensheen, we drove to the parking garage by the Duluth Depot. Why? because it had the perfect view of Bentleyville without the crowds. I snapped a couple of quick pictures, took a total of 30 seconds while everyone else stayed int he car. Then we were on our way.

Our next stop was at Bridgeman's. Due to the big and late lunch nobody was super hungry. So we ate whatever we wanted. Nate - side of fries (he prefers DQ thank you very much), Ben and Kyle a malt. For the birthday girl this thing:

It was SOOOO good, and I 'm
not ashamed to say that I
ate the whole thing!

One more stop at Menards to look at their Christmas stuff. We were all pretty tired at this point. But, woke up when Ben almost got us kicked out by first setting off ALL the Simon games by the checkouts, and then setting off all the animated Christmas animals making them fall off the shelf. Anyway, we bought some Christmas stuff including this funny ornament:

I'm not sure, but it will now have
a place on our tree and a funny
story to go along with it.

All in all, it was a really fun day. We were exhausted by the time we got home. Most importantly to me, we were ALL together. As the kids get older and more involved in their own thing, I couldn't ask for a better present than all of us together.