Weekend Getaway to Lutsen

Over President's day weekend, five of us ventured up to Lutsen for a get-away and some skiing. Betsy, Katelyn, Stephanie and Corey were the skiers. Alyssa was coming along for some relaxing time in our A-Mazing townhouse. We got a 2 night, 2 day skiing package for around $200 a person. We stayed in Grand Marais, right by the water in a very nice, newer townhouse complex called Cobblestone Cove. We had 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 fireplaces and a loft. Plenty of room with beautiful views of Lake Superior. We would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for a place to stay in Grand Marais.

We arrived in Grand Marais around 5pm Friday night (about 4.5 hour drive from Twin Cities). You could tell we were all ready to relax and not think about life and work because instead of finding dinner somewhere we mixed ourselves a cocktail and headed to the hot tub!! Having too much fun, we realized it was 8pm and needed to eat, so we called up the famous Sven & Ole's Pizza and ordered ourselves a few local treats including a wild rice pizza.

Saturday we got up bright and early and headed to Lutsen for some skiing. We skied from 10 until closing at 4pm. It was bright and sunny all day with great snow conditions in the morning.



Katelyn & Betsy



Betsy & Stephanie on the Gondola

After a long day, we drove the 20 miles back to the townhouse to find Alyssa making us lasagna for dinner! :-) Some more hot-tubing and a new drink discovered made for a fun relaxing evening. Some snow came down and we were hopeful that we would wake up to some fresh powder the next morning.



New drink  - "The Marais"

1/2 c Orange Juice

1 c Pomegranate Vodka

1 c Malibu

1/4 c 7 up

Splash Pomegranate Juice



The Marais

Sunday we got up early, had breakfast, packed up all our stuff and headed back to Lutsen. Betsy's parents met us at the ski hill and Elana joined us for a day of skiing. We skied all day and left around 4pm, hoping to make it back before the snow in the Twin Cities got to bad. Of course that didn't happen, but we did make it home to Betsy's safely at about 9:30pm. That night the Twin Cities got 12-18 inches of snow. To bad it couldn't have snowed for us when we were skiing.

Betsy & Elana

View from Gondola ride

Quotes from the weekend:
"Apples are hard..."
"This shaker is bigger than my shaker"
"If you know him, you would know him!"
"How big is a large, like 16 inches?"
"I'm officially hard right there"
"His hand in my zipper"
"Did you know I have a smiley face button?"



House Warming WWN

After two years and endless house hunting, Betsy finally found the most amazing house! WWN girls could not be happier for her! It is beautiful! So what else would you do when you just closed last Thursday, had all your stuff delivered on Monday, stuff you haven't seen for two years... well have the girls over for Wednesday Wine Night of course. After we pushed through the empty boxes and found a few glasses we were set!! We started the night with some champagne to celebrate! Betsy treated us with Chinese take-out which was delicious! No other special wine chosen for the evening. After some great food and conversation, Betsy started to get a little anxious to keep unpacking... .so we helped out a little before calling it a night!! Skiing at Lutsen this weekend! Yahoo!!

Betsy Cleaning - New Kitchen!!

Quotes from the evening:
New acronym "SOMF"
"I'm a triple threat! Zero trucks, Zero Tractors and Zero Job"
"Lot's of spreadsheets today!"
"Poor ____... no one ever likes or comments on his stuff"
"Rock the SHIT out of it"
"When I was doing one night stands no big deal, but now..."

Beaujolais with Baked Macaroni & Cheese

Wednesday night and we were all in need of some girl time!! The girls were all here and all ready to drink some wine! Stephanie hosted this week. We had baked macaroni and cheese, Cesar salad and cooked carrots. Chocolate chip cookies for desert. Stephanie paired the mac&cheese with Beaujolais. All the ladies really enjoyed this wine. Alyssa brought a Pinot Grigio to satisfy her love for white wines. 

Sorry to disappoint our readers, but we do not have any quotes to share for the evening!! Instead you can salvate over the yummy M&C recipe down below. Stay tuned for next week's WWN at Betsy's new house!

 Recipe for Mac&Cheese (from Stephanie's Aunt Diane Mackereth)
1 lb. dried macaroni
1 egg
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
¼ c. flour
2 ½ cups whole milk
2 tsp. dried mustard
4 ¾ cups (1lb) grated cheddar cheese
1 tsp. ground black pepper
½ tsp. salt ½ tsp. seasoned salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 2-3 qt baking dish. In a large pot of salted water cook macaroni until firm, about 4 min, drain. Beat the egg and set aside. In large saucepan melt butter over med/low heat and whisk in flour, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Whisk in the milk and mustard until smooth. Cook until very thick, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Slowly pour ¼ cup of the sauce into the beaten egg, whisking constantly, to temper the egg. Pour egg mixture back into the sauce. Reserve ½ cup of the cheddar cheese and stir the rest into the sauce until melted. Add the pepper and salts. Stir in the macaroni; then pour into the baking dish and top with the reserved cheese. Bake until bubbly and golden. 20-25 minutes.

Pizza and White Wine

Wednesday Wine Night was hosted by Alyssa at Katelyn’s house this week. We ordered pizza from a local pizza place. It was quite tasty! Katelyn & Alyssa remain to be friends even though their pizza taste differ greatly. We had Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and a red wine (can’t remember the type). Corey was our honorary guest and maybe full time member because she brought Little Debbie’s and homemade cupcakes! We spent the evening chatting like usual and planned our winter get away to Lutsen for February!! It took us awhile to make a decision, but we found a great Grand Marais townhouse. We are so excited!

Betsy, Alyssa & Corey eating Little Debbie's

Katelyn and her amazing cupcake consumption trick

Spaghetti & Meatballs...part II

So, Katelyn missed Jan 13th and apparently didn't read the blog close enough to know that spaghetti had JUST been served, but the other ladies were so polite and ate it anyway....

We paired this spaghetti with mostly Pinot Noir, with the exception of a Toscana from Italy (recommended to Alyssa and Betsy by an apparently very attractive Latino salesman). The Five Rivers Pinot smelled like chocolate-covered cherries and brought out the tang of the spaghetti sauce. And the other wines were just as smooth and flavorful.

While the food was satisfying, the highlights were clearly in the conversation. Selma kept us laughing with her stories of babies and interpretive dance moves, and as usual, several of us shared our ups and downs from the past week. But, at least for the host, hearing the laughter of friends made any difficult memory shared a lot easier to bear.

Ideally, we come together every week - sometimes a little more time passes, sometimes we're extra lucky and it's only a few days - but every time is an unexpected experience of friendship I'm proud to remain a part of. Love ya ladies!

Some of the funnier sayings from the evening...
"I've never worked my unit this hard!"
"Can you even blow for that long?!"
"I had to get more sauce because I got so distracted the first time!"
"Did you just say "yes" because...." "I just said "yes" because he asked!"
"What!? You guys had spaghetti las week!?"
"You can pet her, or you can "rawr" her..."
"'G'onorrhea wants to be held."
"I need someone to jump my heart!"
"I give services to my clients."
"Can my husband park his car in your garage?" "I will take all the cars in my garage that I can get!"
"Those are BIG-ASS minerals!"
"You guys, I have a back problem."

okay, so maybe you had to be there...and if you were, you'd be LUCKY!

Barbera D'Asti paired with Spaghetti

Betsy hosted this week at Steph's house. We had Cesar salad, spaghetti, meatballs, and garlic bread! It was amazing! We paired the meal with Barbera D'Asti which is a red wine. Both bottles we had were quite tasty. I would recommend this wine! It was sweet, but not dry!



For desert Betsy made us a FunFetti cake!



Wendy brought Betsy a shot of whiskey to celebrate her new house purchase!



Betsy, Alyssa, Wendy



Wendy, Stephanie, Betsy



Quotes from the evening:

"I've lived here for a year and a half and I never attempted to use this button!"

"When I get married, somebody buy me this tall pan and somebody else buy me a sex swing!"

"...well you've had two surgery's"

"Those are the kind of guys you just buy longer pants for."

"If you're going to touch my knee, you better be ready to have a kid... or three!"

"It's a quote by Marilyn Monroe"... "Marilyn Manson?"

"I've never been around her things before."

"Whiskey and Funfetti!"

"Dude, I'm crazy!"

"Funfetti down!".... party foul!



Funfetti down!

First WWN in 2011

After a stellar New Years Eve party at Quinn's, the WWN ladies started off the year right by having WWN at the new Psycho Suzi's in Northeast! They are now in the old Gabbie's on Marshal! The location and atmosphere was amazing as usual! We took a little break from the wine and enjoyed some beer and of course Tiki Drinks! Started with some curds and tots for an appetizer and for dinner we shared a couple of their World Famous Pizzas.

Favorite NYE Quote:
"I cleaned it all up except for the leaves...?"