A Balsam Lake Bachelorette

It's been a crazy marathon of events leading up to Eva's wedding next Friday, and we just checked a big one off last weekend...her bachelorette party! We headed to her family's cabin on Balsam Lake in Wisconsin for a weekend of swimming, sunning, and celebrating one of her last weekends as a single lady, and we got so lucky with gorgeous weather the entire time we were there. 

As soon as we had all our food and liquor for the weekend unpacked, we hit the dock and sunscreened up. I, however, dodged the food-and-beverage cleanup because I gave myself the all-important task of preparing the weekend's second-most important guest. 

This is Laverne. She's a seven-foot inflatable flamingo with a sassy attitude and a penchant for floating. We had WAY too much fun with her all afternoon, and by "we," I might mostly mean me. Total impulse buy when I was having a slightly cranky day and decided nothing would make my summer more basic or happier than jumping on the novelty floatie trend in a big way. 

Our bride-to-be jumped on board right away...

...and we passed plenty of time floating off the dock sipping drinks and chatting (probably way too loudly, sorry neighbors) about all things appropriate for a bachelorette party...that is to say, inappropriate for just about everywhere else. 

Then we hit the boat! 

Eva captained, while I held down the plethora of floaties in the back. 

Selfies abounded. 

Sun was soaked up, and all too soon we were feeling a little too toasted and headed back for the dinner-and-lingerie portion of the evening. While Eva prepped the burgers for the grill, the bridesmaids did a little decorating. 

Tee hee! We played the cliched-but-oh-so-fun game of "guess who brought what lingerie, if the bride guesses right the giver drinks, if she's wrong she drinks." Eva did terribly at first, which was hilarious, and eventually caught on right in time to make us all giddy and tipsy. 

Post-dinner, we debated staying in and instead decided to get our bachelorette out on the town. By "out on the town," we mean "deep in a townie bar," and in Balsam Lake, that means Blacksmith Shop.

We rolled in around 8pm with Eva in her veil, and immediately became THE hot entertainment of the night. I think it became a game to see who could help us check what off our bachelorette list...

...starting off with "Spin the Shot." Eva ended up with some kind of Midori and blue curacao shot, while the rest of us ordered rounds of vodka Red Bulls and gin and tonics before heading out back. What's out back, you may ask? 

Why yes, as a matter of fact, the evening's feature was a mechanical bull. Which we shamelessly made Eva ride, multiple times, while the live band was warming up. Other items checked off our list: 

Take a selfie in the men's room, which was hilariously labeled "Outboards" (women's was "Inboards," ha!). We played dumb when the bartender came to pull us out, and acted like we didn't know what an outboard motor was...which...riiiiight. 

We took blow job shots, some more successfully than others (in life as in shots hahaha). 

We did shots with the bull operator. 

And Claire went home with the classiest and most innovative headwear I've seen in a long time, a nice Bud Light cowboy hat! 

After dancing our faces off to the country band that didn't know any Zac Brown, we cranked up "Chicken Fried" and headed home to play a classic bachelorette staple: 

HI BLAKE. (We named him, along with the guy on the reverse, Antonio.) Hilarity ensued. After a little more chatting and a lot of chugging water, we passed out for the night and slept through some pretty intense thunderstorms. 

Sunday morning's breakfast was exactly what the doctor ordered...tons of fruit and two breakfast bakes soaked up any residual alcohol in our systems. A successful bachelorette for sure! Next stop, #sandersons4eva in just NINE days! 

Minnesota summers = cabin weekends.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a native Minnesotan in possession of a lake home (or friend with a lake home) must be in want of a cabin weekend.

All bad Jane Austen bastardizations aside, it’s truly a unique and pervasive aspect of Minnesota culture to spend summer weekends “up north” or “at the lake.” I grew up with a cabin on a lake about two hours slightly northwest of the Cities, and many of my friends’ families also have second homes on the water. This summer I’ve been totally spoiled with FIVE lake trips thanks to amazing friends Greg, Eva, and Kelsie, and each has been totally perfect/hilarious/relaxing/riotously fun in their own unique way.

We’ve been up to Greg’s twice since Memorial Day, with a third trip planned over Labor Day (it has its own hashtag and everything, it’s such a big deal!). Shockingly for me, both trips have involved so much fun, relaxation, and socializing…i.e. gin, drinking games, and late-evening boat rides…that I haven’t managed to take a single picture. Trust me when I say that his cabin is beautiful, the lake is a little slice of heaven, and each weekend has been exactly perfect. I’ve never been taken better care of at a social function…I think all of us are a little bit in love with weekends on Lake Francis.

Eva’s cabin weekend, in mid-July, has been on the books since there was still snow on the ground—a much-needed girly getaway to her family’s gorgeous place on Balsam Lake, just over the border in Wisconsin! Fun fact: my grandparents and great-aunt both used to have places on Balsam—it’s truly a small world when it comes to lakeshore in Minnesota and Wisconsin! Claire and I prepped for the weekend the day before with a fairly epic Target run for snackies, breakfast supplies, and mixers. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in a grocery store…

…or a liquor store, our next stop! Woo!

After we arrived on Friday afternoon and had spent plenty of time rhapsodizing over the beauty of the lake, things got a bit crazy right away…

(It was already empty, that picture is 100% posed for novelty and to make us appear to be harder partiers than we, in actuality, can claim to be.) Our Friday evening, in reality, looked a lot more like this:

How pretty is miss Eva?! She was the best hostess, too—Such. Delicious. Food. Her fiancé Josh is a very lucky man. Eva’s friend Michelle joined us shortly after dinner, and of course a selfie parade ensued, because it wouldn’t be a basic girls girls’ weekend without selfies galore.

We played a little Kings (a LOT of Kings).

We toasted to cabin weekend.

And then we went to bed, where Claire and I slept through the thunderstorm of the summer. Poor Eva woke up in the middle of the night and ended up battening down the hatches and whatnot all by herself, watching nonstop lightning and hoping there was no damage. In the morning, the two of us almost didn’t believe her…we had been dead to the world.

We got off to a bit of a slow start on Saturday as more girls trickled in, but the day grew more and more quintessentially lake-perfect: sunny, breezy, and hot. Naturally, a boat ride quickly rocketed to the top of our must-do list. The three of us ended up being the only ones to head out, and we floated, tanned, swam and drank to our hearts’ content before heading back to the dock to float some more.

After a lot of floating (and a LOT a lot of Doritos), we took the boat out AGAIN with a little white wine while waiting for our favorite girls’ weekend crasher, Claire’s BF and our dear friend Mike! This is Claire’s “Mike is coming to see us!” face…at least in my mind.

We enjoyed another killer dinner (Eva’s grilled pork? To DIE for), played a few more games and relaxed all night and all of Sunday morning before heading back to the Cities with a little tan and a bad case of the Sunday blues. Thanks for a killer weekend, Eva! You’re pretty much delightful.  

Two short weeks later, Kelsie’s fifth or sixth annual summer cabin trip graced my social calendar! She scheduled it at LEAST six months in advance…I think I had the calendar invite by my February birthday. She and I headed up to Hay Lake, an hour north of Brainerd, on Thursday afternoon, with two quick stops along the way: Zorbaz on Gull Lake, and Gull Dam Brewery! How pretty is this place?

We split a quick beer flight and observed a highly competitive game of geriatric cornhole (hahaha) before hitting the road again, arriving in time for a few beers on the porch and a stunning sunset. Her friend Nick also arrived that evening, and we soon discovered that a: he is a cribbage whiz and b: I can’t do mental math if it’s small numbers.

The next morning, we made the totally wise and prescient decision that we needed to put the family swim platform in the water. Nick, having already conquered a wasps’ nest and generally made himself useful, came up with an innovative and totally effective method to accomplish said goal:

I died laughing. Luckily, after approximately twenty similar actions, we ended up with THIS!

Don’t ask me about our towels, Huckleberry Finn, or anything related to my generally wise approach to dry-linens problem solving. Instead, let’s talk about how we swam and floated for hours, Kels’s friends Lauren and Brandon arrived, we grilled a delicious dinner of brats, and had a campfire that would make Pocahontas jealous. Her friends Zack and Samantha arrived late at night, and campfire hilarity ensued until we all ended up too tired to function.

The next day the guys went fishing:

The couples went floating:

And we all went day-drinking.

Funny story: the speedboat broke down in the middle of the lake while we were legitimately the only boat in the water. After some unsuccessful calls to shore for help, an ill-fated attempt to swim back to the cabin that ended Titanic-style, and a lengthy and discursive phone call to Kels’s mom, we were able to contact a neighbor to tow us back to shore. Long story short: our group did not have a high success rate with boats over the weekend.

Sunday dawned chilly and gray, and we headed home with heavy hearts. On the bright side, I saw a sweet porcupine in the wild, so there’s that!

OH CABIN WEEKENDS. These are the days I’ll look back to when Minnesota is buried under feet of snow and I can’t feel my face from the windchill. Thanks to all my friends for sharing their lovely summer getaways…this cabin guest could not be more grateful! 

Summer Snapshots: Life Lately

I kind of feel like all I’ve done this summer is vacillate wildly back and forth between having a ton of awesome, fun, social stuff going on and filling my days and nights, and whining about how exhausted I am because of all that fun. In the spirit of making sure I remember how enjoyable everything is, I dove back into the Camera Roll on my phone and figured all these activities deserved a spot in official Blog History!

Aeons ago in mid-May, Kelsie and I hit up Stanley’s Craft Beer and Bacon Fest the weekend of Art-a-Whirl! We ate pretzel necklaces and fancy flavored bacon while sipping like 100 different tasters of beer.

I also got attacked by this free balloon animal guy, who basically insisted on making me an octopus corsage. Luckily there was a cute seven-year-old selling lemonade on the street corner who was way enthused when I paid my octopus friend forward.

Continuing to feed my new addiction to coloring my hair, I hit up the salon early in the summer for a warmer auburn-y brown and a ton of layers plus a few extra inches lopped off. Thanks Jen and Teresa!

Kels and I have this thing for buying Groupon and LivingSocial deals to breweries, and did a two-in-one-day trip in early June. We checked out NorthGate, where we were legitimately the only two patrons for a solid 45 minutes and, as a result, got a great education in the beers and history of the fledgling brewery from one of the brewmeisters…

…and Insight, where we had these crazy-giant flights and a pint on top of it all!

I loved the fact that they have an IPA named “Piccolo.”

Okay, this shouldn’t be news to anyone given how much I’ve ‘grammed and talked about it, but EVA IS ENGAGED! And Claire and I are bridesmaids! We toasted her engagement way back two days in at Rosa Mexicano with margaritas, sangria, and bottomless guacamole…

…continued partying with a little Bellini action at Claire and Mike’s about two weeks in…

…and of course got bridesmaid-proposed-to shortly thereafter, in an Applebee’s after manicures, because we are basic (and really just wanted a quick dinner before hitting Old Navy for crazy sale action). Can’t wait to celebrate and plan and go wedding-nuts all year long with these two!

Hal and I took in a viewing of “Choir Boy” through Open Call and got to hear new artistic director Joseph Haj speak! I couldn’t have been more nerd-excited to see what he had to say, and it made me cautiously optimistic about his tenure at my beloved Guthrie. 

Over the Fourth, my fam and I kept it super low-key…Jonathan had to work all day, so my parents and I met up down at Lake of the Isles for an early-morning walk. Of course, when you’re two seconds away from Isles Bun and Coffee, you don’t skip the cinnamon rolls. Or, apparently, the coffee cake or scones. I was so full, and had zero regrets.

Farmer’s market lilies! Every summer I lose my mind completely when the family that sells these shows up outside our building at work. They are incredibly vibrant and lovely in person and I love them insanely much on my shiny mirrored coffee table.

To celebrate some big career news for family members, my parents, Jonny and I met up with my godparents and grandma for lunch at St. Paul’s Gopher Bar, where there are no plates, the servers say the F-word, and you pretty much get laughed out of the joint if you don’t order a Coney Dog. Having never had one, I was dubbed a virgin, and let me say, it was a pleasure to lose it here. Definitely recommend a trip if you need a laugh and a junk food fix!

DCI! DCI! As I went totally overboard discussing everything last year, I’ll keep it brief this year. Hal and I roadtripped to LaCrosse, WI for the River City Rhapsody this year, and took in some amazing shows.

My personal fave for the night? The Cavaliers’ “Electricity” themed show. It won, because clearly I have great taste and all.

A few weekends ago, Mike’s best friend Alex came to visit from Appleton for the weekend! We did a little day-drinking at Tugg’s Tavern, enjoying bright rainbow umbrellas, gin-and-tonics with an entire lime, and gorgeous weather.

Also paid a visit to Indeed, as it’s my favorite and, in my opinion, the most charming taproom the Twin Cities has on offer. 

NEW WHEELS! Jonathan will be taking my Corolla (aka Blanche DuBois) to school with him this fall, so I'm now the proud leaseholder on a 2015 Honda Civic EXL. 

A fancy and fabulous second annual Guthrie Open Call Midsummer Night's Ball! Hannah, Stu, Ben, Amy and I attended all dressed to the nines and took lots of pretty pictures (yes, I know I'm a bit vertically challenged)...

...and a few funny ones...

...and loved on fireworks a little bit. So gorgeous!!

Sociable's second annual Northeast Brewer's Block Party was SO HOT I could barely drink beer...heat index over 100 degrees. Poor Katie, Hannah's roommate, suffered a bike accident on the way there and tore herself up pretty badly. Fortunately, the kind folks at Sociable have a great sense of humor, AND they know beer makes anything better...so they gifted her a free drink ticket for their newest cider, "Road Rash." Appropriate, right!?

We've got some cute baby fawns hanging out in our backyard and I've loved watching them every so often when I'm home and they happen to be munching. Too cute!

WHEW. I still have an entire month of summer to go! Sure to be filled with more fun and excitement! 

Take me out to the ball game!

Baseball! It’s the American pastime. And for once in my adult life, the Twins aren’t abysmal, so that’s really fun. My dad scored some seriously awesome tickets to the Twins versus the Orioles a few weeks ago, and he, my mom, Jonathan and I spent a night at Target Field enjoying perfect weather, plenty of drinks, and a SERIOUSLY fantastic view of the game.

The two important things to know about my family are that we are fairly noncommittal Minnesota sports fans, but that we really, really like having good seats for sporting events. My parents and I, bless all of us, do not know a ton about the intricacies of sports apart from the activities that we, their nerd-children, did in high school and college. So…basically…downhill ski-racing, debate/speech team, drama, marching band, and…um, Student Council? Riiiight. Not a lot of extraneous sports knowledge floating around the Schwegman home. I guess you could say we’re enthusiastic fans with very little actual athletic ability? Let’s go with that.

The weather could not have been nicer for the 7:10 start of our game. We headed over a bit early to take advantage of our Metropolitan Club access…think bottomless nachos, grilled flatbread pizza, and Papa Bear ensuring the gin and tonics flowed like water. It was definitely a novel way to do a game…I could get used to pretending to be fancy, and let’s be real, the access to air-conditioning was wonderful. After filling up on snackies we headed down to our seats. And when I say down, I really do mean down:

Um, whoever my dad’s friend is who gave him the tix…THANK YOU and do you have a son who happens to be around my age and single?  I think Mom and I would go to a lot more Twins games if they always involved this kind of legroom and footrest action.

To truly illustrate how clueless we Schwegkids can be: when Jonathan Instagrammed his view from our seats, he captioned it “Front Row at TCF Stadium, let’s go Twins!” Ummmm, kiddo, wrong stadium, wrong sport (TCF Stadium is home to the University of Minnesota's Gopher football program!). That said, I think he had fun, you know, once he figured out that we were scoring runs instead of touchdowns and all…

Papa Bear, Jodester and I, in the meantime, had a blast people-watching, game-watching, and chatting. It also helped that the Twins routed the Orioles 8-3, and we got to witness rookie Miguel Sano’s first-ever major league home run. He was so excited! It was adorable! We also attended right in the middle of the crusade to get Brian Dozier into the All-Star game via fan vote. It was hilarious to see the “Bull-Dozier” campaign all over the stadium, from the parked bulldozer out front by the entrance to the creative use of cutout people…

Yessssss. Getting to enjoy a great game with my family was the perfect summer evening activity. In the meantime, I’ll keep following the Twins and hoping that our streak of looking like an actual team continues! 

My go-to summer drinks!

We’re headed deep into the dog days of summer here in Minny. The air is thick with humidity, the tans are that perfect deep burnished golden, and the rooftops and patios all over the city are prime hangout/people-watching locales. That said, I can’t justify a nightly happy hour, as much as I might like the thought of it, and my friends and I are getting to the point where we enjoy hanging out with cocktails on our own rooftops and patios as much as we enjoy going out!

With that in mind, we’ve spent the last several months crafting up some pretty delicious cocktails and scouting out the best beers and wines for summer drinking. Here are a few of my faves:

1.       The Bee’s Knees: I discovered this potent little concoction on a pre-Restaurant Week excursion to NorthBound Brewpub with Hannah and K-Behr. It’s the perfect combination of sweet, tart, and woodsy. Mix 2 oz gin with ¾ oz fresh lemon juice and ¾ oz “honey syrup:” a 1 to 1 blend of simple syrup and honey. Garnished with a lemon twist, it’s refreshing and totally Instagrammable.

2.       The “Grey Goose Le Fizz:” We’ve been making a slightly-adapted version of these in our family for over a year now, and they’re a hit with every family member from our grandma right on down. In a champagne flute, mix 1½ parts Grey Goose (or vodka of your choice!) with 1 part St. Germain elderflower liqueur and a squeeze of lime juice. Top off with the Prosecco of your choice (I am a lifelong devotee of LaMarca!).

3.       The Pepino: Justin Timberlake claimed this as his favorite drink once, and because Papa Schwegs is totally on his level, we drank these over Father’s Day. In a cocktail shaker, muddle a thick slice of cucumber with 3 tablespoons of silver tequila, 3 basil leaves, and 1½ tablespoons of lime juice. Add one tablespoon each of Cointreau and pineapple juice, along with half a tablespoon of agave nectar. Shake to combine, pour over ice, garnish, and Instagram. (Duh.)

4.       Grey Goose and Grapefruit: These quickly became our swim-up bar signature beverage in Mexico this March…they’re perfect for hot weather! In a beverage receptacle of your choice (we really classed it up with Solo Cups last weekend!), top off 1-2 shots of Grey Goose (or other vodka) with grapefruit juice. Mix, marvel at the simplicity, enjoy. For a little added fizz, throw some club soda or Prosecco in there…I’m of the mind that everything is better with Prosecco.

Wine-wise, I’m drinking ONLY Sancerre, crisp and chilled to perfection. Beers, on the other hand, have been a fun adventure all summer! I love fruity shandies—of course the classic Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, but for a bit of a different taste, the Jolly Traveler Illusive Shandy uses grapefruit instead of lemons for a super fun kick. I also really like 21st Amendment Brewery’s Hell or High Watermelon.

Finally, for the locals, a few of my favorite places to go when we do venture off our own rooftops:

1.       The Local. Although Nicollet Avenue is under construction, their patio is still in full swing, and if you ask your server to add vodka to the “Theobald Matthew Fizz,” you’re in for the most delicious alcoholic Creamsicle of a beverage ever.

2.       Hola Arepa. They have one of the best outdoor spaces in the Twin Cities, and their cocktails are innovative and unexpected in the best ways. I’m partial to the “Wecking Ball” and “Blood Lines.”

3.       Indeed Brewing. I’ve written about my love for Indeed many a time…I think they’re officially my favorite taproom in the Twin Cities. This summer, they’re featuring a mojito-infused version of their popular Shenanigans summer ale in the taproom, along with a few cool daily infusions with lavender and lemon, peach and hibiscus, and watermelon and basil. Definitely worth a visit!

Salut, chin-chin, cheers, whatever--here's to spending summer with a pleasant little buzz on!