Busy weekend

It was a busy weekend. Mary and Anika finished putting up the Christmas tree. Anika was a big help with the ornaments.

Here she is making sure mom puts the star in the right place.

Saturday was also the first time she had babysitters. Grandma and Grandpa Zilge came to watch her. Mary and I went to The New Standards annual holiday show at the Fitzgerald theater in St. Paul. Sara and Tom joined us and we went for dinner at La Grolla before hand. Dinner was great and so was the show. The New Standards always put on a good show. They are a jazz trio that take some of your favorite popular music and arrange into a jazz style. Using a piano, upright bass and a vibraphone. This year some of the songs they played were The Replacements "Androgynous", Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives" and Britney Spears "Toxic".

When we got home at about 11:30, everthing was as it should be, baby was sleeping and Grandparents were awake.

Sunday we went to the Como Zoo Conservatory. Their annual Holiday flower show had started on Saturday. I never thought I would feel under dressed at the zoo, but it seemed like every family there had on their Sunday bests. That was because they were taking their Christmas card photos. Some of them ran into problems with security, since you had to have a permit to take "posed photos", candid shots were fine.

Here is a "non-posed" photo

It was much nicer inside than outside

We went through the new Tropical Encounters exhibit, it was really nice. Unlike the rest of the conservatory they also have some animals in the mix.
Let's just say the humidity level in the exhibit is quite a bit different than in our house


That's one tall fern
If you are looking for something to do and want to get out of the cold we suggest heading here. They also have a cafeteria, while we didn't eat there, the food smelled good.