Eli's and a Car Show

I love weekends like this past one. I had just enough to do to keep me busy and entertained, but not too much to do that I didn’t have time to just relax and enjoy the weekend.

On Friday night, Mark and I had tickets to see Defending the Caveman. We got free tickets because we are members of the Hennepin Theater Trust. I signed us up for Friday night tickets, and was really excited to go. I have heard from a lot of people that this show is hilarious. But when Friday came, Mark and I just didn’t have it in us to go. We just weren’t all that excited about it, and didn’t feel like going to the theater. And because we didn’t pay for the tickets, we didn’t feel too bad about not going. I do really want to see the show, so maybe in the future you’ll see a post about that.

So, instead of going to the show, we had dinner at Eli’s. Finally!




And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that the menu was your standard bar food – chicken sandwich, burgers, fries, etc. Not at all! They had some great stuff on the menu – fresh pastas, sandwiches, filet, pork tenderloin. It was so good. I started my meal with beer cheese soup, which was the special soup of the day. It was so good! They made it a real fancy beer cheese soup – no Wisconsin cheddar there! Then I had a fresh pasta dish with angel hair pasta mixed with veggies and a light garlic and white wine sauce. It was delicious. You can order half or full portions at Eli’s, and the half portion was perfect after my soup. Mark had a great cheese steak sandwich. It was so fun to finally get to the place that I’ve wanted to visit for over a year! After dinner we rented Just Friends, and laughed the night away on the couch.

On Saturday, I surprised Mark by taking him to the Twin Cities Auto Show. Mark is a huge car guy. It’s ridiculous sometimes. He’ll point out all these cars on the road, and I’ll have no idea what he’s talking about. He gets an obscene amount of car magazines sent to our house every month. So, you can imagine how excited he was when I told him that I was taking him to the car show. I’m actually looking to buy or lease a new car in the next couple of months as well, so I figured it’d be a good time for me to check out what the automakers have to offer.

We had such a great time. Mark was so funny – he was like a kid in a candy store. Or, like a grown man at an auto show, I guess. They tend to act the same way. I saw a lot of this during the show:



That would be Mark, running from car to car, and me, behind him, not being able to keep up.

We checked out all kinds of great cars. From the practical and realistic– Mazda 3 for me, Infiniti G35 for him – to the not to realistic – the Porsche Boxster S for him and Lexus RX 330 for me. It was fun to dream a little bit…









Later than night we went to Mark’s parent’s house to celebrate his sister Carol’s birthday. We had a great home cooked meal of ribs, coleslaw and beans.

On Sunday, Mark had school so I just relaxed and did some domesticated things around the house – laundry, cleaning, cooking. Mark and I had been looking forward to this particular Sunday for about three months. FINALLY, after months and months of waiting, The Sopranos Season 6 started on Sunday, March 12. Mark and I are Sopranos freaks. Well, I’m a Mafia freak in general. I just can’t get enough good Italian Mafia stories for some reason. They just captivate me. So, I made some baked ziti and garlic toast, and we watched as our favorite Boss came back into our lives.