Sydney turns 16!

Can you believe it?  Sydney is 16 years old today!  Some of her birthday plans didn't turn out due to unpredictable weather, but here's a snapshot of the wonderful day we had.

Up early - headed into the cities to visit bookshops.  The first stop was the Lyndale Park Rose Garden.  Sydney has always loved roses.  Here is a picture of her in that same garden when she was just over a year old.  Notice the bare feet - that hasn't changed a bit!

And here she is today!

After a beautiful morning outdoors, we headed to some local bookstores as the storms rolled in.  The first stop was, again, an old favorite from when she was small.  It's a children's bookstore called Wild Rumpus and they have animals throughout the entire store.  There's a cat (Booker T.) and a chicken that free-range, and many others (ferret, chinchilla, birds, lizards, etc.) in their comfy little homes, tucked within the book aisles.  When you approach Wild Rumpus you will see a little door (the kid door) inside the bigger door (the adult door) and you can choose how you wish to enter.  Though all of us are over 5 feet tall, we still choose the kid door - even Andy!

       

After this we headed to Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore.  A wonderful place where the used books are piled in boxes on the floor and stacked to the ceiling.

Then we needed lunch.  Off to Sydney's choice, Victor's 1959 Cafe.  It's a little dive in South Minneapolis that has very few seats, is almost always packed, has great Cuban food, and encourages patrons to write on the walls.  A wonderful place!

After yet another bookstore, we headed to our favorite little old-fashioned soda fountain run by a young husband and wife.  As we took a picture out front, Nick, one of their awesome employees, photo-bombed us as he was making fresh waffle cones :-)

We almost always end up asking them to make us something that's not on the menu - and they're happy to create it for us.  I usually ask for a chocolate-cherry soda.  Here's the new creation for today - a chocolate cherry malt.  It took a bit to get it mixed just right and the finished product was a work of art.

From there, we headed home to stream a western from Netflix and put the finishing touches on an almond cake that still needs some chocolate ganache frosting!  So I need to post this and finish that up before the movie ends.

Happy Birthday, Sydney!