Busy, busy week

Tuesday night my Sweet Adeline chorus had a performance and I was in charge of writing the script and doing the emceeing.

Wed. my Red Hat group (Rosy Red Birds) drove to an unique place not far from Red Wing, MN. It is a barn called "Hobgoblin Music". The owner are Eve and Gary Stone. She has been a member of my chorus for about 15 years. They used to have a shop in St Paul and made Mountain Dulcimer's. When they found this farm just off of Hwy 61 and Hwy 19, Gary renovated the huge barn and began making Harps. The barn has three floors. The bottom floor is where all of the instruments are made. We were given a tour of the process. They have all sorts of music books, CD's and DVD's, and all sorts of instruments including four different kinds of harps that are made there. The top is called the Loft were they have very nice restrooms, a small kitchen, and a stage area, where they have held Celtic festivals, Bluegrass, Wedding receptions, etc.

Last year, Gary built and outdoor stage on the hill. They have beautiful gardens around the barn.

After our tour, we met in Red Wing for lunch at the St James hotel on the Veranda. It was a very nice day, although the closer to Rochester we got the more threatening the weather was getting. It happened to be the night that the tornado went through Austin.

On Thursday, I went to a Twins game with three of my former coworkers from Apache Mall.
Sharon and I drove to Lil Oscars (Hampton, MN) and met Wendy and her kids coming from Wabasha. We got into Wendy's Escalade and drove to the Mall of America where we took the "light rail train" down to the dome. The kids really loved that.

We had very good seats in the first deck by the first base. We met Katie at the Dome. The twins won the game 5-1 and we had two home runs. We did have to stand in the very hot sun waiting to get back on the light rail. It was a very fun day.