This was a weekend of celebration and none of it Super Bowl related.  Liz’s birthday was Saturday but we started on Friday night when we went out to dinner at Famous Dave’s.  She got an birthday email offering a free entree with the purchase of an entree.

We had a fantastic waitress who was friendly, helpful, and generous.  We chit-chatted a few times throughout the evening and at the end, she comped my dinner, the more expensive one, rather than the cheaper one as the email stated.  We both had enough left over for lunch on Saturday, which is even better!

On Saturday around noon, we headed downtown to Rice Park to check out the Saint Paul Winter Carnival festivities.  We saw what was left of the carved ice sculptures (it’s been pretty warm for the past week which isn’t good for ice.), saw the Ice Palace display and Winter Carnival Memorabilia display at Landmark Center, and scoped out the lay of the land for the parade later that night.  My video camera wasn’t working so we headed back home to see if I could get it working again.

As is turns out, all I had to do was pull the battery out and wipe off the contacts and it fired right back up.  We hung out at home for a while and ate the aforementioned Famous Dave’s leftovers before heading back downtown.

We took our spot on the corner of 5th and Washington and sat down to watch the Torchlight Parade.  I recorded the first 65 minutes of what was supposed to be a 45 minute parade before my battery died.  I would have had the whole thing had my battery lasted just 5 more minutes.  I guess that means I need a second battery.  Oh well… Here is the full video if you are interested.

I also created a video of the parade that is sped up 3 times so it only takes about 22 minutes.  It’s fun to watch all the people in the parade walk so fast. 

After the parade, we walked a few blocks to the Wabasha Street bridge to watch the fireworks being set off of Raspberry Island.  My birthday is in the summer and it has become a regular occurrence for me to see fireworks on or around my birthday.  This was the first time Liz got birthday fireworks.

Since my video camera was dead, Liz recorded some of the fireworks on her new iPod Touch.

You can see a couple video clips from the parade along with several other videos on my YouTube Channel.  After all was said and done, we had walked about 9 miles in the day.  This included walking to and from Rice Park twice for a total of 6 miles right there.  It was good to get that much exercise without really feeling tired.

Sunday was a restful day to close out the weekend.  What a blast!