Trying to enjoy winter

I am done with winter. Mother Nature, do your thing, please! I can't seem to escape the feeling of being cold all the time and I am tired of dealing with the traffic jams that are caused by both snow and dumb drivers. I'm also starting to feel a little bored and stuck in a rut. We've spent a lot of evenings/weekends curled up at home watching TV/movies lately, which we both love but are anxious for spring to get out and do other things.

We are fortunately only weeks away from our honeymoon to the Bahamas, which will be a much welcomed relief of this MN winter drab.

Last night we decided to break our routine and check out the St Paul Winter Carnival. Neither of us had ever been, and Jon had suggested that we check it out, maybe even go ice skating. What a sweetheart. So off we went, to see what winter had to offer us. Downtown St Paul was crawling with people. It was clear that this was THE place to be!

We found a place to park and headed over to the one thing that holds a special place in our hearts - the Landmark Center. It is amazing that just the sight of the place brought a wave of happiness and peace over me. We walked down memory lane as we went through the building, which was fun. It's hard to believe that was almost 5 months ago!

People had started lining up everywhere around the Landmark and Rice Park for the parade, making it quite difficult to get around. We managed to squeeze our way across the street to Rice Park to the heart of the carnival. It was beautiful - pine trees, white lights, ice sculptures like you wouldn't believe.

It was incredible what these people can do with ice.

It was interesting that for their 125 year anniversary, this wall was as big of a commemorative sculpture as they got. I never knew it, but in years past they had constructed HUGE ice castles, bigger than a house. I guess times are tough right now, as ice isn't exactly free.


We enjoyed corn dogs, cheese curds, and hot chocolate while watching the parade. It is no easy feat to eat all of that at once while bundled up in gloves and no where to set anything down, but we succeeded. The parade was not very exciting, though the crowds faithfully watched it until the end. What I caught sight of was few people walked through with torches, a few with reindeer antlers, some trucks with the St Paul Carnival "royal families" which I never really got the full scoop on, and some snow princess-looking people.

Instead, we browsed around more in Rice Park. Summit had a bar made entirely out of ice, which was beautiful! However, there was always a constant crowd for alcohol, so this is the best picture I could get of it.

We also came across this sculpture, which I thought was the sweetest ever! I have no clue if the sculptor did it to propose himself or if they did it so that other people could use it to pop the question. I thought it was darling though. And by the looks of the flowers, something had either happened or was about to.

Here are just a few more pictures of our night. We didn't end up ice skating, as the rink was bursting at the seams with people trying to skate. Nonetheless, we had a great time!