Welcome, BlogTrotters, to Minnesota

Land of 10,000 Lakes

The North Star State

The Gopher State

Land of Sky-Blue Waters

The Bread and Butter State

Whatever you call it, I call it HOME.

I was absolutely delighted to receive a comment on my blog last week from Carabee over at BlogTrotting inviting me to give a little tour of my neck of the woods. BlogTrotting is a fun blog where you can visit other exciting places around the world.

I am genuinely thrilled to share with you a few of my favorite things about Minnesota.

I'm a Minnesotan, born and raised.

I grew up in Alexandria, MN. Hop over here for a brief tour of the main street of Alexandria, as I remember it from my teenage years.

Alexandra is the heart of the Central Lakes area, where are plenty of lakes for swimming and fishing.

I've since moved from Alexandria (more than 15 years ago) and now reside in St Paul, our state capital.

But what I really love about living in St Paul is living across the street from the University of St Thomas. Both my husband and I are students at UST, and we love our beautiful campus. We love to walk the grounds and will generally take any visitors we have on a quick tour.

 

The St Thomas Arches are an important part of UST culture. Incoming freshmen walk through the arches to the applause of current students and faculty, welcoming them to their new home. Neither of us started as freshmen, so we didn't get to experience this, but we are looking forward to Commencement when graduating seniors walk back out through the arches and head out into the world. I'm not sure if this will be a part of my graduate commencement ceremony, but it will definitely be a part of Jeff's. We have two more years of school before we head back out into the real world.

I've actually only lived in St Paul for a year and a half. Before that, I always considered myself more of a Minneapolis girl. While St Paul is growing on me, I definitely prefer the downtown of Minneapolis.

The Minneapolis skyline is beautiful!

The skyway system is wonderful!

You can easily stay dry and warm in the rain or snow.

Another thing I love about living in the Twin Cities is all the fun running paths!

I love to run with my little girl, Sallie...

And take walks with my husband.

We've moved a lot around the twin cities.

We've lived in Minneapolis near the Minnehaha Falls

and in St Paul near Crosby Lake .

I can't forget to mention Como Park Zoo. This is a fun, free zoo. They do accept a suggested donation of $2 for adults and $1 for children. We've gone to this zoo a couple of times .

I could go on and on about this great state! There are so many things I didn't mention like:

and SO. MUCH. MORE!

IMINNESOTA!

No matter where I live, I will always consider MN my home.

Feel free to browse through my blog to discover other random things about me (and occassionally MN, too). If you've visited any of the links in this post, you might have noticed many were from my *other* blog, Dodson Journal. Go ahead and pop over there for even more exciting advertures! I love MN, but I also love to travel and see new things. Mostly these adventures are with my husband, so naturally, they get posted on our family blog.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my little tour of Minnesota.