A fun little trip

Ken and I just got back today from a quick little trip down to St. Paul. Ken had an insurance meeting to attend at a very ritzy hotel (The Saint Paul). The company paid for us to stay at the hotel and there also was a banquet for us to attend. Ken thought it would be fun for just the 2 of us to make the trip so my parents kept our kids and just Ken and I went. We had stayed at the hotel before and had enjoyed all of the glitz but it was fun to go back with my digital camera and take some pictures. I didn't get as many cool ones as I had hoped too but I included a few here.
Here is a not so great picture of a huge bouquet of fresh flowers that was at the entrance of the hotel.
This is the building across the street and it also shows the lights from the hotel and the park that is across the street.
This is a picture of part of the lobby that had numerous chandeliers, beautiful rugs and chairs, fireplaces and then nearby the gold and mirrored elevators.
They still had their Christmas decorations up which where very pretty and impressive.
We went down on Monday night, arriving just in time to go to bed. On Tuesday morning we were able to visit Ken's cousin Christy and here family and also we got to see her parents (Ken's aunt and uncle) who were in town from Nevada. They invited us for breakfast and then we enjoyed spending the morning visiting.

Ken's meeting took up the afternoon so while he was busy I went to visit my friend Becky. We had a fun time visiting together and I enjoyed getting to see where she lives as I had never been there before (We have so many people that we know in the cities - including my sister- that we don't have time to see as much as we would like when we go down.). I love having the time to visit with friends.

On Tuesday evening was the Banquet which was held at the Hotel. We didn't have to dress up for it very much but the setting was probably about the fanciest banquet that I had been to. We had numerous plates and lots of silverware. The wait staff were dressed in their fancy outfits complete with dress gloves, they acted very properly and even had an accent (an affected one I think!). I was thankful that we had recently read about fancy meals in our manners book so I felt pretty prepared but I felt sorry for the man on my left. He kept using the wrong silverware or setting his shrimp tails on the wrong plate. Which about that I would say "who cares!" but the wait staff felt differently. Every time he did something wrong they would come and take away the thing he had used wrong and then replace it with a brand new one. We ended up each of us having around 6 plates through the course of the meal. In one sense I think what a waste of time for the dishwashers but at the same time it was quite fun. We are actually thinking about trying a very formal meal here at home quite soon as the kids thought it would be fun. I thought the food was pretty good but Ken's opinion was that the fancier you get the more you sacrifice on taste.

Anyway that was our adventure for the week. It was fun to go but it is nice to be home and for all of us to be back together as a family. How is your week going?