Overall, it was a good weekend...

On Saturday morning, my friend D* picked me up at 8am to head off to the 2nd annual Surly Open (disc) Golf tournament. It was held out at the Hyland Hills disc golf course. Hyland Hills also double as a ball golf driving range during the summers and as a ski and snowboard area during the winters. The Minneapolis Ski Club's ski jumping facility is located close-by, too.

It was a very non-competitive event. But what do you expect when you're gathering to celebrate a mighty awesome local brewer with awesome tap prices? We met up with my friend J* (a good friend of Surly owner Omar) and signed up to start at the 14th hole. It basically runs straight up a ski slope. After finishing holes 14 through 18, on our way to the 1st tee, we stopped in to get our first Surly of the day ($1 taps!). I had my first taste of Coffee Bender. It was very good. We chatted a bit with Omar before we headed back out. Since the three of us managed to finish our first beers before we headed back out, we each grabbed another Coffee Bender ($1 taps!!!) and headed out for the first tee. I should mention that my breakfast consisted of a PB & J sandwich and a couple cups of coffee that morning. I'm not exactly a heavyweight drinker either. So, after two Coffee Benders (all before 11am), what was left of my round of golf got pretty loose.

We managed to finish our round by 11am. Hung out while they got lunch set up, ate lunch (which included my first taste of Surly's "Cynic Ale"), hung out for the raffle for the morning participants (I won a Surly t-shirt), and then headed home.

Did I mention that they had Surly on tap for $1? They did!

Here's what my disc golf bag looks like



That was before the addition of my complimentary commemorative disc (a 174g Discraft Force ESP with a 2.0 stability rating). I don't have too many discs in my bag these days which is a reflection on often I play (or don't).

I got home around 2 and was wiped out. Mostly due to drinking beer before lunch. But, managed to keep it together sufficiently enough to survive the afternoon. Shelly had plans to see the "Sex and the City" movie that night with some friends so I took the girls over to J*'s house for some grilling and hanging out. I also got to finally meet D*'s second son, Mikko. Cute little thing at 3 months. The kids played very well together (at least they did after their initial shyness wore off). Sophie really liked petting Bo-Ghee (the dog).

We're getting rid of the living room furniture that Shelly's had since even before I'd met her. And the futon in our living room that acts as our sofa is moving to the basement. We'd been taking our time doing this. Trying to get rid of the old stuff before getting the new, but a forgotten visit by a cousin this week sped up the schedule a little bit. So, at the last minute, we decided to head out to Ikea on Sunday afternoon to buy that new couch we'd talked about. We got an Ektorp sofa with a tan cover. We'd already bought two of the Ektorp Jennylund chairs with the "Kareby multicolor" covers.

As is usual for a visit to Ikea, we dropped Julie off at "Småland" (the kid's area at Ikea). Julie loves playing in the ball pit or watching whatever they're showing on the TV. Sophie is (a) too small and (b) not potty trained so she's not able to join Julie yet. So, Sophie comes with Shelly and I as we shop. Here's Sophie and I hanging out while we waited for Shelly to track down an Ikea employee to get our sofa stuff...



Which reminds me... I had assumed that the sofa wasn't in the self-service warehouse but that the cover for it was. It turned out to be the exact opposite. The sofa was in the self-service warehouse and we had to wait at the furniture pick-up area for the cover. Too bad that between waiting for it to come out, loading the furniture into the minivan and picking up Julie, we completely forgot that we never got our sofa cover! Shelly is going back for it today.

So, I spent last night

• Putting the middle row seats and car seats back in the van.


• Disassembling the futon in the basement and hauling it out to the garage.


• Vacuuming the area of the basement where the futon sat.


• Disassembling the futon in the living room and hauling it down to the basement (with Shelly's help)


• Assembling an Ektorp Bromma ottoman (beige). It required more effort than I thought putting the cover on.


• Assembling the sofa.


• Assembling one of the Jennylund chairs.

We had already hauled out the other living room furniture into the garage earlier that afternoon.

It didn't take as long as it could have because Shelly helped out by breaking down all of the cardboard and hauling the living room futon down to the basement. Yet, it still took me a good three hours just to do that much. Plus, it meant my ironing got neglected for another night.

Hopefully, we'll get the other Jennylund chair assembled and the cover on the sofa.Then we'll see if it looks OK or if we need to look at a different color for the sofa. Maybe I'll even get some ironing done tonight...