What a fabulous weekend, although I tell you it's weird to see one's mom dissolve into blubbering fangirl.

We arrived in Minneapolis a little early to get checked into the hotel early and find something to eat before the concert. We found this fabulous restaurant called Doolittle's Woodfire Grill, where I ordered the Roasted Pear and Chicken Salad, where I promptly had to snap a picture of the best salad I've ever had:

Aside from the roasted pears and rotisserie chicken, it had feta cheese, walnuts, raspberries and a raspberry vinagrette, and I'm drooling at just the memory. There was a mural on the wall, and part of it was a map of some cross country flight. Quote #1 That I'm My Father's Daughter: "That map is going to drive me crazy. They've got El Paso somewhere in New Mexico!"

The concert was just Awesome. You can really tell these guys have been doing this for 20 years.

The set list was awesome, they were funny, it was entertaining, and I'll definitely go again if I have the chance. We didn't have the best seats (this is zoomed to the max); we were way off to the right, so we couldn't see the drummer and some of the stuff that was going on in the back of the stage, but they came out into the audience a lot, and just looked like they were having a great time, and the crowd did, too.

The best part about our seats is that we were really close to the exit, so we were at the front of the line to get Chris' autograph afterwards.

Mom grabbed my arm on the way back to the car and said, "Chris Isaak was standing right in front of us!" We were told he stays and autographs for everyone, I brought my favorite album, Forever Blue, with me for him to autograph.

Friggin' awesome.

We went to the Mall of America the next day, with all the walking we did, all I bought were a pair of boots, and I only did that because I couldn't pass up the deal - $180 boots for $36 - plus, they look fantastic on me:

Quote #2 That I'm My Father's Daughter in looking for some gauchos to go with said boots: "I'm not paying 70 bucks for something that's not even a full pair of pants!"

All in all, it was some great Mommy-Mandy time. We haven't spent much time alone together for a long time, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Now I have to decide whether I'm going to read The Half-Blood Prince before I start in on The Deathly Hallows. I don't remember anything that happened in the last book! In fact, there was a conversation with Chelsea a few weeks ago, where it took us ten minutes to remember the name of the book! I was coming up with plot points, and Chelsea kept saying, "No, that was Order of the Phoenix, too." Ridiculous. I have homework to grade at any rate. Sigh. I hope I don't get spoiled in the meantime.