Frostbitten in Uptown

Today, my sister and I decided to brave the 8 degree weather and spend the afternoon exploring Uptown, a quirky neighborhood in Minneapolis. In my opinion, Uptown has the best coffee shops in the whole city. It also has amazing thrift shops, restaurants, and book stores.

We started off at Magers & Quinn Booksellers. It sold all kinds of books, old and new, and had such an “urban-quirky-bookstore” vibe. My sister and I spent a good half hour there, browsing books and sneaking around people that were there to actually find books to take

The Truth About Minnesota Winters

This week in Minnesota, we got a blizzard. The kind of blizzard that shut down the entire East coast a few weeks ago. But we didn’t even get a day off school. You might think this is normal for Minnesotans. That “Minensota is always snowy”, “it’s always cold in Minnesota”, or even that “Minnesota is a winter tundra all year long!”. Yes, I’ve heard it all, and it’s far from the truth. We do, in fact, have warm summers in Minnesota, and this February blizzard is actually our first blizzard of the season

The snow started Tuesday at noon, and by dusk, driveways had been shoveled repeatedly, rush hour traffic was moving a mere 15 mph on the highway, and kids were coming inside with cold cheeks and icy fingers, eager for the warmth of a steaming cup of hot chocolate

9 Ways to Travel Without Leaving Your House

This winter, I don’t have much travel planned. But the world awaits, and with a spectacular little resource called the internet, there are more ways than ever before to learn about other cultures and see other places, all within the comfort of your home. Of course, websites and books couldn’t even start to compare to real travel, but they’re better than being cooped up all winter, waiting for the weather to warm up. Here are some ways to experience the world without leaving the comfort of your home.

Mountain Skiing

Skiing in the mountains is such a different experience than skiing at your run-of-the-mill ski hills that we visit back home in Minnesota. There are a few good ski areas up in northern Minnesota, but they don’t even begin to compare to skiing out West in the mountains.

Instead of skiing Big Sky, we opted for Bridger Bowl, a smaller, lesser known, and less-touristy ski area. It was still way more impressive than any ski hill I had ever seen. It seemed like the trails lasted forever as they wound down through trees and forests, past mountain views, chair lifts, and chalets. The snow was impeccable: extra powdery at some

Animals in Yellowstone

Yellowstone is filled with animals of all kinds, and we were lucky enough to spot quite a few during our time in Montana last month. Especially buffalo. There were buffalo everywhere. Our first time driving into the park, we spotted a band of mountains goats on the side of the road. We stopped to admire them, and as we did, we saw a (hornless) elk wandering around on the other side of the road.

Yellowstone Winter Scenery

Yellowstone National Park is often considered a summer destination. I have never visited in the summer, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful. However, winter in Yellowstone, a very under-rated adventure, is stunning as well. We just got back from a 10-day trip to Montana, where we spent a few days visiting Yellowstone to go cross-country skiing and animal watching. In this post, I want to focus solely on the scenery (the animals will come later). The beautiful mountains covered in snow, the fresh flocking on the trees, the powdery snow blowing about like fog, the vast winter landscapes stretching on and on and on.

Our first day in Yellowstone, we went cross-country skiing. The snow was perfect; my dad even claimed that this trail had the best snow conditions we would ever ski on. I don’t

Christmas in the Mountains

Merry Christmas! We’ve been in Montana for 5 days now, and after a few trips to Yellowstone and a few days of skiing (both of which I will post on soon), we are finally taking a day to rest, Christmas Day. It’s been a nice day; we’ve played games, blasted Christmas music, baked and decorated cookies, gone on walks to admire the mountains, and played in the snow.

I also explored a few of my Christmas presents today. I leafed through the photography books from my mom and, and tried out some of my new clip on iPhone lenses. The lenses are actually really cool. The clip on over the camera lense on your phone, and then when

Heading West

Saturday morning, my family and I packed up the car and embarked the a two day drive from Minnesota to Montana to spend Christmas in the mountains. Back in Minnesota, we haven’t gotten much snow this year, or least not in the part I’m from. We had about a week of snow early in December before it all melted and left us with spring-like days. Saturday, there wasn’t a single patch of snow and the grass was closer to green than it was to brown. Pretty surprising considering Minnesota’s stereotypes isn’t it?

As we drove West, we were ecstatic to see the little bits of snow in North Dakota and finally the thick blankets of snow that covered Montana’s land. The snow in Montana was