Several days after picking up Fannie as a two-month-old puggle puppy in Wisconsin, my mom and I took Fannie and Missy to Centennial Lakes Park in Edina, Minnesota, where Fannie ran away for a minute. We took Fannie and Missy to Centennial Lakes Park again today, and luckily there were no problems this time. It’s interesting to compare these photos of Fannie to the previous ones, because she has grown so much in the last three months.
I took these 12 photos this morning between 10:42 and 11:42 a.m.
This morning, my mom and I brought Fannie and Missy to Carver Park Reserve Off-Leash Dog Park in Victoria, Minnesota, for Fannie’s first visit to a dog park. As I say in this post from 2021, this was also Pugsley’s first dog park.
My mom and I took Fannie and Missy to Centennial Lakes Park in Edina, Minnesota, for Fannie’s first time this evening.
Unfortunately, my mom dropped Fannie’s leash as she was conversing with other pedestrians, causing Fannie to bolt approximately 100 feet along the man-made pond. Luckily, someone caught up with Fannie and stopped her from going any farther—avoiding a potentially dangerous situation with the water.
These four photos were taken between 5:56 and 6:15 p.m.
With sunny skies and a high of 73 degrees Fahrenheit, my mom and I made our way to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota, this morning. I took these 13 photos from 10:47 to 11:43 a.m.
For the most part, the Twin Cities hasn’t had snow this 2023–24 winter season. It’s by far a winter unlike any other I’ve experienced in Minnesota. Though I enjoyed the warmer days and better driving conditions, I was pleased to see bright snow outside my window when I got up this morning.
I took these seven photos today from 10:17 to 10:35 a.m. The National Weather Service’s forecast office for the Twin Cities is located next to my neighborhood in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
Today, my mom and I visited the Mall of America—the largest mall in the Western Hemisphere—in Bloomington, Minnesota, so I could take photos for my own archival purposes.
Tonight, I visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota, to see their Winter Lights walking tour that goes through the end of the month. I’ve never been to the Arboretum in the winter, much less seen their Winter Lights display (though I’m not sure if they’ve had it in previous years).
I took a bus in Chaska to get there, partly because the Arboretum was sold out of tickets for parking on-site. A SouthWest Transit employee at the park-and-ride facility in Chaska told me there would be 4,000 attendees tonight—with 3,000 people parking at the Arboretum and 1,000 people taking the bus.
As these photos illustrate, there is no snow on the ground. Furthermore, I recall only two days this fall and winter season when there was any measurable snow on the ground, and they were on October 30 and 31. Needless to say, there won’t be a white Christmas this year. In fact, the two main reasons I went to this event tonight was that it was warm (the high temperature in Chanhassen today was 47 degrees Fahrenheit) and that I wanted to document the brown Christmas, which happens much less frequently than a white Christmas in the Twin Cities. The high temperature for tomorrow (Christmas Eve) is 55 degrees Fahrenheit.