MBA "Up CLose" Weekend

I have been lacking in keeping up with what we have been up to. I have a few things to post about before I am totally caught up and this is one of them.  

The weekend of April 3rd, 4th, and 5th the MBA program had a weekend called "close up" that we attended.  We soon discovered that the purpose of this weekend was so schmooze and get those undecided students to officially accept admissions into the Carlson School of Management.  The weekend was AMAZING!  They put us up in a hotel for 2 nights and (non-alcoholic) wined and dined us. 

The weekend started off early Friday for Justin.  He went to a breakfast and some other informative things while I was at work.  Then he went on a tour of the General Mills headquarters. He really liked it and learned a lot of cool facts about General Mills.

- The Headquarters.

After the corporate visit they went to the campus for presentations on the program and tours and all that fun stuff.  I met up with Justin at the school for a nice catered dinner with some speakers and lots of handshaking and introductions.  The dinner was really good. I even ate some wild mushroom ravioli and didn't hate it (even though I hate mushrooms).

After dinner we went and checked into our awesome hotel.  We stayed at the Aloft- (pronounced A-Loft with a hard A, not as the word aloft as we thought).  The hotel was so cool.  It is very modern.  The lobby looked like some really cool lounge/bar and they had all these big screens and pool tables and a Wii and games everywhere like life sized jenga and this huge connect four board.  They put out tator tots and chips and salsa for everyone to munch on while they mingled.  It was pretty awesome.  

When we got into our room there was this big Carlson MBA tote full of goodies for us.  There were shirts. mugs, pens, candy, a business card holder, info on the cities and our favorite, coupons for free drinks at the bar in the lobby. 
 

Part of the lobby

(pics from the Aloft website)

The next day we went back to our house for a little bit to watch some of General Conference.  Then I had to go to work and there was a bus tour of the city that we were bummed to miss (we love tours...serisously we really do).  

When I got home we got all dolled up and went to the Mill City Museum.  The museum was once a thriving flour mill that exploded, was rebuilt and then when General Mills moved was inhabited by some homeless people that burned it down.  Minneapolis was once the milling district of the US.  We learned some really interesting things at the museum.  They also have a "flour tower" tour that takes you to the top of the tower and you can get out and look over the falls and the river and the city.  The event was after hours so we had the whole place to ourselves. Then we had a really nice dinner there.  It was seriously some of the best food I have ever had in my life.  Even after he was full Justin kept eating because the food was so good and he knew he was not going to eat like that for a long time. It was a great night!

Then it was back to the hotel for some more fun.  It was a GREAT weekend of great food, awesome hotels and events and meeting a lot of great people that Justin will be seeing a lot of in the years to come.