Minnesota Vikings Winterfest 2017

Minnesota Vikings Winterfest 2017

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for February 19, 2017

This weekend, the Minnesota Vikings came to town as part of their winterfest celebration.  This was their first year doing it in Prior Lake, but we were glad they did and participated in several of the events.  This is Captain Munnerlyn who is a cornerback for the Vikings and attended a lot of the festivities.  He was around so much I heard people start referring to him as the Mayor of Prior Lake!

We also met some Vikings legends including Doug Sutherland who was a member of the Vikings Purple People Eaters and went to several Super Bowls with the team.

I also had the good fortune to see an old friend while Miss Sheri and I were out and about on the town.  Holly Krieger and I went to elementary school together and it's been about 30 years since I've last seen her!  Coincidentally enough, we now live only a few miles away from each other.  It's such a small world!

On Friday night, we connected with our good friends, Troy and Rhonda Brown for the next night of Vikings Activities.  A Hairball Concert at Mystic Lake Casino!

First, we had to eat, though.  So we tried out a restaurant called Triggers at the Prior Lake Horse & Hunt Club.  Whoever shot my steak did a pretty good job!

We also saw our friends, Jen and Dan Walters, at the concert.  They looked like they were Ready to Rock!

Several of the Vikings came out before the show started to say hi to the audience and remind us we were there as part of the Vikings Winterfest.

I had never seen Hairball perform before, but what a great band!  It was like a nostalgia ride through my favorite hair bands of the eighties including Van Halen!

I really liked when they played KISS songs including Detroit Rock City!!

Guns n Roses was fun.  Oh Sweet Child O Mine!

Alice Cooper reminded us that school was not only out for the summer.  It was out forever.

Ozzie Barked at the Moon, but I didn't see him bite any heads off bats like he used to do back in the old days.  Must be getting too rough on his stomach.

AC DC was there to remind us who the real Iron Man was and still is!

Freddie Mercury ended the show and told us a sad story about the time he killed a man.  He put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger, and now he's dead.  I'm sure that made his mama pretty sad also.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and headed to the VFW for breakfast.  I kind of forgot it was still Vikings Winterfest until I realized that it was none other than Vikings Running Back, CJ Ham, making my pancakes.  I'm sure he doesn't do this kind of thing on a normal Saturday morning.

Vikings fullback, Zach Line, was also there doing some kind of kitchen chores but was still nice enough to stop and have a chat with me.

Former Vikings star, Carl Lee, was working at the beverage stand and gave me an orange juice.  I thought that was pretty nice of him.

We had a very pleasant chat with Vikings Cheerleaders, Jordan and Nao.  Jordan told us she loved all the outreach opportunities she gets to have as a Vikings Cheerleader.  I told her she's going to be a good mom some day.  Then we all shed a couple of tears together and went our separate ways.  True story.

We saved the best event of the Vikings Winterfest for last.  The Minnesota Polar Plunge which was being done to support the Special Olympics.  Ted Fristed has asked me to do it the past couple of years since we are on the Prior Lake Robotics booster club together and this year I said "Let's Do It!"

Fox 9 weatherman, Ian Leonard, was the Polar Plunge Ambassador and welcomed us to the event.

We also bumped into my favorite Scott County Commissioner, Tom Wolf.  He was there as a volunteer, but I'm thinking next year we'll get him to join us for the plunge.  

When I saw the size of the hole, I became a little intimidated.  They told me it was about 6 feet deep where we were jumping in and I was a little surprised to see how far we had to swim before we could get out of the water.  But we lucked out with some unseasonable warm weather.  55 degrees in Minnesota in February is practically unheard of so that was good!

As usual, Miss Sheri was in my corner ready to support Ted and I and to be our official photographer for the event!  Notice that cute Vikings scarf she was wearing courtesy of Captain Munnerlyn.

Jen and Dan Walters were also there to cheer us on.  We're definitely getting them to jump with us next time!

The crowds started arriving and we knew it was getting close to time to freeze our rear-ends!

Our Plunge Ambassador kicked off the event and we were ready to go!

There were a lot of crazy people jumping in the water!!

I have to be honest.  It was much colder than I was expecting.  In this moment, I had just lifted my head out of the water and for a split second I looked at the rescue workers in the water and thought I was going to need them.  I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to control my muscles, but somehow they kicked in and started working.  I probably swam as fast as I ever have before in my life because I had such a strong desire to get out of that water!!

Here's the video of my plunge with Ted:

Minneapolis RV Show 2017

Minneapolis RV Show 2017

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for February 12, 2017

On Saturday, we headed into downtown Minneapolis to the convention center for the 2017 RV show.  It's the largest collection of RVs in the 5 state area.

We went to the show with our good friends, the Zitzewitz Family.  They like climbing in and out of a bunch of RVs just as much as we do!

Miss Sheri and I plan on purchasing an RV when we get closer to retiring age.  She loves driving the big rigs.  But first we have some boys to get through college before we can spend money on something silly like this.

I love messing with the salesmen.  I sit in the bathroom like this until one of them sees me.  Then I smile and run out of there.

After the show, we ate dinner at Don Pablos.  It's really good Mexican food and we filled the table with a bunch of it.

On Sunday morning, we headed back to Minneapolis to the Academy of Holy Angels for the state table tennis tournament.

Holy Angels is the high school where Arizona Cardinals star receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, went to high school.  I also have friends who's kids attend this school, but this was my first chance for a visit.

There were high school table tennis teams from all over the state of Minnesota at the event and quite a few of them looked pretty tough!

This was Luke and Avery's first year joining the Prior Lake High School table tennis team.  They had quite a bit of fun with it.

Unfortunately for the Prior Lake team, they drew Moundsview in the first round and they have won the state championship each of the past two years.  Needless to say, our boys' first rounds were pretty tough matches.  But they still looked like they were having fun.

Luke had some good runs against his opponent and only lost his first match by a score of 8-11.  We didn't stick around for the whole tournament so we're hoping they each had better luck in their later matches.

Today is Miss Sheri and I's 23rd wedding anniversary and we celebrated it by going out to breakfast.  Because that's the kind of thing you do when you've been married for 23 years.

Support The Special Olympics By Sponsoring Todd Swank In The Prior Lake Polar Plunge!

Todd Swank will be jumping in a freezing cold lake to help support the Special Olympics and would appreciate your donations to support this great cause!

Here's details:

Every Plunge makes a difference for more than 8,100 Special Olympics Minnesota athletes. Special Olympics Minnesota offers children and adults with intellectual disabilities year-round sports training and competition. Through Special Olympics’ athletic, health and leadership programs, people with intellectual disabilities transform themselves, their communities and the world. Funds raised through the Polar Plunge help to support programs such as Young Athletes, Unified Sports, Healthy Athletes and Athlete Leadership Programs, to name a few. Learn more about Special Olympics Minnesota and our amazing athletes at specialolympicsminnesota.org.

Donate Here

Ice Fishing in Spring Lake, Minnesota

Ice Fishing in Spring Lake, Minnesota

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for February 6, 2016

On Friday night, our good friends the Zitzewitz Family and Troy Brown came over for a hot tub party and some snacks.  Not necessarily in that order.

On Saturday, we ventured out on to Spring Lake to do some ice fishing.  I always get nervous driving on the ice no matter how many trucks I see out in front of us or how thick they tell me the ice is.  Just the thought of being in a vehicle that suddenly fell through the ice into freezing cold water is enough to give me pause.  But we put our irrational fears behind us and charged forward.

Our good friend Dan Walters has access to a friend's cabin, so we asked him if we could tag along with him some time and he was happy to oblige.  I didn't get a chance to ask him what was the significance of a green door on an ice house was, but I'm sure it means something pretty crazy.

It was nice and cozy inside the ice house thanks to the handy stove on the wall.  We took off our coats and settled in to catch some monsters.

I kept looking down the holes to catch a glimpse of some of the monsters as they swam by, but I didn't see any.  It was kind of fun seeing the minnows we were using for bait swim by the holes from time to time, though.

Turns out we didn't have much luck catching monsters, although this perch put up quite the fight as we strained to pull him out of the hole.

After awhile, I found myself wandering around outside to see if anyone else was having any luck.  I couldn't hear any screams of delight from this distance so I assumed every was having a slow day.

We did spot a couple of bald eagles sitting on a nearby tree which was really cool.  I love watching bald eagles.  I wish we had caught more fish so I could have offered them some of our catch.

I went home for awhile and felt guilty that the dogs didn't get to join us ice fishing so I took them for a walk on Prior Lake.  They seemed to like that.

Jen and Dan came to pick us up again later in the evening so we could take Luke ice fishing.  He had never done it before and wanted to give it a shot.

He didn't catch anything, but I thought he held his pole real well.

Sheri also did a good job with the pole, but again No fish.  It turns out the Swank Family isn't very good at ice fishing, but we still had a bunch of fun doing it.

We brought along our new 360Fly 4K video camera. Since it's water proof, I asked Dan to stick it down in the ice hole to discover what we'd see. I thought the results were pretty cool. Even after Dan had a cramp and dropped my new camera!