Summer Fun

We had a great 4th of July. It was a long day, but a fun filled day. We started with our ward breakfast at 9:30 a.m. The boys played baseball with all the other kids and I had a good visit with friends.
Then we headed to get our friends Harry, Gricelda, and Abby for the parade. We stopped at Subway to get lunch and then found our favorite place for the parade. We have found a place where no one sits so our kids are able to get tons of candy because no one else is around. The boys love the parade every year and Andrew and Jacob liked showing Abby what to do at the parade.


After the parade we went over to Harry's house for a bbq. We had hamburgers, hotdogs and brats. It was nice to let the kids run around while we visited. The Chaska City fireworks are done over a lake that is close to Harry's house, so we were able to sit in their front yard and watch the fireworks. The boys thought they were great. We also bought sparklers for the boys. As Jacob was putting the sparkler on the grass and on his shoe I wondered why do we give a stick with fire on it to a 3 year old. What were we thinking!!


Friday night our neighbors invited us over for a bbq also. The boys loved making smores in the backyard. We are so grateful to have wonderful neighbors who take care of us out here in MN.


Out here in Minnesota the Lutheran church is really big. There is a Lutheran elementary school here that puts on a lot of community events that are free. In June I took the boys to the summer event. They had free lunch and lots of games for the kids. I'm always amazed at what fun things they do for the community and it is all FREE.

DUNK TANK

PING PONG TOSS

THE BOYS FAVORITE GAME

HORSE RIDES


HIT THE GOLF BALL IN THE CHURCH

SWEET DANNY

ZACK, BEN, ANDREW, & JACOB. These are the neighbors that the boys play with every day.

Bath Time

Last night I was giving Danny a bath and Jacob needed a bath. Once Jacob got in, Andrew thought he needed a bath too. With all three boys in the tub I had to get a picture. Danny didn't last for long with Jacob squirting him, but for a moment they were really cute.

Trip to North Shore

Last week Doug and I took a trip up to the North Shore of Lake Superior. My mom flew out from Utah and watched the boys so Doug and I could get away for a couple of days. This was the first time we have left all the boys over night and we actually left them for 4 nights. (Thanks Mom!)

Sunday after church we drove up to a town called Tofte. We stayed in the Blue Fin Resort for three night. Our room had a GREAT view of Lake Superior. I loved waking up in the morning and watching the waves crash against the rock. I sat and had hot chocolate every morning and watched the water. It was so relaxing!

Sunday night we walked along the shore. You can see the resort in the distance.


Monday we first did the Oberg loop hike. It was about 2.25 miles. It was a really pretty hike with views of Lake Superior on one side, and other small ponds on the other side.


Then we drove up to Lutsen Mountain ski resort and did a gondola ride. Once we got to the top of the mountain we didn’t stay long because it was SO cold. We rode the gondola back down the mountain and decided it was time to find some hot chocolate at a gas station to warm us up.

View from the gondola.

The next stop was the Cascade Falls. This was my FAVORITE thing we saw. They were so beautiful. I could have sat and watched the water rush by all day. It was so peaceful watching the water move through the rocks and drinking hot chocolate.



Our last stop for the day was the biggest waterfall in Minnesota called High Falls. The river that forms the waterfall is actually in Canada. The river is the border of Minnesota and Canada.

Tuesday
Our first stop for the day was the cascades on Temperance River. They were amazing. I love how the rock formations with the water rushing by are so beautiful!!


Second stop was the falls on Baptism River in Tettgouche State Park. This hike ended up being A LOT longer than we had planned. We thought (or I kept trying to convince Doug) that there would be a bridge that would cross the river and take us back to the parking lot. I was wrong so we had to hike back down the mountain to the road and cross the river. Then we had to hike back up the other side to the parking lot. I was SO happy to see our car when we finally got to it.

Third stop was Gooseberry Falls State Park. This is the main sight to see along the north shore. It was very pretty, but I think we did the sights in a very anticlimactic order. We should have started with Gooseberry falls and ended with the biggest waterfall.


Wednesday
Today Doug wanted to do some “real” hiking. He didn’t want the hiking path paved. He wanted to hike through the forest and not see a lot of other tourist…Well he got what he wanted. We went to George Manitou State Park and found a hike Doug wanted to do. We had a map with all the paths on them. In March there was an ice storm so there were trees down EVERYWHERE. It was very hard to see the path with all the tree down. When we were getting to the end of our hike we lost our path and got very turned around and lost. We hiked for a while up hills hoping to be able to see the lake we had passed earlier, but were unable to find the lake. Finally we found another hiking trail that was marked so we could figure out where we were. We made it back to our car and I was very happy. We headed to Duluth for the night and then headed home in the morning.



We had a great time and can’t wait to go again and take the boys. Anyone who would like to come and visit, we would love to take you to this beautiful part of the world.

Busy Saturday

This past Saturday we worked around the house and accomplished so much I had to show all that we did.
After living in this house for almost 2 years, we decided to finally paint our bedrooms. This is Andrew and Jacobs room. It was fun to paint it a bright blue and tan. Then we put the green wood around the middle of the room. I love how it looks and I'm excited to make curtains and bedspreads to match.

We bought this car when we were living in Arizona where EVERYONE tints their windows and it is always a lot darker than it should be, but the cops don't really do anything about it. Here in Minnesota that is different. Doug has been pulled over twice in the last couple of months for having to dark of tint on our car. The last time he got pulled over he was given a warning, but given a piece of paper he has to get signed by a cop that he removed the tint. After calling around and finding out it was very pricey, Doug looked on the Internet to find out how we could do it ourselves. He bought a steamer and it only took about 2 hours to remove it.

Here is Jacob sitting in time-out for peeing down the driveway. I was in the garage painting the trim for the boys bedroom when Andrew came in and said, Mom Jacob just peed down the driveway. I thought yea right, but Jacob said yep I sure did. He was sitting here for awhile.

In the afternoon while we were waiting for paint to dry, we played soccer. The boys love to play with their Dad in the backyard soccer.

Danny even played with the big boys.

We also went for a walk because it was a beautiful day here in Minnesota.

The last couple of weeks we have been working on our bedroom. It has been a deep red for the last 2 years. I'm sooo glad to have that gone and have all the walls tan except the wall our bed is on. I painted it dark chocolate brown stripes. I still have some decorating to do on the walls, but I love not having red on every wall in my bedroom.

Danny is crawling everywhere and loves to be able to sit and play with toys.


Today is was fun to see all 3 boys playing batman, although Andrew and Jacob aren't too sure about Danny joining in the fun.