Nicollet Co Fair

I'm not really a fair lover so when it came time for the county fair it didn't excite me and I thought maybe it would go unnoticed, but it didn't. Oh well. Brian and our friend Jeff went to the demo-derby while Jeff's wife, Sharon, the girls and I went to all the barns looking at the animals and petting some. This was Natalie's first up-close and personal experience with animals and it was quite funny. Her expressions cracked us all up! After the barns we got ice cream cones and after that we got cheese curds. (Sharon's pregnant, hence the food choices) We took cover in one of the tents where, Michael, a very talented musician that we know was playing. Two downpours came while we were listening to him and people were scrambling out of the demo-derby just drenched. Brian and Jeff being two of them! The night ended with Rachel slipping off the picnic table and scrapping off the first layer of her skin (a 4 inch scrape) and crying very hard-almost a scream. Luckily most people didn't notice because the music was loud enough to drown her out. It was a good night and thank goodness it'll be another year before the next one. :)

Park Point Beach

Lutsen

Gondola riding Girls

Scenic Overlook

Rachel and Mommy

Caitlin out in front with Brian and Rachel catching up quickly

Emily rounding the last curve

Gooseberry Falls

Canal Park-Beach

Mystery Vacation

Brian and I planned a little weekend away, not by ourselves but with the whole crew. It was to be an adventure and it was! It all starts Friday with Caitlin, Emily and I along with our friend Mary and her two kids going to the Mall of America to celebrate Caitlin and Kylie's academic all-star acheivment. The kids rode rides from 11am to 10:30pm. They had so much fun and Mary and I were able to visit without any interruptions. It was great! Brian, Natalie and Rachel along with Tony, Mary's husband joined us later in the evening for the ceremony. What the kids didn't know was that before we left that morning I secretly packed a suitcase for them for a trip to Duluth and the North Shore. They had no clue! I was frantically packing all that I could and hoping I wasn't leaving Brian with too much else to pack before he joined us. So, after MOA we left for "up north". The girls all fell asleep with was nice and we got to our first hotel in Moose Lake, 2 hrs away. So we get there at 12:30 in the morning! Brian and I looked at each other and wondered how we were going to get the girls in the room without waking them, mind you there is 4 of them and only 2 of us! We decided to wake Em and Caitlin and carry in Nat and Rachel. All worked out just fine. Natalie was the only one who decided to stay awake and play, the others fell right back to sleep. At 2am Natalie finally decided to go back to sleep. Saturday morning the girls woke up and realized we were at a hotel and of course wondered if there was a pool. And there was. So they went swimming and had a great time. Ok..time to continue on the adventure. As we are in the van Caitlin asks where we are going and I hand her and Emily a map and tell them we are going North and we are in Moose Lake. See what you can find. Emily all of sudden perks up and says "duluth is north of here!!!! Do we get to go to Duluth??!!!!!" We all love Duluth! So they figured out the first part of our adventure. While in Duluth on Saturday we went to Canal Park and watched the bridge and boats, climbed some rocks and then spent a few hours on the beach before heading to Grandma's for a nice sit down dinner. Sunday we woke up, went to church only to find a couple from St. Peter there who were visiting family! What a nice surprise for us! After church we started traveling north again to Gooseberry Falls, another family favorite! We spent all afternoon there before heading to our next hotel in Silver Bay. Once there the girls remembered the waterslide and wanted to go swim immediately. At the hotel they had a Mile challenge, go down the waterslide 48 times and you would have gone a mile. So the girls of course went for that and made it. Got their picture taken and on the wall with the other champions. Monday, we woke up and traveled north again, this time taking us all the way to Lutsen. There we rode the Alpine Slide and the Gondola up to the highest peak and had lunch at the top. The girls were super excited! After a few hours there, we headed back down to Duluth. Everyone slept on the way-Yeah!! Once there we decided to go to Park Point which is over the lift bridge and has great beach shoreline. We spent a couple hours there playing in the sand, finding cool rocks, swimming and just having fun. After all that fun we were ready to get back to St. Peter so Tuesday morning after another breakfast of waffles (nice complimentary hotel breakfasts) we headed back home. It was a nice relaxing, adventurous mini vacation.

Happy Belated Anniversary Bob & Laura

Hey guys! Hope you had a great anniversary and went out and celebrated!