July Activity

In July we celebrated the 4th by going to the St. Peter parade followed by having the Crowley's and Gleisner's over for pizza and then later in the evening going to Gracks and then finally the fireworks at the fairgrounds.  It was a fun filled Fourth!  Emily continued Golf League and is having a lot of fun golfing once a week.  Caitlin and Emily both started going to Tennis captains practice.  Rachel and Natalie had a few small camps they went to.  Emily went to CMW for a week and had a blast meeting new friends.  Brian and I celebrated our 17th anniversary.  We did a lot more landscaping or shall I say, Brian did a lot of moving dirt around.  The girls continued going to the library and pool.  They also had a lemonade stand before we lost all our grass in the front yard and also made homemade cupcakes and frosting-in preparation of their dream one day to own their own bakery.  We also took the girls to the greatest place on earth, The Big Yellow Barn Candy Store in Jordan MN after we spent some time at the MN Arboretum checking out all the Lego creations.  My sister and I went to an outdoor Christian rock concert on one of the hottest days of the summer and Brian and Caitlin attended the Steubenville Youth conference at St. Thomas.  And to end the month on a high note we took the girls to the circus that came to St. Peter!  What a fun filled month!

June Activity

In June, after getting back from vacation, Natalie and Rachel had swimming lessons, Emily started Junior Golf League and we started our big landscaping project.  Rachel contined with her summer soccer.  We6 also signed up for the summer reading program at the library and visit our former JI secretary, Brenda, who we will miss this next school year.  Brian and I also participated in our churches annual golf fundraiser.  The girls and I had fun on occasion while Brian was slaving away at work.  The girls visited the swimming pool on a daily basis.  Oh and we shared some news :)

Summer's beginning-road trip to Alabama!

We decided that this years beginning of summer family vacation would take us to a beach.  North Carolina and the Atlantic or Florida and the Gulf.  Well neither won out but we decided Florida was too overrated and the Salfer's would head to Alabama instead!  Gulf Shores, Alabama, where the sand is white and the water Emerald green and just a tad bit cheaper than taking the girls to Mexico or Florida!  We have always found a house to rent but this time we would be looking at a high rise condo right on the beach.  Honestly I didn't think I would like not having privacy but surprisingly we did and we all loved it!  Our condo was on the 16th floor, corner unit overlooking the Gulf with a wrap around balcony.  3 bedrooms 3 baths, plenty of room for us all to stretch our sort legs and not irritate each other too bad.  We saved some money by cooking almost every meal at our condo and saving eating out to all the various ice cream shops in the area.  Gulf Shores is a beautiful little place with plenty of activity for everyone.  We spent 90% of our time there on the beach.  The kids loved playing in the ocean, digging for shells and periwinkles, making sand creations and just chilling.  Lauren traveled awesome!  I was worried it would be a nighmare with her and 20+ hours of driving, but with a few stops and driving thru the night while they slept it worked out perfectly.  It didn't even take Brian and I that long to recover from the little sleep we had.  A couple places we checked out was a go cart race/mini golf place that we all had fun at.  The go carts were the highlight and mini-golf...well we just wanted to get thru the course as fast as possible...too time consuming for little ones who don't grasp the concept or want to wait until everyone is thru before starting the next hole.  We went into Mobile, AL to see the Battleship Alabama on a rainy morning.  It was neat to see but got a little long for us girls...Brian probably could've spent all day there!  We also drove to Pensacola FL, to knock off another state and to see the Blue Angels at the Naval Aviation museum and also get aboard a Dolphin cruise.  The Blue Angels usually fly over where we were staying in Gulf Shores but the two days they do it, it was raining during that time.  Not a big deal for us it was neat to see all the airplanes at the museum.  The Dolphin cruise was a hit!  We were able to see quite a few swimming right along side of our boat.  Its so tempting to want to jump in and swim with them!  On our way back to Saint Peter we stopped in St. Louis for a few hours and toured the museum at the court house and took a ride up the arch to the top.  The trip home was just as good as the trip down to Alabama, and thankful we didn't have any bumps along the way.  It was a fantastic trip for all of us!

digging for periwinkles

the cutest litte ice cream shop we went to

At the Battleship Alabama

The favorite place to be....the ocean!

our condo-Crystal Shores West (we highly recommend)

A highlight each night was crabbing...these little buggers are fast!

proof i was on the vacation as well. ;)

Naval Museum

Dolphin Cruise

Natalie and my sand creation

waiting in line at the Arch

"beam us up Scotty!"

garage progress

The big garage is finally done (on the outside)!  The stucco guys finished up and it looks awesome.  The old garage was demo'd and we only had one trip to the ER when Brian tried to cut his toe off.  Lucky for him the concrete saw didn't get his tendon!  The playset was moved this past weekend and our friend Mike graded the yard and we're getting a few more landscaping things done before the sod arrives.(hopefully end of next week)  The transformation is amazing and is going faster than past projects here at the Salfer residence.  The girls have been helping with only minor complaining.  They have had to learn to work as a team and that we can't have 4 project managers!  

Middle School is so over...

This is a little strange to think that Caitlin is officially a FRESHMAN, an actual name not number!!!  8th grade is a thing of the past and now we're on to thinking about driving permits and varsity sports!  No way!!!!!!!!  Maybe its because we have a two year old at home I don't think Caitlin is actually as old as she is!  Well anyway, it was another great year for this young lady and managed to pull off straight A's every quarter!  She had fun in Tennis and played Doubles, enjoyed being in the quirky middle school play Andromeda and had a successful track season, getting to participate in a few varsity meets.  She also joined band again and really liked it.  Next year will bring more challenges I presume and she will most likely tackle them head on.  She has a great group of friends and seems to have her head screwed on straight.  Looking forward to what high school brings!