Monday, July 30, 2018

Weekend at the Trailer

We spent last weekend up north at Grandma and Grandpa T's trailer.  We had so much fun and the weather was beautiful!  We drove up on Friday after the kids' swim lessons, and arrived just before dinner time.  The older two had fun staying up later than usual and getting to sit by the fire and roast jiffy pop for the first time!

On Saturday morning, while Daddy and Grandpa went fishing, we went to a festival in a nearby town that had tons of free inflatable jumpers, turtle races, free snow cones and more!  The kids had a blast jumping and sliding and really enjoyed participating in their first turtle race.  Summer and Colton each raced their own.  Larkyn decided to let Summer help her hold hers :).











After lunch we had a mini birthday celebration for Summer!  More pictures will be included in her birthday post :).

Summer loved her icecream cake and her bonus present (an attachable doll carrier for the back of her bicycle that looks like a mini version of one a real baby/toddler would use!  It's really cute!)


Both girls received cards and Claire's gift cards from Gee Gee Sandy.  They will have so much fun picking out something, thank you Gee Gee Sandy!


Then loaded up the tubes onto Grandpa's trailer and drove to the river.  I took this picture right by where we put in, then Grandpa and Daddy drove and dropped off the second vehicle to our ending point (along with the cell phone so it wouldn't get wet) so I didn't get any more pictures while we were actually floating.  When the boys got back, we all had a blast floating down the longest, best "lazy river" for two hours!  One highlight was picking cat tails (corn dogs!) along the river.  SO much fun!


We arrived back at the trailer for some delicious burgers and dogs, and a fun game of Skip-Bo.

On Sunday morning, we enjoyed some cuddle/book time.  Click here and scroll to the end of the video to hear Larkyn's belly laugh at Grandma's Curious George story!



After a late and delicious brunch of apple bread french toast, pancakes, bacon, and sausage, we went fishing on Grandpa's boat. Grandpa, Daddy, and I each took a kid to help bait/remove the fish while the kids reeled in over 50 sunnys! Each of the kids has come a long way in their fishing skills.  Larkyn loved getting her own leech out of the container and saying "its okay little leechy" as she carried it to its demise ;) .  She also learned when to reel without anyone needing to tell her and caught several fish all on her own!  Colton has grown in his skills of baiting his own hook with both worms and leeches, holding the fish, and can almost get the fish off his hook (it takes some muscle wrenching that hook out of the fish's mouth.  Summer did get a fish off the hook all by herself for the first time this trip, and was an old pro at holding and tossing her fish back in the water.  It was a perfect morning for fishing, and the kids set their own record of two hours of fishing going strong!








After fishing we went biking!  We brought along the kids bikes and Grandma and Grandpa brought an extra for me.  Paul rented one with a pull-behind for Larkyn.  We biked at Glendalough State Park and the wooded trail and weather were gorgeous!  Again, we didn't bring a phone along so the only pictures I have are in the parking lot, but its better than nothing!





After a late "Linner" (Lunch/Dinner) we headed for home.  The kids enjoyed watching the new-to-them Veggie Tale DVDs Grandma let them borrow so despite the traffic and hail, the ride was quite smooth in the backseat :).

Thank you for a fabulous weekend Grandma and Grandpa T!!!! We had so much fun, made fantastic memories, and love you so much!

Saturday, July 21, 2018

Random News


Colton loses teeth

Colton lost 3 teeth in three days.  Here is his new smile!





Visiting Daddy at Work

We took the lightrail to Minneapolis to have lunch with Daddy this week!


Loons Game

Yes, we love the MN Loon soccer team.  Daddy has connections and this past weekend we got to sit on the team bench during warm-ups.  Pretty cool :).





Kicking the ball with former player (current field reporter) Jamie Watson.

I sure do love hanging out with these three all summer long <3 h2="">



Saturday, July 14, 2018

Mission Trip

I am a middle school youth leader at our church, and I LOVE my middle school girls so much!  This past week, our youth group went on our summer mission trip to Rochester, MN.  We stayed at Camp Victory, and bussed to Oak Terrace, a trailer park, to put on VBS for the kids there.  Although it was hot, it was a fantastic week.  Here are some pictures:

Our group on the last day

Shayley and I spent a lot of time together this week

Nyah was my other buddy!

We found patches of sand around the parking lot and made sandcastles with cups!

One rainy day we stacked cups...

and made a giant tower!

Each day we had song time and chapel time as a large group, and devotional time with smaller age divided groups.

We were all so grateful for the community pool at the trailer park as it was soooo hot!  We spent a good chunk each day swimming with the kids!
One day we blew up a giant slide in the parking lot
We played a lot of GaGa ball, chalk, parachute, bean bags and more.
We left Oak Terrace (trailer park) around 3:15 each day and headed back to camp victory where we packed lunches for us/kids for the next day, and then got to do a camp activity with our youth group before dinner, like tubing....

and high ropes course (jumping off a tall pole to catch and hang on a trapeze)

After 6pm dinner our youth group especially enjoyed playing 9 square!


Evenings included chapel at the camp, and debrief time, as well as hang out time where we made lots of friendship bracelets, skidded on mattresses, and had great chat time.



Here the girls were attempting to teach me some dance moves (haha!) before we posed for a picture.  Lots of laughs ;).


Summer slipped this in my suitcase, and I was so grateful for the kids' sweet prayers every night for the girls that I told them about!  (The girls and I made matching headbands before I left and so we matched all week, even from afar, which is what the last part of the note was about :))

I was sooooo excited to get home and hug MY amazing three kiddos!

Meanwhile....

Grandma T came to stay with us for the week, and did an amazing job holding down the fort with our three kids during the day while Daddy was at work. She brought fun playdough tools and new games/puzzles and also took them all sorts of fun places including the zoo, children's museum, splash pad, and aquarium, and the school summer readers' club and helped take care of the excitement of Summer being allergic to a new type of sunscreen and breaking out in a rash from head to toe and cleaning up the bloody mess of Larkyn who randomly fell out of bed and smashed her face while sleeping.  Good thing she is a nurse, haha!  Grandpa T joined the crew on Thursday for more fun, and we celebrated Larkyn's 4th birthday too!  (If you haven't checked, I added pictures to the last post, Larkyn turns FOUR).  (They also did a bit of an early birthday surprise for Summer, but I'll share about that in Summer's birthday post!) Here are some pictures:

























Thank you Grandma and Grandpa T for making our kiddos' week fantastic and for being such servants!  Love you!!!