Welcome to our World

We had a marvelous, big adventure to my Aunt Hope's house in northern Wisconsin.  My mother and the six of us flew to Minneapolis and rented a 12 passenger van for the drive up after spending some time at the Mall of America.  She has a wonderful house on ten acres that is simply perfect for young children, especially our boy.  We felt so loved by our extended family and were treated like royalty and spoiled rotten.  It was great to rekindle family ties after not seeing each other for three years.  We visited the WWII museum Hope volunteers at, had a great Saturday on the beach of Lake Superior, saw waterfalls at a state park, completely understood why Duluth beat Provo as the best little city in America, and fell in love with lighthouses.  The children want to go back every summer!  As long as I can get some more pie and rhubarb, I'm in.  Well, that and if airplane tickets were cheaper.  (; We also found out th...

Grandpa and the 6 of us went bowling around K's birthday.  We had been busy cleaning the house when he mentioned if we got done early enough perhaps we could bowl.  He had been thinking of the Wii game, but my children thought about the real deal and I'm glad they did.  It was so such a good time! We impromptu made a trip down to Denver when we found out my old friend Nicole was in the state.  We ate lunch at Ikea & made it to the DMN&S to visit the new Discovery Zone.  Soon after we found out Nicole was engaged -- I'm glad she had warned me in person.  I used to be her babysitter, so I would have had to get all protective otherwise.  (: Due to a birthday party of church friend, AH, we swam at R pool for the first time.  It is a great little pool for great little children.  D says he wants to have his next birthday celebration there.  I'm down with that. Our big girl turned 7 years old!  She chose to have a bi...

We love where we live.  We've been having a great time this summer and are grateful for our wonderful neighbors.  Tragedy struck the neighborhood when one of our neighbors died of a heart attack, leaving a grieving wife & 2-year-old son.  It is so good to see how everyone is coming together to support them.  Although I hope to never need it, I know they would be there for me too.

We are so glad we live in such a lovely place.  This summer we went to our friends' pool, Michelle took Dancenastics, Kaelah took ballet, Danny was in gymnastics and continued taking karate.  With those classes came free passes to open gym, which we enjoyed going to the with B family. We bought an annual pass to the local children's museum since we were finding ourselves being near there for appointments often.  And once we were blessed to have some of our favorite people join us. We visited Michelle's future preschool.  This was the first preschool K had attended and it was lovely to be back.  Stacie had moved away so Danny never got a chance to attend, but M couldn't be happier to be around the rabbit, chickens, sheep, and raspberry plants.  I like to say if she can go visit a place like that frequently, I won't have to turn my own home into a zoo. The Rhythm on the River was great entertainment and free of charge.  Our oldes...