A Magnificent Time in Minneapolis

Last weekend we went to visit Andy, Marcie and Mason (Matt's brother and family). And we had an AWESOME time! We always do when we are with them. They are fantastic hosts! I wanted to blog about our wonderful time, and since a picture is worth a thousand words I thought I would slap up some cute photos and let them do the talking...mostly anyway. :)
The weather was fantastic so we spent lots of time outside playing!
One afternoon we went to a lake to swim. Alex was excited because he tried to flip off the edge of the dock. My heart stopped each time, but he was getting the hang of it....until the life guard put a stop to it. :) Josh and Zach LOVED watching the fish swim.

One morning we went bowling. It was Mason's first time! He almost beat me!
Mostly we were just silly together!
One morning we went to the tramps. Yup, we took our kids to the tramps. IT WAS AWESOME!! Trampolines EVERYWHERE! Even up the walls. Andy and I jumped too. Andy may have gotten stuck in the foam pit and I may have fallen on my face needing a glasses adjustment....but it was a sweaty good time!!





Aren't these the CUTEST kids ever?!?!? I just love these guys!

This May Be a LONG Post

I seem to have had blogger's block lately. It's not like I haven't had anything to write about, I just haven't been able to get what I want to write about to form into a worthy blog. Anyway, last weekend we went to Minneapolis to visit family and had a really fantastic time. So I think that instead of trying to write about it, I am going to try and let my pictures do most of the "talking."

The ride up was uneventful. Great day!

There must have been a ton of rain there lately because a lot of the roadsides looked like this:

Overall it was just a nice and normal car trip.

When we arrived at Andy, Marcie and Mason's house we had some steam to blow off. Ant in our pants if you will. So we played outside for a while.



It was fun. Mason is adorable. He loves his books-which, of course, I think is the bee's knees!

Matt and I brought up a 300 piece Star Wars puzzle for all of us to do. We thought it might be a fun activity that the boys would like. Yeah- tad bit harder that we thought. It took the four adults almost 3 hours to complete it.

And we are quite proud of it. We had fun!

The next day, Marcie got out a 100 piece puzzle. Much more manageable for the boys.

We hung out a while.

And then went out and about.

At one point during the trip some of us may have gotten a little crazy with the syrup...

But it was ALL GOOD!!!
Andy and Marcie live close to an arboretum so we decided to check that out as well.






It was a really wonderful trip! We love spending time with Andy, Marcie and Mason. They are wonderful hosts!! We can't wait to see them again!! OH! Last night Matt and I discovered a video that Alex made for Mason on our car trip home. It is pretty long but the video is mostly so Mason wouldn't forget him. He also sang Mason Elmo's World to make him happy.

On a side note, I didn't do 7 days this time either. Not only have I had blogger's block, but I seem to have this crazy creative block too. I think I have been really creative in my classroom- maybe I only have so much creativity in me and I am using it up there. Or maybe it's because my camera is dieing and it's making me mad to take pictures. Who knows?!? However, if I did do 7 days this would have been a great shot for it I think:

To end our wonderful trip, on our way home we stopped at The Mall of America. Ok so here is what I don't understand- we spent 4 hours there and I feel like I didn't really get to shop at all. I think I went to 3 stores! WHAT?!?! That just seems wrong if you ask me!!! I did get a really cute purse though. So I guess it wasn't a complete waste! :)

We did however may have accidentally terrorized our boys a bit by taking them to the Rainforest Cafe. At first they loved the atmosphere. The monkeys hanging from the ceiling, the cool fish, etc. But then the fake thunder and lightening came and they were no longer amused!

Lesson learned! :) Well this blog seemed to flow ok. Maybe this post will break the block! Fingers crossed!

Nephew Fun!!

This past weekend Andy (BIL), Marcie (SIL), and Mason (nephew) came into town to visit!! We always love seeing them and the time they are here seems to fly by way too fast!! The first evening they were here we went to Ronna and Larry's for a delicious dinner.

Then we all just hung out together.

Mason tried to keep up with the big boys.

It was a nice and relaxing evening.

The next morning we all went to the zoo.

Ronna, Marcie, Andy, Mason, Matt, Josh, Zach, Alex

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture. If you look at it closely, the bear between Andy and Matt looks like he is part of the family. Like he is posing along with the rest of us. Awesomeness!!

Andy, Alex, Mason, Marcie, Ronna

We saw all the normal stuff you would see at the zoo.

Mason, Josh, Zach, Alex

Fish, bears, tigers, monkeys, etc.

Josh and me-Katrina

It was a blast!!

Marcie, Andy and Mason....with a penguin behind them:

After the zoo, we headed over to PepperJax for lunch!! One of my favorite places to go!

After lunch Mason went down for his nap....and maybe some of the rest of us too. Then they all came over to our house for some slip n slide fun.

They all had so much fun!! You may notice that Josh isn't in any of these pictures. He was one of those that took a nap. So he was still sleeping.

We ordered sushi from Blue for dinner. Ronna and Larry had never had sushi before. They seemed to like it.

After dinner we chatted some more and hung out. The next day was the boy's 6 birthday party. I will blog about that next time as this blog is getting a little long. But seriously- don't I have the CUTEST nephew in the whole world?!?!?

Picture taken by Matt