A Trip Up North.

The kids and I headed back for a long trip to Cloquet for the weekend.  My cousin Amy had a bridal shower on Saturday.  I love this shot of the girls at the shower.  Kadence was so excited to see cousin Annabelle, it was adorable.

Congrats Amy and Mike, we are so happy for you!!

Sunday we all headed to Lake Superior and took a ride on Debbie and Randy's (Curt's parents) new houseboat.  It is a very nice boat and the kids had a blast cruising around and mostly climbing up and down the ladder to the very top of the boat.  It was a gorgeous day and very fun to be outside enjoying the weather and spending time with family!

These four munchkins have so much fun together!  I just wish they could see each other more often.  It is almost impossible to get a picture of the four of them all looking but it is always cute anyhow.

What  a great time!  We headed back here Monday and the weekend went by too fast like always.  The summer months always go by too quickly as well!

Riding My Bicycle.

Landon learned to ride his bike today!  He has not had much interest in bike riding for the past 2 years. He is still pretty unsure of the whole idea.  For some reason, today he took off and actually pedaled all on his own down the street and back!  We were so proud of him!  I think now that he has the hang of it we will try to get him to practice it more often.  I am sure he will just take off.  So fun!

It's a...

Baby!  We had our 20 week ultrasound and decided not to find out the sex of our baby.  We didn't find out with the first two and enjoyed one of life's true surprises both times!  I can not believe we are already half way to the end of this pregnancy!  The first few months were very tough and seemed like they lasted forever!  This past month has been very good overall and is going much faster.  Baby Strasburg didn't cooperate as well as the ultrasound tech (and mommy) would have liked, so I will need another ultrasound at my next check up.  Everything that they could see looked normal, but she was unable to get all the views of the heart that she needed for their "protocol."  Now to most this would be no big deal.  I, on the other hand, hate ultrasounds!  For whatever reason, I have extreme anxiety about my ultrasounds and they are not enjoyable for me.  Oh well, this could very well be the last one I ever have, so when I look at it that way it should be reason for celebration!  Baby's heart rate was 151 and he or she weighs about 10 ounces.  I have another active one that moves very frequently!  Both the kids came to the ultrasound with us so that they could see their new brother or sister on the TV.  I don't think either of them really understood what was going on, but Landon stayed interested pretty much the whole time and Kadence for about the first 2 minutes.

Baby is growing, mommy is growing.  I have started to get quite the bump-much to my dismay.  I think I am showing quite a bit more and earlier for sure than the last two pregnancies.  The problem is, to most I still don't look pregnant, just like I have let myself go over the past few weeks!  

Weekend Getaway!

Ryan and I were able to take a little anniversary weekend get away over the weekend.  We dropped the kids off with Gary and Sue and headed to the cities.  Our main attraction was our first Twins game at Target Field.  We had been very excited for this game for months now!  The game was Friday night so we pretty much arrived to the cities and headed over to the field to check it out.  We were literally there for over 6 hours-a long time!

Some goofy photos we took outside the stadium.

This is the view from our seats.  They were good seats, but unfortunately just under the overhang so it was pretty warm without much of a breeze.  The neat thing about the stadium is that there are a ton of places to stop and watch the game and we spent a lot of the game checking out the view.  And, of course a Twins game wouldn't be a Twins game without a picture of Joe Mauer.  I was very disappointed that my longtime favorite (and secret boyfriend) Justin Morneau was not playing this game and not even visible in the dugout!

A view from one of our stops in the outfield.

I absolutely loved the stadium once it turned dark.  It was so neat!  They played the White Sox and won!  It was a very good game!  Perhaps next time I will be able to enjoy a beer while watching the outdoor baseball!

On Saturday (after sleeping in...what's that?), we headed to my cousin Amy and her fiance's new house. We spent the evening with them and had a great time!

We had some much needed adult time but missed our little munchkins like crazy.  Fortunately, I don't think they were missing us very much!  They were fully entertained and loving life at the farm getting spoiled by grandma and papa!  We headed back to Sioux Falls for my 2 night shifts and the kids came home Tuesday, it was so good to see them!  I guess I don't really enjoy a clean house and the peace and quiet, I'd much rather have the kids here!

Happy Anniversary Ryan!

Happy Anniversary Ry!  I love you more than anything and look forward to the years to come! 

COLOSSIANS 3:12-14

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8aLove is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.

Pretty Girl

I have been enjoying my little baby girl quite a bit lately.  I have realized that she won't be my baby for much longer and it makes me kind of sad.  But on the upside, I think she is going to make an extremely helpful and wonderful big sister (after the initial jealously wears off).  She just talks so much and is starting to tell stories which is pretty hilarious.  She has a way of saying a few words that I just love, she says pool-yo and school-yo.  I am not quite sure why she adds the yo to the end of the words, but it is adorable.  The funny thing is that these happen to be words that we use a TON right now.  Love it.  There is nothing better than her big bright smile which lights up my world!

Good Friends, Good Times.

Rachael and Andrew and their kids Emma, Macy, and Reese came to town over the weekend and we had so much fun with them!  They used to be our very close neighbors as they lived on the other half of our twin home.  We shared so much more than an inside wall with all of them.  Our kids were so excited to see their friends and had an absolute blast playing with them!  We stayed out at the Ramada hotel here in town with them so we could hang out at the water park and enjoy some adult time once the kids were in bed.

This water park was just perfect for our kids' ages and they all had an absolute blast!  We definitely spent a lot of time in the water!

Landon going down one of the slides.  He has been kind of shy around other kids lately, but you wouldn't know it if you saw him and Emma.  They played together just like they had been doing in every day like they used to.

Another one of the slides where we spent most of our time.  Emma, Macy, and Landon getting ready to slide down.  Reese who is 17 months would crawl out of the pool and head up the stairs and come down the slide all by himself!  He is such a little daredevil and adorable as well!

The four older kids spent a great deal of time swimming around in the water that was just the right depth for them!

Kadence having fun!

The BIG slide!  This was the favorite of Andrew and Ryan.  They took the kids on it with them but were truly just doing it for themselves!  This one was Landon's favorite, he has been talking about it since we came home.

Ryan and Landon after one of many rides on the BIG slide.

Our kiddos actually slept pretty well which is always a good thing.  After they went to bed we hung out right outside our room with Rachael and Andrew, had some beers (ok I had a Diet Pepsi), and some great conversation (aside from the Anesthesia talk).  It was hard to believe that we have not seen them for almost a year.  When we got back together it felt like we had never been apart-only all of our children  had grown up a TON.  It was such a short time together but it was so great to see all of them.  It did make us a little sad when we came back to our house and reminisced how nice it was to have them living right next door to us.

Well, it is crazy to think that our "someday" (the end of anesthesia school) is getting closer and closer.  Which means we are one step closer to our yearly tropical vacation!

Thanks for a great weekend, Carlson's!

The fourth.

We headed back to Ryan's parents house for the holiday weekend.  Everyone but Kristy (who we missed a
TON) was there by Friday evening.  Thursday night we headed out to feed the cows some "cake" and Arin got some really neat pictures.  The kids all had a blast and it was really neat!

Kadence was even pretty brave until one of the cows got a little too close to her ponytail.

Jessie and Aunty posing.

Love this picture of Landon and Ryan-they look so much alike!

We spent most of the next 3 days at the lake.  The kids had an absolute blast with all the fun stuff to do and all the family to entertain them.

Landon had fun on a couple tube rides.

Kadence loved playing along the beach with the sand toys.

The kids spent a TON of time playing with Grandma and Grandpa.

Papa's hat was definitely the hot commodity.

We spent some time swimming in the lake with the kids.  Landon didn't like to get too deep because that is where the sharks are.

A lot of time was spent playing king of the mountain on the tube!

Just hanging out!

Jessie posing for a picture.

We played a ton of bean bag games.  Sometimes it took longer to figure out the scoring than actually tossing the bags...

Love this picture of Kadence sleeping.  She was so tired.

These are just a few of all the great pictures I had to choose from.  We had such a great weekend.  Our kids are still trying to recover from the exhaustion!

Hooray for July!

The day is finally here...the day we finally go to Grandma's house.  It has been a long 4 days for the kids this week as they are both excited to go to Grandma's and Grandpa's house/lake this weekend.  Time is a very hard concept for a 2 and 3 year old to grasp.  So we are down to the day, where all I had to explain was, "we just have to wait for Daddy to get home and we can go to Grandma's house TODAY!"  We have a fun weekend planned with family and let's just hope the weather is as nice this weekend as it has been all week long.

We have a very busy July ahead of us with every weekend from here on out filled.  Thankfully it is all very fun things that I am very much looking forward to.  So on this first day of July, lets just say, "HOORAY!"