The Dells.

Our family of five headed to Wisconsin Dells for the Strasburg family vacation.  We left on Saturday morning and stayed in the Twin Cities one night.

 We kicked off our water vacation with a swim at the hotel pool.  My cousins Amy & Mike, Casey, and Kym and her kids stopped by for a visit which was awesome.  I don't get to see them very often so we had a nice visit.  We headed to the Dells after a nice brunch with my Uncle Brad & Aunt Jan Sunday morning.  It was a long drive but we were beyond excited to be there!  Shame on me for not taking any pictures with my camera.  I only snapped a few with my phone.  Sad.  Oh well, I guess I was in vacation mode.  Which by the way has an entire different meaning when you have a 6, 5, and 2 year old.

Glad to be out of the car and having a drink!  By the way, how lucky is Ryan?

 We did a ton of water park swimming while we were there.  We stayed at the Wildnerness resort which had indoor and outdoor water parks.  I was thankful for this because again it was cold!  The kids got really cold when we were in the outdoor parks.  I always gladly volunteered to take them to the indoor parks since I hate being cold also!

The kids were able to do a lot of fun things.  Landon probably did the most of anyone and my girls sat out on a few things.  There was golfing, mini golfing, the upside down white house, the mining company, arcades, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, outlet mall shopping, water parks, go carts, and a ski show to name a few things.

The girls at Tommy Bartlett's ski show.  Cuties.

After 4 days of vacation fun we were headed back home!

Gary, Ryan and Landon left early Thursday morning in order to make it for the Twins game at noon.  The weather was great and they enjoyed watching the game with some great seats.  Would have been better if the Twins would have won tho!

Ryan was very excited about the seats and had a blast with Landon and his dad!  I was just a little jealous...especially when Justin Morneau hit a homer!

Sue, the kids and I headed out about 11am in order to meet the boys when they were done with the game.  We only waited about 20 minutes for them and then we were on our way and Ryan's parents were on theirs.  We had a great vacation with everyone being good and having fun!  I won't go into the details but there was a couple of incidents of puke.  (Not the same kind of puke that happens when you party too much-more like kids puke) Thanks everyone for the great summer vacation:)

Lake Weekend.

Our friends Nate and Kim got married at the lake so we headed there for the weekend.  We rented a cabin and stayed Friday and Saturday night.  Jack came with us so we would have someone to watch the kids while we were at the reception.  The kids were excited to be away for the weekend and ecstatic to have Jack with.

The cabin had a huge really nice beach so the kids headed to play in the sand right away.

 The cabin was pretty warm the first night so the kids were pretty hot.  They are used to sleeping in a freezing cold house in the summer so that probably doesn't help them.  Fortunately, they slept pretty well regardless.

 Saturday morning was a chilly 60 degrees.  It had been 90 in Fargo for 2 weeks and then we get to the lake and it was freezing!!  The kids didn't seem to mind and started playing on the beach.  It is amazing how long burying people in the sand will entertain little ones!

Everyone except me decided they were fine swimming in the freezing cold.  I watched them with pants and a sweatshirt along the beach.  The video shows them jumping in-they were supposed to shout YOLO.  I was teasing Ryan because he didn't know what it meant.  I told him he was really aging himself.  Ha!

I knew my little lady wasn't going to last long.  She came out freezing cold within minutes.

 My little girls getting all pretty for the wedding!  We had fun at the wedding and reception.  The girls danced and danced and danced!  It was very fun!

 We relaxed a little bit and then headed back to Fargo.  Like always, the weather was gorgeous the day we had to go back home!  What a fun weekend-Congratulations to Nate and Kim.

T-Ball/Soccer Pics.

 Landon finished up his summer sports.  He improved a ton over the two months.  I am proud of him for all his hard work.

City Slickers.

Ryan introduced me to the term "city slickers" when we first started dating.  I am thinking it probably came up when I first went to the farm with him...whatever.  Anyhow, the other night we had gone for a family walk and when we came home the kids were playing in the back of the truck.  One of them said it would be cool to ride back there so I said sure.  I sat back with them and Ryan tooled slowly around the neighborhood.  I think that may have been a "city slicker" move.  The kids were had so much fun.  So, with that in mind I didn't really care what anyone else thought!  It's the simple things...

Growing Growing!

 Our garden is growing growing and the kids (and us) are having so much fun!  There is truly nothing better then the kids picking and eating things out of their own garden!  They are so proud.  Love it.

Unfortunately, the garden is not the only thing growing growing around here.  The kids are growing up way too fast.  When I was loading these pictures I couldn't help but think of the summers past that the kids had played in the sprinklers...

Seriously.  Where does the time go?