Flooding.

The rain has just been constant here this summer.  This past week we had a few bad storms and many areas of the city are flooded.  There were roads closed and many people with water damage to their homes.  Thankfully, we have been dry so far.  It is amazing how much standing water there is around town in places you normally would not see it.  The river is overflowing and they have been dumping untreated wastewater into it to help with the sewage overflow.  Disgusting.  There is also an abundance of mosquitoes around with all the wet grounds.  Disgusting.  We took a trip to Falls Park because among all of the not so good things all of the rain has brought, the view at the park is a beautiful one.

I just can not believe how much water there is and how fast it is flowing.  I have also never seen as many people at Falls Park as I did last Friday when we went.

Simply beautiful.

And now, no more rain please!

Happy Birthday Aunty Arin!

We enjoyed a lovely birthday dinner with Arin and Gary and Sue on Saturday evening.  How fun to celebrate her birthday with her!  She even spent the next few days at our house which the kids of course loved!  Happy Birthday to You Arin, thanks for being such a great Aunty, sister, and friend!  Love you!

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

We've entered a new stage.  This past week Kadence has had an extremely difficult time falling asleep at night.  She comes out of her room several times and cries when we leave.  She had been getting out of bed and turning her light (very bright light) on and then falling asleep.  She told us, "it's too dart (dark) and there's monsters."  I bought her a new lamp for her room and we made a big deal about it.  So after Daddy reassured her there are no monsters because Daddy scared them all far away along with the new lamp, we had one successful night of going to bed.  Let's hope the lamp keeps doing the trick!  Poor thing, it breaks my heart to think of her laying in her bed scared!

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!