My Family Vacation!

A month behind

Bad mommy. Bad bad mommy. My summer has been pretty crazy. In a good way though! Lots and lots of photo stuff and lots of friends and family. I am going to try to start where I left off and catch up. I have been pretty bad and taking pics of my own kids lately, need to remember to do that!
My mommy came just about a month ago. It was so nice having them around, the kids loved it. Of course, when I was hoping for the most perfect weather ever to try to persuade them more to move home, the weather was pretty much crap the whole time they were here. Raining, cold, if it wasn't cold it was super humid. I mean come on, Mother Nature was not working with me on that one.


Even though the weather could have been better, we pretended like it was all fine and dandy. We still got out and did some fun things. We went over to Fawn-Doe-Rosa, which was Ada's first time.


I had a wedding on that Saturday. My mom and Bruce went up to my Aunt's cabin that day and our little family unit went up Sunday (Father's Day). On our way up we hit up this little go-cart place we have stopped at quite a few times before.




My aunt's cabin is such a nice get away.



That Monday was my little big boy's 4th birthday! I have a 4 year old! I remember not too long after James was born trying to imagine having an older child. One that talked and walked and ate real food. It seemed so far off at the time. It was so unimaginable. That time is here now, I have this amazing child. He knows so much and he surprises me every day. I feel like the luckiest person in the world with these two beautiful, healthy children.
On his birthday, we did a little fishing in the morning off the dock.

Ate a little lunch, then the boys took James out on the boat to fish for a while. My mom, Ada, and I set up a little surprise party while they were out.

Ahhh, his little surprised face was so priceless. He knew it was his birthday, but he was so so surprised for the little party.





The cabin time came and went way too quickly. Soon it was the day we had to drive to the airport. This also happened to have been the most beautiful day out of the whole trip, of course.

Hopefully they will be back real soon, and hopefully there won't be a driving them to the airport!!! My fingers are crossed.

Our weekend

Thursday: We finally got around to raking our yard. It seemed to be just in the nick of time too. It was a nice cool day. While we were all outside our neighbor came over to ask if we had electricity. It didn't surprise me that we didn't have any. We live in an old, historic part of town. All of the houses in our area are really old. Apparently the electricity or wiring is really old too. We have went without power at least 10 times since the beginning of summer. Normally it is only out for a couple hours or so. I think it was maybe out for like 3 or 4 this time. Not that big of deal.

James helping Caleb rake.

Ada wanting me to get that stuff out of her mouth. Or maybe she was just showing off what she was eating. So proud.

Fast forward a couple days of kids who were sick then not sick, then sick again (Ada). She had diarea and was throwing up, with an ear infection to top the cake. We come to Saturday. Good bye fall, hello winter. We got dumped with 12 or so inches overnight from Friday to Saturday. It continued to snow all day Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday night rolls around and we loose electricity again, this time we knew it was from the wet, heavy snow. There were a lot of Minnesotans with out power. We go the whole night without power. Luckily, the house stayed warm enough, with heavy blankets, to sleep comfortably with no heat. I guess I don't know how comfortable James was. He decided to catch the tummy bug that is going around our house and puke all over. In the pitch black. With no electricity. That was interesting. The following pics were taken Sunday morning.

Sunday morning rolls around and still no power. It started to get colder in the house. I had a photo session at 1pm. Came back and what do you know? 2pm, still no power. Our neighbor had called the electric company that morning and they said that our power was supposed to be on at 9am. Well, at 2pm it was still off. Caleb called the electric company and they were estimating it would be back on MONDAY EVENING. We knew we couldn't do another night in our house. So we got a hotel room.

We arrived at the hotel room not too long after check in at 3pm. I don't think we realized how cold and crabby everyone was until we got to that room and cranked the heat. Our cheeks turned bright red from the temperature change. I think we may have turned it up a little too high. We all kind of started over heating a little. Hence the pics with shirtless kiddos.

Ada was obsessed with her new little friend.

Cuddly, Cozy.

James thought the whole thing was really fun, so did Ada. James and I hit the pool and did a little swimming before bed. I had two tuckered out little ones that's for sure!

- And yes, I am labeling this one as vacation. It will probably be a while until we actually have one, so why not! :)

Bayfield Memorial weekend

For Memorial weekend, we headed up north to Bayfield, WI. It was Ada's first time at Lake Superior! I just love going up there, it is such a nice place for a mini vacation, close to home, but not too close. It is always fun for James too, as he gets spoiled rotten. As my family always said: You can eat whatever you want to when you are on vacation!

It is about a 3-3.5 hour drive and this is what you see the majority of the ride.

Those are some kissable lips right there!

Taken in motion looking over Caleb's shoulder as he drove.

If this picture looks familiar to anyone it may be from other times we went up there. A few of these pics may look similar :) Click here and here to see past trips.

My loves!

James eating with his bird friend