Weekend Adventures - May, June, and July

I was going to put a few separate posts together about some weekend getaways, but the summer is quickly getting away from me, so I thought I would put together a collection of a few before it is August and I am stressing about school starting.

May 17th-19th - Brainerd

We took a weekend trip to Brainerd to visit Nick's brother.  We went to many soccer games and lost a lot of sleep (Lilly did not sleep well at all - decided she was up and ready to play at 4:30 Saturday morning).  It rained Saturday night, so Sunday morning splashing in puddles was a must!  The trip was great, Lilly loved the chance to play with her cousins, and her cousins loved playing with her and showing her off to their friends.

Owen chases the ball, the boy in blue was getting really
frustrated with Owen because he kept just beating him.

She looks like she's had enough and wants to escape!

Owen's soccer team, Ben coaches.

Nole keeps an eye on Lilly.

Owen takes the Cozy Coupe off-roading

I've posted this one already,
but it happened this weekend.

Starting out small . . .

Cally and Owen take on the bigger puddles

Owen makes sure his shorts stay dry

Cally plays the piano, Owen shows his monster

Perhaps she's had enough of the extra noise . . .

Lilly in her outfit picked out by Cally

June 8th and 9th-  Eau Claire

I've already posted about the Triathlon my mom and I did together, but we also had dinner with my brother, sister-in-law and Nick's parents.  (It is absolutely terrific that our parents are both nice people and get along with one another so we can all get together).  My brother grabbed some great pictures of Lilly.

My parents bought Lilly this perfect chair.

The chair still had stickers on it, which made it even
more perfect in Lilly's eyes.

The girl loves strawberry shortcake.  She slept through the night
too, so perhaps a bedtime treat every night?

Sitting on the sidewalk, playing with the sticker.

Thanks, Matt, for all the great photos!!!

June 29th - A quick trip to Hayward

We met with Nick's undergraduate advisor/boss to trade catalysts and NMR samples.  We had a lovely late lunch at the Angry Minnow and had plans on going to the fishing hall of fame to check out the giant fish statutes, but they closed at 4:00.  So we just traveled a little further down the road and checked out the park.  Lilly loves to swing and her new thing is that the adult with her at the park also needs to swing too.

Not quite big enough to use the diggers, so dad helped.

July 5th-7th - Eau Claire for a Wedding and Hayward for the Fishing Museum

Our good friend from high school, Laura Kohlhepp got married on Saturday.  We headed down on Friday.  Nick and I went for a nice mountain bike ride and then out to dinner just the two of us!  Saturday we played around Nick's parents' house, I went shopping with my dad, and then we snuck out of the house to go to Laura and Drew's wedding.  Not being dancers, our plan was to leave in time to put Lilly down for bed but dinner didn't start until a little after six.  So, we called Nick's parents and they put her to bed for us.  The first time it wasn't Nick or me that put her down for the night.  She apparently went to bed without crying at all and slept through the night.  Grandma has some magic that I want to bottle and use at home!  The wedding was lovely and extremely hot, we had a nice time catching up with a few friends from high school, and wished we could have had a longer chance to catch up with the bride.  Luckily they both got jobs as ER doctors in Eau Claire starting next year, so we'll have plenty of time to catch up.

Nana and Lilly "play" croquet

On Sunday we went to my parents' house for brunch with my brother, sister-in-law, and my grandma.  We had a delicious meal, walked around outside a bit and then rushed to the car when we could sense Lilly's nap time was approaching.  She fell asleep just ten minutes into the drive.  When we got to Hwy 63, there was a line of cars about 4 or 5 miles long waiting to turn onto Hwy 53.  We are quite glad we were going the opposite direction!

Uncle Matt, Lilly, and Nick on the front steps

She slept until nearly Hayward, where we stopped at the Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame.  It was SUPER hot, wasn't nearly as cool looking as we thought, but Lilly seemed to have a nice time, she wandered around quite a bit and said "fish" a lot.  As we approached Ashland, the temperature kept falling and by the time we pulled into our driveway it was twenty degrees cooler!  We love the winds coming off the lake!

Giant Musky 

Meg and Lilly in the mouth of the musky

Nick and Lilly walking around outside

Lilly doing her "butler walk" in the museum

I loved the way our shadow looked as we had Lilly walk us to what she wanted "more" of (she at first wouldn't let us put her down but we could not figure out what she wanted).  I tried so hard to get a picture of our shadows.  I almost got one - but the stupid camera strap got in the way!!