Our friends Stacie and Matthew flew up from California to visit us and to attend a wedding in Minneapolis. Stacie used to be a sociology professor at Northland and was hired the same year Nick was. She loves to knit, bike, and run, so of course we became friends. She also loves to bake and is quite good at it, but living alone meant lots of cake left for her . . . unless she shared it with us. Another great reason to be her friend. Alas, she moved to California to be with Matthew, and then to Afghanistan, and now back in California.
They arrived late on Saturday and camped out at our friends Tim and Elizabeth's land. We met up with them for dinner on Sunday, at our house. We grilled pizzas and they were delicious. While we put the girls to bed, they walked to Dairy Queen and brought us back Blizzards. It was wonderful.
Monday we were going to meet at the beach. A little miscommunication and a thunderstorm changed those plans to a snacking lunch at our house. However, the Robertsons did spend some time at the beach before we heard some thunder, saw the ominous cloud over in Washburn and the lifeguard kicked us out. Greta slept for most of our time there, some in her carseat, some in my arms. It is fun to see how much braver Lilly is getting with the water. Just not that long ago she was afraid of the bath tub and crawling back away from the water when the waves built up.
That afternoon once the storms cleared, Matthew, Lilly, Elizabeth and Nick headed back to the beach. Matthew paddled on the stand up paddle board (referred to as the SUP from here on out on this blog) while Lilly, Elizabeth, and Nick played in the water. Lilly went all the way up to her chest! Greta, Stacie and I stayed back. Stacie baked a cake, I made a non-mayo coleslaw with cabbage from our CSA (a post about that will arrive eventually too!). Stacie also made extra frosting :)
That evening our friend Tina and her daughters Alta, a year younger than Lilly, and Anna, a month older than Greta and their dog Otis came to our house for grilling brats. We had a lovely time catching up and watching Alta and Lilly play. It was a reminder too of how much Lilly has grown, especially in her language, over the past year. (For the next few days Lilly's imaginary persona was "that girl that came over to our house")
Tuesday we went to breakfast at Freehands Farm. It was sooooooo amazingly delicious. It is an old barn, converted for weddings and then breakfast and dinner a few mornings/nights a week. Lilly went to day care (routine, we've discovered is huge for her, so with so many visitors, we wanted to be sure she kept some regular features in her life). They have two menu options that change each day, which was delightful. I had scrambled eggs and Nick had the frittata. Greta slept in my arms the entire meal. It was surreal. And, it was cold and there was no heat since it used to be a barn. I should have worn socks.
I am failing to remember what we did Tuesday afternoon, but I think Nick went into work for awhile, Elizabeth, Stacie, and Matthew hung out at Elizabeth's house. I hung out with Greta. That evening they came over on their bikes and we played with Lilly. Last time Tim and Elizabeth were over Lilly invented the game jump. The premise of this game is approach the stool, jump onto it/step onto it and jump off in a crazy way. We figured out how to stream soccer, so Lilly got to watch a little bit of that before bed. We attempted a photo of Lilly, Stacie and Matthew but before bed is when a three-year old feels the most need to exercise any amount of power she can. This is what we got:
Nick had the fun of putting Lilly to bed, I fed Greta and brought her back downstairs (she feeds much better away from distractions). They were all watching the game on TV and cheered when U.S. scored. Greta did not like that at all.
Tim made spaghetti sauce with the leftover brats and we had spaghetti for dinner. Of course we also had cake later. Stacie and I play an app called WordFeud. It is essentially Scrabble, but the fun twist is you can play with a randomized board, which makes it possible to get two triple word scores, along with all sorts of bonus squares because they are placed in different locations for each game. I feel this evens the playing field because Stacie usually creams me. With WordFeud I've actually won a few times. While making plans for the visit we decided a game of Scrabble in person was in order. So I pulled out the Scrabble board, we made teams of Stacie and Matthew versus the rest of us. Stacie and Matthew won (they did cheat but we didn't call them out on the word, so they got away with it). By the time the game ended I was already upstairs putting Greta to bed. They stored their bikes in our garage and borrowed our car to get home.
Wednesday morning after dropping Lilly off at Tree Top and going into work for a little bit, Nick came back home and picked up Greta and me. Then we headed off to Delta Diner, a wonderful old school diner out in the woods in Delta, about 40 minutes from our house. We met up with Stacie, Matthew, Tim and Elizabeth. The food there is amazing and in the summer on the weekend one can wait a long time (over 90 minutes) for a table. Luckily for us it was a Wednesday late morning, so we were able to sit right away. Greta loved the place and just watched the busyness of the restaurant while we chatted and ate our gigantic servings of delicious food.
We wrapped up our meals, had the server take our photo, Stacie snuck off and paid for our meal (the stinker - but thank you!), and we headed outside to say our goodbyes. Greta was starting to lose it so they were rushed, but that is probably a good thing. They headed down to the cities for the wedding and we headed back to our house. In a car with a baby that slept the entire way. Nick and I actually had 40 minutes to actually talk to one another without being utterly exhausted, or constantly interrupted. It was a rare but wonderful experience.
Thank you Stacie and Matthew for the great extended weekend and I promise you when the girls are older we will come out to California to visit you!!
They arrived late on Saturday and camped out at our friends Tim and Elizabeth's land. We met up with them for dinner on Sunday, at our house. We grilled pizzas and they were delicious. While we put the girls to bed, they walked to Dairy Queen and brought us back Blizzards. It was wonderful.
Monday we were going to meet at the beach. A little miscommunication and a thunderstorm changed those plans to a snacking lunch at our house. However, the Robertsons did spend some time at the beach before we heard some thunder, saw the ominous cloud over in Washburn and the lifeguard kicked us out. Greta slept for most of our time there, some in her carseat, some in my arms. It is fun to see how much braver Lilly is getting with the water. Just not that long ago she was afraid of the bath tub and crawling back away from the water when the waves built up.
That afternoon once the storms cleared, Matthew, Lilly, Elizabeth and Nick headed back to the beach. Matthew paddled on the stand up paddle board (referred to as the SUP from here on out on this blog) while Lilly, Elizabeth, and Nick played in the water. Lilly went all the way up to her chest! Greta, Stacie and I stayed back. Stacie baked a cake, I made a non-mayo coleslaw with cabbage from our CSA (a post about that will arrive eventually too!). Stacie also made extra frosting :)
That evening our friend Tina and her daughters Alta, a year younger than Lilly, and Anna, a month older than Greta and their dog Otis came to our house for grilling brats. We had a lovely time catching up and watching Alta and Lilly play. It was a reminder too of how much Lilly has grown, especially in her language, over the past year. (For the next few days Lilly's imaginary persona was "that girl that came over to our house")
Tuesday we went to breakfast at Freehands Farm. It was sooooooo amazingly delicious. It is an old barn, converted for weddings and then breakfast and dinner a few mornings/nights a week. Lilly went to day care (routine, we've discovered is huge for her, so with so many visitors, we wanted to be sure she kept some regular features in her life). They have two menu options that change each day, which was delightful. I had scrambled eggs and Nick had the frittata. Greta slept in my arms the entire meal. It was surreal. And, it was cold and there was no heat since it used to be a barn. I should have worn socks.
I am failing to remember what we did Tuesday afternoon, but I think Nick went into work for awhile, Elizabeth, Stacie, and Matthew hung out at Elizabeth's house. I hung out with Greta. That evening they came over on their bikes and we played with Lilly. Last time Tim and Elizabeth were over Lilly invented the game jump. The premise of this game is approach the stool, jump onto it/step onto it and jump off in a crazy way. We figured out how to stream soccer, so Lilly got to watch a little bit of that before bed. We attempted a photo of Lilly, Stacie and Matthew but before bed is when a three-year old feels the most need to exercise any amount of power she can. This is what we got:
Tim made spaghetti sauce with the leftover brats and we had spaghetti for dinner. Of course we also had cake later. Stacie and I play an app called WordFeud. It is essentially Scrabble, but the fun twist is you can play with a randomized board, which makes it possible to get two triple word scores, along with all sorts of bonus squares because they are placed in different locations for each game. I feel this evens the playing field because Stacie usually creams me. With WordFeud I've actually won a few times. While making plans for the visit we decided a game of Scrabble in person was in order. So I pulled out the Scrabble board, we made teams of Stacie and Matthew versus the rest of us. Stacie and Matthew won (they did cheat but we didn't call them out on the word, so they got away with it). By the time the game ended I was already upstairs putting Greta to bed. They stored their bikes in our garage and borrowed our car to get home.
Wednesday morning after dropping Lilly off at Tree Top and going into work for a little bit, Nick came back home and picked up Greta and me. Then we headed off to Delta Diner, a wonderful old school diner out in the woods in Delta, about 40 minutes from our house. We met up with Stacie, Matthew, Tim and Elizabeth. The food there is amazing and in the summer on the weekend one can wait a long time (over 90 minutes) for a table. Luckily for us it was a Wednesday late morning, so we were able to sit right away. Greta loved the place and just watched the busyness of the restaurant while we chatted and ate our gigantic servings of delicious food.
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| Nick's gigantic sandwich |
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| 2/3 of our food |
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| Look at those cheeks!! |
Thank you Stacie and Matthew for the great extended weekend and I promise you when the girls are older we will come out to California to visit you!!
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