Minnesota Pride Parade

 Yesterday was the Pride Parade. The weather was great and we all had a great time.

                         CJ, Jeff and Diane waiting for the Parade to start

                  Oh the things you see at the Pride Parade......or maybe wish you did not see......

                                   Taking a selfie with Cassie and Amy

                          Cassie's cheerleader came out on the parade route

 After the parade we walked down by the river and took a few photos.  The river is so high!

We ended the day with some ice cream at Izzy's Ice Cream. We were in the care leaving when Cassie screamed IZZY'S ICE CREAM STOP!!!!! So I turned around and we all got our self some ice cream. It was very good and a perfect way to end a great day.

This and That....

Last week it was Reunion weekend at Carleton and Christian Slater was here! He is married to a alum. It was fun to see him just hanging out on campus. My coworker got his picture with him. He said he was very nice.

On Friday was decided at the last minute to go to Lanesboro for a weekend away. I left work at 1:30 got home and packed everything up in a hour and we were on our way. Jane, Paul and Hannah were already there so they saved us a spot for our camper. We go to the campground that is right in town and is a campground that takes no reservations. Saturday morning Rick and I went for a 28 mile bike ride. I managed to stay on my bike the whole time without crashing :)

Saturday evening we all went to the farm......

Jane heard on the radio that they were having one of those dairy appreciation days for the county so we all went. I really had a good time. It has been years since I have been on a dairy farm. It brought me back to my childhood and being at my grandparents and cousins  farms. We got to eat and tour the farm and check out all the tractors.

We left for home on Sunday morning. It is nice to go to Lanesboro because it is just over an hour away.

 Tuesday I took Liam to baseball and then took Josie to swimming lessons and then ran back and picked up Liam. I did not even get to see Liam play because they were just doing warm ups when I had to leave with Josie. Good thing I am taking Liam again next week so I will get to see him play.

 Tuesday was also Eli's 3rd birthday. Every time I asked him what he want he told me he wanted a cookie and and fish. So that is what I got him. He was so excited when he saw the fish. Then when I told him he could eat the super big cookie I got him he got even more excited!

I asked Christa to make me some coffee cozy's for my boring white coffee cups. I told her to just use what ever yarn she had that I did not care what color they were. So she made the up and let Oliver pick out the buttons for them. Now I have colorful coffee cups and my coffee will stay warmer longer.

So there you have it not much else going on.

Later
Sharon

And then in rained......

I have a few pictures of the mess in our yard. I took the above picture right after the tree fell down. I thinking the one that was right next to us is going to have to go too. It looks pretty bad.

You can see all the water in the lawn. I'm not sure how much rain we got because the wind actually tipped my rain gauge over. 

More standing water, I took this through the window so it is not a very good picture

Here is a couple more pictures of the tree that is down. It is hanging over into the ditch/creek. It is not going to be fun getting it pulled out and cleaned up. Rick started to cut it up yesterday afternoon.

                                      The yard yesterday after the water went down.

This is the tree that went down in the neighbors yard right behind our house.

It started raining and storming again at 1:00 this morning and when I left for work it was still poring. It was dark out when I left for work so I don't know if we had anymore damage. We are worried with the ground so wet that if we get big winds the trees are going to go over. What a mess!

Later Sharon

I think we may be lost.......

It was a weekend of adventures! Thursday afternoon we all headed out for Pennington to stay at Diane and Rod's for a long weekend. We took Christa and Oliver with us in the truck and Amy and her kids followed behind. Of course we had the dogs with us too. We got up there around 7:30. After getting the camper and tents all set up we had a campfire and all went to bed pretty early.

Friday was a beautiful day. The kids all had a great time swimming and fishing and just being outside.

Rick and I decided to go for a bike ride before lunch. We took off down the road and met up with Diane, Linda and Jeannie who had gone for a walk. Diane gave us directions on where we should go. I was sure that I "kind of" remembered the roads and we would be just fine. We wanted to go on the trails/roads and have a little fun on the bikes.

We started our bike trip just a little bit north of Pimushe Resort that is marked on the above map. Diane's place is just a little ways from there. We were just going to make a little loop and then go back. Well are first mistake was to go left instead of right, from there it went down hill. We were having so much fun and just going from trail to trail when we realized that we should have gotten back to the main road already. Then I crashed. Everything was so wet and the roads/trails were full of water holes. I went through one that was deeper and muddier then I thought and sunk like I was in quick sand. And then I went over. I was covered in mud!! It was so funny. Of course neither one of us had brought a camera so you get no pictures.  I also hit my handle bars when I went down and now have a bruise the size of a soft ball on my butt. I was going to put a picture of that but Amy said I could not :) 
So after I pulled myself out of the mud we kept on going. By then the bug spray I had put on was starting to wear off so every time we stopped we were eaten alive.  We finally found the lake again and a cabin. Rick decided to go out to the lake and try and figure out where we were. He also found the cabin owners. Well they took him in the house and showed him a map of the lake and pointed out to us that we were on the other end of the lake about 5 miles from where we should be! Way up on top of the above map.  They were showing Rick on the map how to get back and pointing out all the intersections etc when they said it would probable be easier to just take us back by boat. So we took him up on his offer and loaded up the bikes and took a boat ride back.
It was an adventure!

 Dexter loved the water! He run out into it right away in the morning and had so much fun. Of course when he was done he did not smell so nice so he got to take a shower in the camper. He was so tired by the end of the night that he could hardly make it up the steps to the camper.

 Rick and Liam were super excited to catch some very nice sunfish. Liam spent most of the day out on the paddle boat with Zack, Jacob, and Bradly fishing.

 Oliver and Eli loved the water just about as much as Dexter. They spent all day playing in it.

 

 Oliver was all excited to go fishing with Grandpa so Rick and Mitch took him out. They were out for about 5 minutes when Oliver had a fit and wanted to come back in. So that was the end of his fishing.
Rick also took Liam and Josie out right away in the morning. They made it about a hour and then Josie threw her pole in the lake while casting. Rick said after a big sad cry she was jsut fine. She came back and spent the day in the water with the rest of the kids.

After a fun filled day we all sat around the campfire and may have had a few treats....

 

It was a good thing we spent all day Friday in the sun because from then on it rained and rained. We spend Saturday just hanging around playing games and trying to keep the kids busy. The boys did some more fishing and we got to be outside when the rain stopped. Diane had a fish fry for us on Saturday night. It was soooooo good. We all ate way to much! Amy was going to leave on Sunday morning but after watching the weather and seeing that it was going to be raining buckets in the morning she decided to pack up on Saturday night and drive home. It was a smart move on her part because it rained most of the day Sunday. It would have been no fun to pack up a tent in the poring rain. She got home with here 3 sleeping children around 1:30 in the morning.  

 So what do you do when it is raining and you are camping....you go bowling! I don't know who's idea it was but it was a good one. We all drove into Bemidji and bowled a couple of games. Even Grandma and Grandpa bowled. Mom said it had been at least 30 years since the last time she bowled.

                                                                 Oliver had lot of fun too.

 

 After all the rain the lake was overflowing! The dock was almost under water and the lake was making it's way up the shore.

 CJ loved Morgan and Morgan loved CJ. I am pretty sure she would have gone with him home if  I had let her.

 By Sunday night Dexter had  also had enough of the rain.

 Even the fire pit was full of water. We did manage to get a fire started again but then it of course it started to rain again. So after supper Christa, Oliver, Rick and I went down to the camper for one more game and then went to bed.

I think these pictures of Oliver and Eli are super cute. I can't take credit for them since Christa took them.

Monday morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day. Of course we had to go home. We were worried about getting the camper up the hill with all the rain but we got it out with no troubles.  We were on our way back home around 8:30.

We just got home and got most of the camper unpacked when the storms hit. I will have pictures of the damage in my next post.

Even with all the rain we had a wonderful trip! It was fun to be with everyone when it was not a holiday and just relax. I even had fun getting lost in the woods crashing my bike. I now have a great story to tell.....

Sharon

Mama Bird.....

 A robin decided it needed to make it's nest under our deck. It will be fun to watch as the baby hatch.

So my days off started with me getting sick. I have a awful cold that I'm pretty sure it is turning into bronchitis. I made an appointment to go see the doctor today.

Anyhow even if I was sick the weekend plans had to go on. Waseca Archery Club was hosting the MSAA State Fita so we had lots to do. We had to set it all up on Friday.

Saturday morning started out with a lot of rain! We had a storm system come through at about 7:00 that dumped a inch of rain. Even though we had all the bales tied down in the front and back they all tipped over in the wind because the ground was so soaked with water. The field was covered in water. Well everyone got to work and got the bales all back up and ready to go.

We got a record number of shooters for the Fita! We were very happy with the turnout. We had lots of people tells us how well run the shoot was and that they would love to have it here again.

I ran the clock for the tournament. After a ruff start for the practice rounds we got the clock figured out and it ran smooth the rest of the day. 

Rick was able to shoot too. He was the tournament director so he was super busy the whole day. He managed it all very will.

Hope everyone has a good week.
Later Sharon