from where i stand...

things look great. Vacation is coming to a close, we enjoyed Florida thunderstorms, the beach, family time, and much much more. More pictures to come soon-just a little something to hold everyone over until we get home.

gainesville

Sitting around the dinner table-floods of memories came rushing back-mostly childhood michieviousness with my cousins and brother. I love it when our family gets together. Thank-you Aunt Pat and Uncle Mel for hosting such an exciting weekend!
I was so excited for the Schell family to make it down to Gainesville and visit extended family and great-grandmother Grams. Grams played jazzy tunes on the piano while the kids danced (with much encouragement form parents).

splash park

We have been having a wonderful vacation in Florida. We travelled to Gainesville to visit even more family over the weekend. The heat has been very mild and tolerable, but us westerners still needed some relief-we found a great splash park in Alachua and had it all to ourselves for the first hour. The kids loved it, Charlotte ran in circles, and Timothy was aprehensive at first, but then loved running around too. I would like one of these in my backyard. Hummm-maybe i could spearhead putting one of these in in Lander.

not to bad so far

Timothy and Papa are enjoying a nice soak in the warm tub. This may be my favorite new picture :)

charlotte's perspective #3

Well she is getting the idea of composition, and has fun taking pictures of all sorts of things. Not all the photos are in focus, but I think she is doing great. These photos are on a recent trip weeding in the garden. She wandered all around looking for things to capture.

papa's birthday

More old news, but that is what happens when you get busy. I have found blogging harder these last weeks as I am enjoying summer and trying to plug into my computer less and my family more. I will have to find a good balance because I do enjoy recording our life here. And here is one milestone: Papa's 35!! Charotte is saying "mama where's the spoon?" after she was done licking all the chocolate off.

split adventures

Well, I admit to using old news here, but just had to share about Charlotte and Papa's first father daughter camping trip. They had a great time-fishing, sleeping under the stars, attending a baseball game and a shootout in Southpass city. Big time. I forsee more outings in the near future.




Timothy, Erica and I went to spend the night in Dubois at a cabin outdside of town. We enjoyed a nice relaxing dinner, hike, window shopping, and petting the horses.

road trip

We had a great trip to Minnesota. It was one of those trips where everything seemed to go right. We headed out Thursday, July 2nd at 4:45pm-destination Avon, Minnesota.
Reid and I drove through the night while the kiddos slept. It went pretty smoothly-they woke up a few times whenever we stopped, but returned to sleep without too much trouble. Reid ended up doing most of the driving. We made it to the Minnesota border around daylight. After a nice break for kids and nap for Papa we headed toward Avon, and discovered a town called New Ulm with the second oldest family owned brewery in the U.S.-it just happened to be named Schells Brewery. We knew this town was our destination for the evening-it seemed too perfect-no? After some lunch and playing peek-a-boo in the park we headed out to find our spot for the evening.
The camp ground at the state park was full, but we found out we could camp in the fairgrounds for 10 bucks. We were the only folks there, and it was a beautifully shaded park-another nap for kids and Papa and then off to the brewery-to view the gardens, the peacocks, and buy some German sausage and Schells beer for dinner.




In the morning after some yummy biscuits for breakfast, we headed just a couple hours down the road to Avon-town of 1,000. Expecting 2,000 for the free 35th year celebration of a Prairie Home Companion (they ended up hosting 10,000 people). The outdoor field opened at 1pm-we were there at 12, waiting with lots of other folks.



We had an hour to scope out the perfect spot, and we ended up staying right where we were in the shade of the trees rather than fight through the rush of people to claim a spot in the sun-I think this was our best decision of the weekend. 7 hours in the sun with 2 small kids, one sick at this point sounds like disaster. Well, disaster averted.

We had lots of fun and made some great Minnesota friends-who we spent several hours in close proximity too. Charlotte, although feverish for 2 days seemed to be fine when her fever was down (thanks to motrin)-never fear grandparents that your grandchild was suffering on this vacation. She got treated to ice cream and Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie, as well as way too many cookies from sweet little 2 year-old Sophie next to us. Timothy enjoyed viewing the show from the chair and danced to his little hearts content. After a night in a hotel recovering and cleaning up-we headed out on the road again. On this day we took a long break at the Sioux Falls Zoo-where Charlotte and Mama got to ride a camel!! Big fun.

Then we headed out for a few more hours of driving and we camped in Valentine, Nebraska. The next morning we headed towards Wyoming and stopped just before the border to have a few hours of fun at Fort Robinson. I must say, we will return to this fort!! What a great vacation spot, and super reasonable. We rode in a horse drawn carriage for 4 bucks! We even went swimming in the pool and Charlotte jumped off the diving board!! There was so much to see and do there we will have to return.

We made it home by 7pm Monday night and everyone was ready to be out of the car. Overall a great vacation was had, and it is really exciting to know that our family is crossing into another phase. One full of adventure, roadtrips, and kids who are a little bit more easily packed along. I find as Reid and I raise our kids and grow as a family that I am often reminded of my own childhood. Adventures that we had, and the fun things that we did-and I sure do appreciate them more now than I did as a kid. I am hoping my kids will have great memories too.

boat ride

 

 

I know I haven't posted about our trip yet, but the pics are abit overwhelming-so soon. i just had to post what Charlotte and Isa did today. After a fun photo shoot in adorable new dresses by Mountain Aven Baby, Isa and Charlotte took a ride down the creek-and loved it. Isa does have panties on :) Fun,fun. Vacation pics next, I promise.

one from the road

We are doing remarkably well-even with Charlotte being sick and feverish-yikes. The concert was fun and bigger than expected. Last night was our "hotel night" and we stayed in St. Cloud, MN. Charlotte and Papa are sleeping in the room and Timothy and I are having a banana and coffee-respectively. We will head down the road for as much as the kids can stand today and take lots of long breaks-hopefully Reid can get some naps in too, I am pretty sure he is getting gyped on the sleep this trip. More details and pics to follow soon.

we're off

to Minnesota-see you Tuesday :)