Vacation Round 1: Parade, Breakfast on the Farm

We did it! We drove and planned and worked and we made it in time for the parade! We arrived after the parade started, but Grandma and Grandpa found us a place to sit at the end of the parade route. Grandpa and Grandma picked us up some dinner so we could get right down to the business of enjoying the parade! I think we missed maybe the first few minutes of the parade going by - worked out great for us!

A! Parade!

William was a big fan of the motorcycles, cars, go karts and other vehicles.

Look! Look!

The dragon: I was always kind of scared of this. Our kids weren't sure, luckily it didn't get too close!

Grandpa and Grandma brought us dinner - we couldn't have done it without them!

Cheese curds...mmmmm

William participating in some street yoga between groups

William in particular really enjoyed the parade, especially when he realized people were throwing CANDY for ANYONE. After the first couple of rounds, he was a seasoned pro at arriving at the candy quickly and collecting it before the other kids. We even needed to encourage him to share a little because he was so good at it (and no kid, nor their parents needs candy in the volume we were collecting).

Amelia turned out to be the little charmer. She sat and enjoyed the parade from Grandma's lap. When she spotted someone walking by with candy, she would start to smile and wave. 99.999% of the time, at least one person from the group would come over to give her some candy. There are some perks to being the youngest person on our side of the street!

Amelia doing her thing: charming away.

We got to bed late, but happy!

The next morning, we were up early to go to the Breakfast on the Farm event. William was so excited about riding on the bus. He entertained the entire bus load of adults (we had the only kids in the small groups of 15 or so) with his chatter and excitement. He was even more excited about his new friend, Andy who came with Aunt Megan for the breakfast on the farm. Also of note, this is the first year in MANY years that Grandpa has attended breakfast on the farm! We ate our pancakes, petted various barnyard animals, played in the sand, rode the horse drawn wagon, viewed the cow and milking barn before heading back to town just before it started to rain.

William and Andy ride the busAmelia rides the bus

Pancakes! This way!
Did you know that kitties like pancakes? This kitty ate a WHOLE pancake!Pancakes by the hundreds. They had four of these pancake grills going.
Kids at the dairy farm
William was in love with the baby chicks. Amelia wanted nothing to do with these birds and William had to be dragged away.Amelia was okay with admiring the cow from this distance
She LOVED the idea of climbing up this fence. Not so interested in the piggies inside!

What would a day on the farm be without tractors?

Pit stop on a hay bale while waiting in line for the horse drawn wagon ride
Andy, Andrew and Megan riding the wagon

Later in the day, we went back to play with Cana for awhile. It is VERY fun to watch my little girl play with my best friend's little girl while the grown ups catch up. Sadly, there aren't any pictures, but I can assure you we had lots of fun!

Resort 2

I feel compelled to tell you the indoor waterpark, exercise rooms, restaurants, golf course, beach and many other places were not photographed because I did not have time.


Kids area splashpad

Pool next to the lake

Sent from my iPhone

Work conference

Summer Trip: Warm Up

What seems like forever ago, I was offered the opportunity (along with ALL of my coworkers, nothing special here) to go to the state wide Adult Education & Literacy (AEL) conference held at a nice resort about 3 hours south of our house. (why does that matter? hang on minute). Because I love stuff like that, I signed up right away and promptly forgot about it. Until I started working on putting together our annual trip to visit family in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Seems kind of crazy, but I love the yearly parade my hometown does every year during Rochesterfest (week long, summer celebration). We tried to catch it last year and were rained out (SO DISAPPOINTED). If I can make it work, we try to get to Rochester in time for that parade along with "Breakfast on the Farm" and various other, less important, events. The problem was the parade was scheduled to start at 6:15 on the same Friday as the last day of my conference for work.

Do the math with me:

3 hours from work conference from our house + 7 hours from our house to Rochester = 10+ hours of driving for a parade. More than once the idea was tabled, written off only to be brought up again. I REALLY wanted to attend this parade. That meant leaving the work conference around 8am in order to arrive in time.

Because I am crazy and my husband loves me (he may be crazy as well), we agreed to make the parade work.

Not only was the actual travel plans complicated, the packing was...difficult (I know, cry with me). Clothes needed for a professional conference are very different from a family vacation. Plus the weather in MN/ND could be 65 degrees or 101000 degrees. This makes it necessary to pack the summer wear, professional attire, AND at least a pair of pants and a sweatshirt.

The work conference was interesting and I gained some new ideas. Plus, I got to sleep in a nice hotel room ALL BY MYSELF for two whole nights. I lead an exciting life people. Pictures will follow in a seperate post. Because I am lazy.

All in one trip

7 bags to the second floor. Is that weird? I'm 3 hours away flying solo at a work conference for the next few days. Secretly, I'm most excited about sleeping all night and sleeping past 5:30am.

These boots are made for wqlikbg

Both kids begged to wear the cowboy boots today. So what if the temperature is 98 degrees?

Milestone

For some time now, Amelia's hair has been long enough for styling. However her patience and tolerance has not been long enough. Any type of hair accessory was immediately pulled out- if I even got that far. I'm happy to report that twice this week Amelia has requested "pretties" AND left them alone. Milestones.