Old Nauvoo

We met up with Brian & Amy and company in Nauvoo, IL on their last leg of their 3 week road trip. They were surprizingly still chipper and ready to see Nauvoo and Carthage.

We saw lots of the old shops and houses, lots of the cute productions and plays (including the Nauvoo pageant), did lots of tours in lots of heat and lots of humidity in just two days. Davis families



Ainsley & Garrett.

Fun Pioneer games.


One of the sunstones & kids in a handcart.

Carthage jail

If only my girls were that obedient.....

All the cousins.
Cooling off in the mighty Mississippi.


Ains & Kenz in front of the temple.

Cousins

We had a blast last weekend when Bart's brother and his family came to visit us for a couple of days. All of our kid's cousins live in either Utah or Boston so this was a great treat for the girls to play with their cousins. We spent one whole day at the MOA riding rides (Amy & I did a bit of shopping too.)





The next day we went downtown Mpls. We ate a picnic lunch on Nicollet Island and then walked a 2 mile loop called Heritage Trail. We began by walking through St. Anthony Main in the Riverfront District. We walked across the stonearch bridge which has a great view of St. Anthony Falls, the only waterfall on the Mississippi, and back across the Hennepin Ave. bridge.






That afternoon we swam in the pool, had a BBQ and went canoeing on our lake. We're going to meet up with them again at the end of their road trip in Nauvoo. It was nice to just say "see you in 2 weeks!" Rather than good-bye.

Fun Fourth

We had a great time hanging out with friends this fourth of July. Aren't good friends wonderful? First, we had a little BBQ with the Barringers then our friends, the Stanton's, came up from Georgia to visit and we hung out with them and the Stotts for some fun with fireworks. It really was a lot of fun celebrating the freedom of our country with fabulous friends.

butterfly

Our kids love finding catterpillars and raising them to butterflies. We found this catterpillar at our lake hanging out on some milkweed. Here he or she is just before it flew off.

Duluth

We just got back from our 2nd annual trip to Duluth with the Amott family to run some races. Ande & I ran a 5K on Friday night then Bart and Rob ran the 1/2 marathon on Saturday morning.

Ande and I just had a goal of finishing the race since we were both dealing with some injuries but lo and behold we finished and even beat our race time from last year by about 2 minutes! We finished the race in 31 minutes and 40 seconds.

Ande totally pushed me to the finish line (not literally...in a good way!) If I'd been running it by myself I'm sure I would've slowed down or even walked a bit but Ande kept us at a good pace the whole way and we didn't stop once. She's a great friend and running buddy! Thanks Ande!

Bart and Rob did excellent too. I'm so proud of Bart for his endurance and dedication to running! Bart ran the 1/2 marathon in 2 hours and 21 minutes! Way to go Bart...I love you!

Last year we stayed at UMD dorm rooms. This year we stayed at the Edgwater Resort that had an indoor waterpark. MUCH better place to stay!! We all loved it! Here are some more pictures from the rest of the weekend.

This is the before and after shots of our kiddos that ran the kid's whipper snapper races on Friday afternoon. James, Lizzie, Summer & Kenzie each ran in their respective 100 yard dash races then Ainsley ran 1/4 mile race.

Ande & I during and after our race.

Bart giving high-5's to the girls as he ran by. This was at the 9 mile mark. He only had 4 more to go after this.

The Edgewater Hotel had a really fun indoor water park. Our rooms had views of the waterpark.

Late one evening outside the hotel TikiTom (the hotel's mascot) gave the girls a push on the swings.

Sunday afternoon we walked along Lake Superior.

The lift bridge behind Summer & Bart.

Lake Superior.

First tooth!

Macky lost her 1st tooth right before we left for Duluth! Her adult tooth has almost fully grown in already right behind it and FINALLY that baby tooth fell out! She was so excited and even more excited that the tooth fairy found her all the way in Duluth!

Toes

Saturday, June 12th.... first official day of summer vacation....

wanted to do something fun for the girls for doing a great job at school this year so we all went to get our toes painted.

All the Asian ladies just loved Summer with her cute voice and blonde-blonde hair.

It was a fun girly thing to do.

Budding artists

Yesterday was the last day of school.

Ainsley celebrated her freedom by having her 1st late-over at a neighbor's house (since we don't do sleep-overs). She spent the evening eating pizza and watching back-to-back Tinkerbell movies with her good friend Lilly who lives right behind us. They lasted until 10:20 when Lilly's mom brought Ainsley back because Lilly had fallen asleep. Ainsley, my night owl, could've gone longer but what do you do when your friend has sacked out??

Kenzie, Summer and I watched Kit Kittredge then they got to watch a Barbie movie in their room on sleeping bags with a little TV we brought in for the special occasion. Between movies Summer and Kenzie drew some beautiful pictures of them and me. I'm flattered by the likeness. Summer drew her and me(I'm on the left.) Then Kenzie followed suit with a similar portrait with me on the left again.

Beautiful!