A weekend with the Gehlens.

We planned a weekend to Minneapolis to see my friend, Leanne, and her family many months ago. We had originally hoped to go boating with them, but as the weekend approached, I was placed on slight activity restrictions due to my placenta location, the Gehlen's boat suffered some damage, and the weather was cool and windy. Needless to say, our original plan completely fell through, but we went anyway.

We stayed at a hotel on Friday evening and made a quick (hectic) stop at Ikea before making our way to the Gehlen's on Saturday. We basically ate and played for 24 hours. It was really fun to get the kids together. I love quality time with my friends, I always feel so refreshed after our time together.  We look forward to hosting them sometime this winter.

Joey, Sully, Greta, Natalie

"Say ROAR!"

Lots of fun = 2 hours car nap, yay! 

Connelly Family Vacation to Leech Lake

We headed north to Leech Lake and had a great time. After spending many summer vacations at Leech Lake as a child, it was really fun to return as an adult and to have my own kids and husband along. Most of the Connelly family was able to make the trip, which coincided with my dad's 75th birthday. What a great week of celebrating.

The kids had a blast. Activities and sleep overs (for the older kids) were constant. We stayed at a family friendly resort which was perfect for the kids. We had a beach day, a pool day and a couple of pontoon days. We also watched turtle races, participated in a fishing contest, sat by bon fires and ate one years worth of s'mores in one week. Both of the kids mastered water wings and loved being in the water. We did, too, as it was in the 90s and so humid. 

We were thankful for the week away from house work, and were excited to come home to some progress. The kids did so well in the car making the 7 hour drive really not so bad, thank goodness.

Road trip! 

Fishing contest and Sully's first fish (Isaac is supervising).

Sully and daddy on the boat. 

Sully, post little boat ride. 

Pool day. 

Sully playing with the big boy and gaining some water confidence.

Greta and Sully at the beach. 

Captan Sully!
(This was the only way we could keep him awake on boat rides.)

The whole crew. 

Anna and Sully with their Huddles gear on.

Family photo. Im 30 weeks along. 

The boys go camping.

Dave and Sullivan put their first camping trip on the calendar early this summer and we did lots of talking about it to Sully in order to prep for the actual outing. As the evening approached, all eyes were on the weather in fear of rain or something worse. Fortunately, August 1st turned out to be a perfect evening to camp.

Greta and I joined them initially to make sure they got the (borrowed) tent set up (our tent is packed away in the storage POD along with so many other things). We then grilled hot dogs and s'mores with them and made our way home when it was close to Greta's bedtime.

Dave and Sully had a great time. They played on the jungle gym, met other campers and grilled jiffy pop before a 9pm bedtime. They had books to read and a comfy blow up mattress to sleep on equipped with all of their favorite things from home. They made it through the night without a hitch and Sully slept until after 8am. The only issue they had was that Sully wasn't ready to come home the next morning. It was a success. Dave is scrambling to get another camping date on the calendar before October.

Dave prepping the campsite.

The campsite. 

Sully's chair, and only his chair.

Smiles by the campfire. 

Donuts in the morning (in his red chair).