Lake Elmo Park with the Small Group

Family Fun Night this week was at Lake Elmo Park Reserve with the Small Group.



Piper and Emma love to hang out together at Small Group events.

They’ve got great equipment and the kids really had a fun time. Nice to visit with everyone, and it was sort of (kind of) quiet enough to have a 2 minute conversation between bathroom trips and such.

I got some great pictures of Sam and Tiffany’s youngest at the water fountain (I love little kid at the water fountain pics).



In other news, we got some cute new PJs for Baby Abby who continues to amaze us with her walking and how interactive she is.

Weekend at the Trabin

I’m sitting in the trabin on Sunday watching baby Abby sleep and listening to Connie and Debbie read Grandma Brown’s journal on the porch.

There’s a fly that keeps landing on Abby and waking her up a little. I’ve been chasing it around with a fly swatter between reading a biography of Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO).

We’ve had a nice weekend. Tim was here till about 6 last night with Dorothy and then took off (timing the drive around the Twins game so he could listen to it on the way home). I got in an afternoon nap then we had a dinner of brats and hotdogs.




This is what Emma looks like when she is up TOO late!

The little bar here promised to save some bottle caps for Jake’s collection, but when we came back in the morning (per the agreement) they had been thrown out. A promise of getting some from Uncle Adam’s job at Acapulco and two choco-taco’s made everything better.

Tara and I got a run in down Pumpkins Seed road and enjoyed a nice time by the fire and S’Mores (a trabin favorite).

Sleeping arrangements are notable… Shelly slept where the table is, Karen took the couch (against my protests), Jake and Emma slept on fluffy blankets on the floor, Abby had the playpen, and Tara and I got the… BIG BED. We were woken up in the middle of the night by a white horse neighing really loudly right outside the window and Abby getting up several times.



Breakfast was sausage, pancakes and eggs cooked in the grease from the sausage.

It’s fun listening to the ladies read from Grandma Brown’s journal. Lot’s a family history mixed with world history. Notable was the comment about Clinton. Something to the effect that ‘he did have an affair with that Lewinsky woman… bad news for our country’.

Family Fun Night @ MarketFest

We had a nice Family Fun Night at MarketFest in White Bear Lake.



The kids couldn’t wait to get there and start spending their money on treats and rides. Tara sprung for some crazy yummy ice-cream sandwiches (they used hot cookies and some great ice cream)… amazing.





Emma wanted to do the bungee ride, which initially scared Jake. I was pretty impressed that Emma would try something like that at 4. Jake got over his fear pretty quickly, but had already missed a place in line.





While Emma was waiting in line (long, long time), Jake got to play some kind of ducky game, shoot water balloons, and run an obstacle course.





It was a ton of fun!

Sawyer Wedding

Jason and Erin got married this weekend at the American Legion in Somerset.

The wedding was beautiful. They asked me to take some picutures and got a bunch of practice with the camera.

The kids had a fun time playing.




The vows were Doctor Suess based. Here's a sample
Pastor: Will you love her when you're fit,
And also when you're feeling sick?

Jason: Yes, I'll love her when we're fit,
And when we're hurt, and when we're sick,
And I will love her when we're rich
And I will love her in a ditch
And I will love through good and bad,
And I will love when glad or sad,
And I will have, and I will hold
Ten years from now a thousandfold,
Yes, I will love for my whole life
This lovely woman as my wife!


The party went on into the night and the kids got to dance. I tried to talk Missy into a epic karioke version of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', but to no avail.

Tara is 33!!

We had a really fun day Monday, despite some disconcerting news from home about mom.

We took the day off and relaxed. In the morning I took the kids to Karen’s and let Tara sleep (she’s running at 4:45 am these days, so it doesn’t count as “sleeping in” per se). Afterward, we went to Best Buy to scope out Tara’s gift: a new camera lens with a higher aperture (for portrait shots).



Then it was off to brunch at one of our favorite restaurants: Victor’s 1959 Café, which is the only place in Minnesota to get good Cuban food. We sat at the table below which has a lovely portrait of the Terrorist Che Guevara.



Then we saw The Hangover at the Rosedale AMC. Very funny movie, if not way inappropriate.



Afterward, we played with the kids at Teddy Bear Park.







Then met up with Grandma, Papa, Shelly, Adam, Emily and Kelly at Acapulco’s in Stillwater. Karen took the kids overnight, freeing us up for a little date at another of our favorite spots: Ingredients.

Abby's First Steps

Abby took her first steps on Friday… and finally it was for daddy. Jake and Emma both took their first steps at grandma’s house.

It’s funny when you can see those little wheels turning in their heads and this was clearly one of those situations. She was upstairs behind the gate with me when Emma came to the top of the stairs. She was standing and wanted to be closer to her big sister. You could see her contemplate the dangers of taking a step versus sitting down and crawling. Too cute.



Later, she took several steps for Tara. Even a couple multiples. This is clearly a baby on the go and she has no intention of being left behind in the fun.

Mom's Health

Got some bad news this weekend. Mom had some bad chest pains very early Saturday morning and called the squad.

She spent the next few days in Riverside undergoing tests. Virginia and Julie were great about keeping me in the loop, and I spoke to mom several times.

The net result appears to be that she has a pretty clean bill of health. It wasn't a heart attack (not really sure what to call it). They did a heart catheterization and confirmed that that two areas of blockage that they knew about from before were basically the same.

We're looking forward to seeing her in August for Odepalooza with Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie.