Florida | Day 1

I always say this, but the first day at the beach is the best. The excitement of the arrival, the massive change in temperature, the first beach sunset...

This trip was no different. Well, maybe a step up from usual. 

Our family has this game of guessing the color of the rental car each trip. Sometimes we’re even crossing our fingers for a van upgrade. This time we had our colors chosen and were anxiously walking to space 273 to see who would win. 

As it turns out, we all ‘won’. Shawn pulled some strings and had a Jeep waiting for us!!! We were beyond excited. We took the top off and headed for the beach :)

Our first stop was Rockaway Beach Cafe for lunch where we had drinks while the big kids played in the sand.

Then we checked into our hotel and played at the beach. Sand toys, kite flying, sunset watching. The best. 

Afterwards, we swam for a bit.

For dinner, we were pretty exhausted, so stayed at the hotel. And as it turns out, their restaurant felt like a rec room with tvs and a pool table. We had some snacks and called it a night. 

It’s awesome to be on vacation, awesome to be at the beach, and the coolest to be doing it cruising around in a Jeep! :)

Halloween

This year I tried to talk the boys into a family costume, but they had their own ideas of what they wanted to be.

Brecken bounced from a baseball player to a fireman (again - and he did wear that to school) and landed on a skier for Halloween night. He is SO excited to ski this winter for the first time and wore his goggles most of the evening - even in the house. He also insisted on using his Easter basket ;)

Logan went as a snowboarder - only due to the fact that this plastic snowboard was much lighter than real skis.

And Ryder went as a soccer player - for the second year in a row. He also wore this for career day since he still wants to be a pro soccer player when he grows up.

While it was only about 30 degrees at night, we stayed pretty warm while trick or treating. 

Brecken slowly made it around our neighborhood loop over the course of about an hour (even with skipping at least 50% of the houses!) The big kids took off with their neighborhood friends, racing from door to door.

A successful night :)

Everyday Awesomeness

It’s been a while since my last post, so I thought I’d get going again with something easy. 

Ten, seven, and four are so fun. It seems like our days are getting a little easier, our nights are filled with more sleep, and we are getting to do more of the things we enjoy and that were on hold when we started parenting.

Tonight’s activities (between sport seasons):

Architectural model building for Ryder...

Typing practice for Logan...

And baseball in the playroom for Brecken...

Love these boys.

Lutsen 99er | 2019

Another weekend, another bike race ;)

This is Shawn’s third Lutsen 99er mountainbike race and our third time camping for the race. We camped in a tent  in 2016 shortly after Breck was born, but he hardly slept due to the cold. I also remember having to leave the tent late at night in the cold to go warm a bottle. At that point, with our young family, I realized we were not ready to get back into ‘real’ camping yet. The following year, we camped in the RV and continued to do that kind of camping for the past couple of years.

Pop-up camping earlier this month was a nice transition, and then on this trip, we had our first night with the whole family in a tent since that 2016 event weekend. 

It went pretty well. The 50 degree overnight temps that were tough on an infant were just fine for a 3 year old. The only thing that was tough this year was getting them all to fall asleep next to each other in the daylight. 

I was excited to sneak out of the tent after everyone eventually fell asleep to capture this shot of our first night in our new tent and this [hopefully] transition back to tent camping for our family. 

I propped my manual camera on the cooler and set the shutter to stay open for 20 seconds. Fun to capture the glow of our tent and the clear starry night sky above. Also fun not to be worried about grizzlies roaming around in the dark like out west :)

Other than forgetting his clip-in bike shoes and having some trouble with his water supply, Shawn had a good race. He rode the 69 mile course this year after having done the 39 mile course for the first two years.

During the race, the boys and I spent most of the day hanging out with neighbors whose dad / husband was also racing. The kids swam together at their pool all morning. We all celebrated together at the finish.

We had dinner in Grand Marais at the Wunderbar and Glamground, enjoying the beautiful summer weather and some live acoustic guitar.

Checking out the scene of the crime from a couple weeks ago...(Ryder’s stitches)

We took advantage of Sunday to enjoy every last minute of vacation, starting with a hike down to the lake at our Temperance River campground...

Coaching his little brother through the rocks

Can’t get enough of this shoreline...

Brecken with his ‘ski poles’

A waterfall hike at the Temperance River State Park (across the street)...

A stop at Castle Danger Brewing...

A visit to Continental Ski Shop in Duluth to return some borrowed shoes...

A hike at Chester Bowl and some time at the Chester playground...

Fast asleep after those late nights in the tent and no naps...

A visit to Bent Paddle Brewing...

And a stop at Taco Arcade (a random find) for dinner and old school arcade games :)

Around 7pm, we decided to call it a wrap and head home for the night :) Was a great weekend up north, enjoying 60-70 degree temps instead of the 90’s back in the cities!