8/6/12

Well, it’s here. Our last day with the Steveson’s. It is an incredibly sad day, but we made the most of it.

After our final big family breakfast together, we all got ready, packed up and made our way to Minnehaha Falls for the day. We had a picnic lunch when we got there, then made the trek down to the waterfall. Hung out there for a few minutes, took some pictures, then wandered down the path to the river opening. We spent a good 90 minutes just splashing away in the river. (Little) Christian spent his time building a dam with the rocks, Spencer wandered around getting into trouble with all of the other kids, Brooklyn and Amelia clung to me and Dawn and spent some time together, while Olivia hung out with daddy. It was just a perfect day. Amazing weather, great company, and perfect location. Relaxing, but fun. I think everybody had a great time, and that’s all that matters in the end.

Our meter in the lot was about to expire, and the little girls were getting tired, so we made our way back to the cars. The girls fell asleep right away as we left. We stopped at IKEA so Dawn and I could run in quick to get them one last thing they forgot on their trip the other day, then made our way home. Our friends stopped at McDonald’s for some snacks and drinks while we did a little cleaning up and started getting dinner ready.

Christian wanted to grill for their last night here. We had some chicken, potatoes and veggies, hung out in the yard playing the evening away, had some ice cream cones for dessert (regular sized ice cream cones, thank you) and spent every last minute we could chatting and laughing the night away. The girls have school tomorrow (they are going in late though), so we finally had to force them to go to bed. Christian has to go in tomorrow at his normal time, so he said his goodbyes and made his way to bed. The rest of the kids were sent to bed to try to start getting back on their normal schedule, and Tim wasn’t far behind them. Dawn and I watched some more Olympics together, chatted, and tried to stay up as long as possible. But, alas, I do have to work tomorrow, and she has a long drive head of her, so we had to give up and go to bed. Not looking forward to saying goodbye tomorrow, or getting back into reality.

8/5/12

Sunday’s are great in general, but simply amazing when you don’t work the next day. YES!

Today, we had breakfast and were all able to get up and out of the house earlier than the last few days. Our plan today was Mall of America, basically Nickelodeon Universe, for lots of rides and fun. A few months ago, when we won Brothers of the Sun tour tickets, part of the prize pack was two unlimited ride wristbands for the park, so the girls were all set. Christian and I are able to ride all of the smaller rides with them for free, and he doesn’t like real rides, so I just bought a few points to go on a couple rides with Dawn. In the end, we only ended up going on two adult rollercoasters together, BOO, but it was still fun though. The girls had a blast, and Amelia was able to go on most of the rides as well this time. I took Olivia down the Log Chute for the first time. She loved the ride itself, but was creeped out by the giant mechanical figures throughout the ride, so that kind of ruined it for her. We were able to meet TONS of characters today….Jimmy Neutron, Kai Lan, Dora and Boots, Spongebob and Patrick. YAY, great day to be there, that’s for sure! We grabbed some lunch in the food court, went on a few more rides, and then had to head out. Tonight Dawn is taking our family pictures, so we had to get the girls down for their naps. Our friends stayed and finished up their riding while the girls napped and Christian and I got ready.

As soon as they got home, we were off with Dawn for picture time. We headed to Minneapolis, to Nicollet Island for our pictures, and had a blast doing them. I haven’t seen all of them, but she let me peek at a few and they were SUPER cute. I can’t wait until she gets them edited and I can see all of them. The girls were really receptive to her, and she did such a great job. YAY, pictures, done!

It was around 9:00 when we got back to the truck and started on our way home. All of her family was passed out for the night when we finally arrived home, so we ate a quick dinner, put the girls to bed, and really weren’t far behind. Can’t wait for another exciting day tomorrow, though it is technically our last day together. That thought, makes me want to cry. Ugh, goodbye sucks!

8/4/12

Well, today was a bit different. We decided head to Perkin’s for breakfast today. It was quite chaotic, and loud, getting everybody settled in. I’m sure the other customers were not too happy when they saw our group coming, but whatever. Once everybody had their food, things calmed down quite a bit, so we got it all under control…eventually. Amelia and Brooklyn did have to be separated though, they kept fighting over everything, and Amelia was trying to hoard all of the jelly and cream...

 After breakfast, we brought the girls over to my mom’s. Today is my BFF’s birthday, and they had a little adult only BBQ/get together to celebrate. When I first talked to Dawn about them coming, I mentioned this would be the only hiccup in their visit, and they were perfectly fine with doing their own thing tonight, so it all worked out great.

As we dropped the girls off, our houseguests made their way to IKEA for the day. We got a little rest in when we arrived home, and then got ready for the party. They arrived home shortly after we left, so they had the house to themselves all night, and I’m sure they appreciated a little less chaos after the last few days (especially after a trip to IKEA with 3 kids!). Christian and I had a blast at the BFF’s house. I was able to chat with her and her sisters and goof around for a while, while Christian and the boys did dumb boy stuff. We watched Kari and Jay’s wedding video, which was super fun. I can’t wait until she finally gets her wedding photos back; I want to see them so bad!

We left the party around 9:00 (I know, party animals!), picked up the girls, and made our way home. Much to our surprise, and HUGE APPRECIATION, our friends had cleaned the house. They picked up, cleaned the kitchen, washed dishes, picked up some pretty flowers for the table and Dawn got me a really sweet card to thank us for having them. She has this eerie ability to find the most PERFECT greeting cards, it’s crazy. It was such an amazing surprise to come home to; I just love them to death! Tim was getting the kids settled in for bed, then we all spent some adult time chatting and watching some Olympics before bed.

8/3/12

FINALLY, Christian was off work today and able to spend the whole day with us. YAY!

I started off the day with my weekly weigh in. I wasn’t sure how it would go with my lack of exercise, and our altered routine this week, but I was actually down 2.6lbs! Nice! That puts be at 34.2lbs to date, so close to the halfway mark, I can taste it. Yahoo!!

Once everybody was up, we again had a big family breakfast, got ready for the day, and were off and running again. Today, we were spending the day in Stillwater. We stopped at Teddy Bear Park first and the kids had a blast running around, climbing the rocks and jumping off. Wearing themselves out basically.

After some play, we walked down into downtown Stillwater and wandered around a little bit. We stopped into Leo’s Grill for some lunch, right off the lift bridge. The kids were pretty chaotic all through lunch, especially the little girls, so it was quite stressful. But, we survived, and escaped as quickly as possible.

We made our way back to the car, and drove up into the city to get some ice cream from Nelson’s. The line at Nelsons’ was HUGE, so the men and kids hung out in their van watching some TV, while we waited it out in line. This place is crazy…their KIDS cones are the size of your head, amazing. We finally got our cones and met everybody outside to eat it up. I don’t think any of us finished out cones, even with sharing, but it’s cheap, delicious, and so worth the wait. YUM, definitely glad I already weighed in for the week after that! LOL.

After our sugar coma started commencing, we made our way home. The girls fell asleep instantly, and took a nap once we got home. The rest of the kids relaxed downstairs watching TV once we got home for a while, and then as everybody was up and back at it, we picked up some Papa Murphy’s for dinner and spent some time outside again. So fun, I’m already dreading the end of our “staycation”, and we still have a few days left.