Cedar Crest - Friday & Saturday

Friday morning wasn't the best, but the kids had a great time playing at the park after breakfast.  The afternoon was nice and Jace must have known it was his last day, because it was the only day her refused to nap.  Instead, we all spent the afternoon at the lake and had a great time.

Jace had so much fun at the lake this year.  He especially loved playing with Papa who splashed around with him, pulled him on floats or played in the sand with him the whole time.

A picture to remind my "future" kids that they did love each other at one time!

 

 

 

One of the resorters had a couple of paddle boards and were generous enough to let the kids play on them for a while.  They thought they were big stuff!

 

 

Friday night was bingo at the lodge.  Nobody in our group won.  I think I forgot to mention that Vern won the in-house on Monday night.  He thanked my Dad for not playing that night, because my Dad won the in-house two years in a row.  After bingo, the kids and ladies had one last game night.  I suppose the guys could have been fishing or more likely watching Fox News.  :)

Saturday morning was just packing up, breakfast at the lodge, and heading home (more on that later).  It was an awesome vacation as usual!  Next year, we changed up our reservations so we're all going to be sleeping in new cabins/rooms.  We'll be closer to the lodge and playground (which should be nice), but we'll be split up a little bit.  I'm sure we'll still have a fabulous time, but boy did we agonize over the decision.  Lol!  I guess we'll find out in Cedar Crest 2015 edition.  :)

Cedar Crest - Wed & Thurs

Wednesday was a typical day: breakfast at the lodge, swimming, happy hour, dinner at the lodge and a movie night ("Robots").  Each vacation is also characterized by Rylee's favorite afternoon "nap" movie.  One year it was "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and another it was "Wreck it Ralph."  This year was "Harry Potter."  She watched episodes 1 thru 4 and even borrowed Meg's Hermoine costume for play and Halloween.  "Expelliarmus!"

The four kiddos - Megan and Max are the same distance apart as Rylee and Jace so it's sort of like into a crystal ball as to what there sibling relationship will be like in the future.  Oh boy!  Lol!

 

Meg is so sweet that she doesn't mind being friend and babysitter.  My kids adore her!

 

 

Thursday was ladies shopping day in DL.  My mom, Rylee, and I split with the group in the late afternoon and had dinner with Dad back at the resort.  The Johnston guys drove into DL and met the ladies for dinner at Zorbaz.  Later, we all got back together for dominoes and cards.

Cedar Crest - Tuesday

Monday night was stormy and we didn't have power in the early am. Luckily, it came back on before breakfast! :)

It was another beautiful day for the beach...
 

 

 

 

Dave & Tanya (the newlyweds) arrived in time for happy hour.  We were just happy they shared their "honeymoon" with us!

 

That night we had dinner at the lodge and then played games.   

 

I have to brag a little about Jace and what a great sleeper he was (not that he isn't normally, but still I was impressed.)  He's used to the bunk so I knew we couldn't use the pack n play this year.  Instead, we brought a crib mattress and put it on the floor near Rylee's bed.  He went down for his naps even when the kids were watching TV in the next room.  And he went to bed before Rylee at night and never woke up when we snuck her in after.  He's such a good little guy! 

Cedar Crest - Monday

We have our vacation routine pretty well down. We usually all meet for breakfast at the lodge. Then we hit the beach. By mid-afternoon the kids are wiped so they watch a movie in our cabin. This works well for me since then I can put Jace down for a nap and leave the kids in charge while I head down for more beach and visiting time. And we always have happy hour around 4. Our evenings are the only things that vary.

So here we are during our beach time on Monday.  Building sandcastles (with Vern's help - he's the master!)...

 

Braving the cold waters...

 

 

The finished castle!

 

The girls had a little too much fun in the sun on Monday and seemed to have a touch of sunstroke.  They skipped happy hour and rested with some cold compresses and a movie.

 

Luckily, they rebounded in time for bingo at the lodge with Bart & Penney (who arrived that day).  Later, the ladies and kids had a game night (Apples to Apples I think) while the men watched Fox News.  :)

Cedar Crest 2014 - Sunday

Saturday was a late night with the wedding reception and we still had to pack up the vehicles before we could leave in the morning so we didn't arrive at the resort until about 4 pm.  Heather, Vern & the kids also came up on Sunday. After we unpacked and had happy hour (our favorite vacation pastime - Rylee loves being the Queen of Happy Hour!), the kids decided to hit the beach. 

Max is all action so I didn't get any pics of him that night, but I did get the girls in their matching swimsuits!

 

 

The water was cold so Meg had to persuade Rylee to go out deeper!

 

 

Wedding Pics

These are a little blurry since I stole them off of FB, but at least Patti (who took the photos) documented the day for us. 

 

The four of us at the reception...

The ladies...

 

Rylee with her girls: Meg (who was a junior bridesmaid), Chloe (in hug motion) & little Molly

 

It's too bad you can't see Rylee or my shoes - we both had great sandals.  Rylee received numerous compliments on hers!

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MN 2014 - Week 6 (partial)

Wed - Papa babysat so my Mom and I could go get our hair done in Aitkin and then Rylee had dance/gymnastics

Thurs - Papa babysat again so I could go garage saling with my Mom and her crew (Jeanne & Karen) and then we had errands for Cedar Crest, plus Jace had his last swimming lesson of the season

Fri - my cousin, Lisa, stopped by for a visit and then we spent the day packing for Cedar Crest. 

That night we all sat up on the hill overlooking the weekend travelers coming north from the cities.  The kids loved waving at all the cars and seeing which ones would wave back or honk.  This was always a favorite activity on my grandma's hill, but neither my mom or I had done it since we were both kids!

Sat - we missed Day 1 of our Cedar Crest (CC) trip, as did the rest of our CC crew, but it was well worth it: two of our fellow cresters were getting married - Dave & Tanya!  Mark & Jan babysat Jace so the rest of us could go to the wedding and reception.  It was Rylee's first wedding and she loved it.  She started asking when they were going to kiss pretty much right after Tanya walked down the aisle.  That was her favorite part.  :)  She had a great time at the reception and even stayed up late enough to enjoy the dance for an hour.  She would only dance with her friends and not me - that starts this early?!  We all had a great time.  I have a few pics on my cell so I will post those later. 

The rest of week 6 was our Cedar Crest trip so that will need its own post too!  Guess I'm done for now.  :)

Just Jace

Rylee was the focus of the last couple of posts so here's some Jace news. 

Jace is just as adorable as he can be right now.  He's really getting to be quite the talker.  Most words I can recognize from his "Jace speak."  "Coo Coo" is cookie, for instance.  This word gets used a lot!  Sometimes he strings together a long, serious sentence, but I have no idea what he's trying to convey.  Luckily, he's not shy about grabbing your hand and leading you places.  He also says "boke" (broke) and "boo boo."  Two words he used to describe Papa the other night (who's finally home for the hospital...temporarily... but we haven't made it up to that story yet.  I'll save that for another time).

Jace's favorite show is Paw Patrol and he has two plastic cars (Chase and Rubble) that he carries with him everywhere and generally sleeps with too.  These toys are relatively new, but before those, he would grab the oddest assortment of things to bring into bed at night.  A plastic banana and a toy spatula, perhaps?  Snuggly!  He still has to have his two blue dog blankies as well.  (And don't try to buy him a similar blue one at a garage sale and throw that into the rotation cause it will just end up being thrown on the floor - just sayin.')

He recently started doing the cutest thing at nap and bedtime.  He does this pretend snoring sound and then a little mmmr, mmmr, mmmr sleep sound.  Hysterical!

Rylee started doing something funny this summer too.  Since I can't see her on the monitor I never know if she's awake, so one morning she broke out with a "cock a doodle do!"   Now that's our morning signal! 

Oops, I said this post was just Jace so back to him.  Here are some cute random photos of my big boy!
 

Frozen Dessert

I decided to keep the Frozen theme going with the dessert so I made an ice cream cake instead of cupcakes.  It was yummy! 

We all loved this picture.  After Papa lit Rylee's candles, he left his beer sitting next to the birthday girl.  Lol!

 

What a fun party!  Rylee had a great time as did we all.  Here I am with my beautiful almost 6 year old.  Happy "Birthday" Rylee!

Frozen Games

First, we played "Pin the Carrot Nose on Olaf."   You saw my Olaf creation in several pictures so I didn't post again.  He was cute though, right?!

Then we played the old cotton ball on the head game.  It's a classic (I used to play it at my birthday parties!) and always good for a laugh. 

 

Afterwards, we used all those cotton balls for a snowball fight!

 

 

 

We ended the games with a freeze dance.  Rylee got to use her Frozen powers to freeze the kids.

Frozen Party Guests

Meg was the first to arrive (her brother Max was having his real birthday party that day so he and his parents came later).

Of course, Jace was there too!

 

 

Chels and her boys (Jace was photo bombing!)...

 

Anthony, Laurie & the cousins...

 

Grandpa Chip & Connie...

 

Kathy & Lilly...

Guess who I forgot to take a picture of?  Yep, Gaga and Papa.  Oops!  They were so busy running around, cooking and helping, that I didn't have the chance.  Thanks for all your hard work guys!

Frozen Party!

Rylee wanted to celebrate her birthday with her cousins and her grandparents so we threw her an honorary party.  Of course, she picked "Frozen" as her theme.  :)

My mom scored some amazing decorations at garage sales...

 

...including hundreds of sparkly snowflakes leftover from some kind of school dance.  Score!

 

We barely used a 1/3 of them.  They were beautiful!

 

She found twinkle lights and icicles (hard to see in the photo) too.

 

Of course, we got a few ideas from Pinterest too

(like snowman popcorn cups that I gave an Olaf twist).

 

 

 

"A real howler in July, ya?"

MN 2014 - Week 5

Wed - my Mom and I dropped Jon and Rio off at the airport around 6 am and then ran errands in Brainerd for Rylee's "birthday" party (we managed to sneak in breakfast at Perkins too), later I took the kids to the park and let them run through the sprinklers.  Rylee had dance/gymnastics and the we watched a movie in the cabin.

Thurs - spent the day at the lake with the cousins.  Maddie and Rylee came back to my parents to play during Jace's nap and then she came with us to swim during Jace's swimming lesson.

Fri - Rylee went with the cousins to see "How to Train Your Dragon 2" so we could decorate for her party

Sat - party day! (more on that in a separate post)

Sun - relaxing day with Kathy & Lilly at the lake, dinner with Mark & Jan

Mon- visiting with Grandpa Chip, Big Grandpa Bob & dinner with Greg

Tues - Ginny walked down for a visit and got treated to Jace and Rylee's duet of "Let It Go" (Jace was wearing only a loaded diaper!), the kids and I hit the park followed by lunch at DQ and more outdoor play at the resort