July Part 2 - Cousins Water Pics

You know I love my water pics.  

These are a few of my favorites from this year:

The girls love the wild ride on the hot dog.

Nick tried riding the hot dog once, 

but it's not as easy for me now that he's so tall.

Jace and Ben definitely prefer the sidewinder.

Rylee is the only skier at this point,

but Maddie did try.

Their favorite activity is still all 5 of them and the two tubes.

Luckily, the girls don't mind getting knocked over!

 

July Recap!

The cousins arrived on Friday night.  We were able to say a quick hello that night.  I'm pretty sure this is the first year that Ben is taller than Maddie.  Their height line used to always be their age line as well - not anymore!

Rylee really want to go to college in MN,

she's looking at either UMD or Bemidji!

Saturday was the typical lake day, but Sunday was pretty chilly and windy.

The whole crew went uptown and hit all the shops.

Crosby is the new Nisswa you know!

Then we spent Laurie's birthday dinner at Rafferty's.

The next day was the 4th.  Jon, the kids, and I went to the parade.

We spent the day at the lake with the cousins and then watched

the fireworks with Sara at our new favorite spot.

The next day was another day at the lake and 

then the following day was Serbian Christmas.

The girls wore the matching dresses the bought

at the super market for $10!  Lol!

The next day was a nice lake day, but also Jon's last day.  :(  

On Friday, Sara and I dropped Jon off at the airport in Mpls.  We had breakfast at Denny's and waited for IKEA to open.  Then we shopped there and some other places in Mpls.  It was such a fun day!  When we got back to town, we had a late night chat with Jessie in cabin 8.

Saturday was Deerwood's 150th celebration.  We walked around the booths and played some games.  We watched the fireworks with the cousins right from Chip's front lawn.  So beautiful!

Sunday Rylee and I went shopping in Brainerd with Laurie and Maddie.  Another fun girls day!

June Recap Part 2

MN Week 3 was when Jon arrived.  But first, I went to visit with Chelsie for a few hours and didn't come home until bedtime.  Lol!  We had a lot to catch up on!

Connie had a great idea that we should all have Serbian Christmas together in the summer.  So in preparation, she and Rylee made potica (a slovenian nut roll) the day Chip went to Mpls to get Jon.

Jon arrived!  We took a nice pontoon ride the first night.

The next day was Jace's first ever round of golf.  He played 9 holes with the crew.  Afterward, we went to Rafferty's for lunch with Chip and Connie and then to Victual for ice cream.

The next day Papa came out with us when we took the kids fishing.

The kids had fun, but didn't catch any keepers.

The cousins arrived the next day and so began 10 or so days 

of non-stop fun, but that will be in July's post.  :)

June 2022 Recap!

 I feel such a sense of accomplishment right now!  I'm caught up to June 2022.  :)

June is the end of the school year for us so we are always excited to be done.  Rylee had a field trip to an Extreme Action Park.  Though they only got to do a couple of things (laser tag, roller skating, arcade) so it wasn't as extreme as she hoped!  Lol

Jace's school finally had a ceremony for honor roll.

Thursday was an early release day.  That Friday I stayed home and packed

while the kids went with Jon to Motorola's bonus 

take your child to work day.

Then we flew to MN on Saturday morning.  We don't let any grass grow under out feet, 

we want to get to MN ASAP!  

Here are some of our highlights from our first week: lunch with Chip & Connie, Rafferty's Pizza with Gaga and Papa, Jurassic World Dominion and dinner with Sara, ice cream at Victual, slacklining, paddle boarding and swimming on Agate, and many hands of cards with Gaga and Papa.

The Erickson's also took us out for a pontoon ride on Father's Day - a rare 97 degree day!

Week 2 we decided to change up the kids room.

As you can see, Rylee could barely fit on the top bunk anymore.

So we decided to debunk the beds.  Bye beds!

The opted to be on opposite sides as far from each other as possible.  Lol!

It looks even cuter now that we put things up on the walls,

but I don't have pics of that.

Jace also lost a tooth!

I swear he's lost the majority of his teeth in MN.  The MN tooth fairy is really generous so maybe he holds them in some how.  So the weird thing is that he lost another tooth like the next week right next to this missing one.  So two teeth fell out, but only one has grown in!  Needless to say, he has an ortho appt the first week back in FL.

Other week 2 activities: more paddle boarding and swimming on Agate (sometimes they clip the lilly pad to the paddleboard for extra fun or to pull me around on it!)...

driving range with Grandpa Chip...

our first pontoon swim with Papa...

and a trip to Duluth for Rylee and I.  Rylee would really like to go to college in MN sowe had Uncle Howard give her a tour of UMD.  Afterward, we went down to canal park for lunch at Grandma's and shopping.  Then we drove past Glensheen (Rylee was very interested in the Glensheen murder) and up the North Shore a bit.

Rylee and Jon have a running messing with sasquatch joke so she had to take this picture to send to him.

In Jace's mind, the most important part of week 2 was be that he got his first phone.  It was time for me to upgrade my phone so that meant Jace got my old one.  He was excited he wore a special "Level Up" shirt that day and created text groups for the cousins, the Cedar Crest crew, and the family.  I guess we didn't take a photo with him and his phone, but here is his case.  :)

We spent more time on the water.  Chip took the kids tubing.

Rylee and I went shopping for craft supplies so she could make a wall hanging for the kids new bedroom. 

                                           Rylee also made her first sale with this pattern.  

                                                 My cousin, Lilly, bought one from her.

May Recap 3

So I mentioned the month of May was birthday, birthday, birthday for Jace.  So here are the last couple of fun things we did.

We had Jace's pool party over Memorial weekend.  (Rylee had asked that we have it after all her testing for school had ended.  Even so she got exposed to Covid the week before and woke up the day before with a sore throat.  Luckily it wasn't Covid and she was able to do her week of testing.)  That said, we kept the party small and then Mason and Henry both got sick so it was really small - only Oliver and Parker.  It was still a great time though!

It was Pokemon themed:

Rylee and I made cupcakes and brownies.

The cutest were the little pokeball ones.

The boys got him the perfect gift: a binder for all his pokemon cards!

Then, the final hurrah for his birthday was a trip to an escape room.  Jace loves puzzles and riddle and things like that so this is something that he had requested we do.  We had never done one before and we did pretty terrible!  Lol.  We were "locked" in an Egyptian Tomb.  Although we solved a lot of clues, we only made it like halfway through the challenge.  Luckily, we still had fun! 

May Recap Part 2

Jace tried out for the school play: Shrek.  He was one of Lord Farquad's guards.  He loved it.  He practiced two times a week for the second half of the school year and had two performances.

                                       His favorite scene was when they were fighting Shrek and 

then Shrek threw him to the ground.

                                                   

He had a couple of lines as well.

Mostly, it was a great part because he was almost always on stage.

Great job bud!  We always buy Rylee flowers for her performances, but we didn't do that for Jace.  He was actually kind of mad at us!  I gave him a Nintendo gift card to make up for it.  Bad mom!

Lastly, a quick pic of Jace and I from one of the last fun Fridays for school.

It was something about summer vacation so Crosby and lake life

remind of us of Minnesota summer!