The Great Minnesota Get Together

On Wednesday afternoon we ventured out to the Minnesota State Fair aka The Great Minnesota Get Together. It is one of the biggest Fair's in the US & the biggest when it comes to daily attendance. Something like 1.5 million people attend the fair. It is only open for something like 10 days. That is crazy! We only have 5.2 million people in our State too! Again, crazy!

If you live in Minnesota & you don't like the Fair (aka my husband) you are broken. lol The Fair for us however, it very bittersweet. Our State Motto is "The Land of 10,000 Lakes" (although we have more than 12K) so we REALLY enjoy our summers here. They are really short but we really take advantage of it. The Fair has been the unofficial end of summer for as long as I can remember. It ends Labor Day and the next day kids go back to school. We all look forward to the Fair but at the same time we don't. As a kid it is such a huge mix of emotions. The Fair is so much fun & you can spend ALL day there & not see everything. But, as soon as it is over Fall is here & school is here. Urgh!

As an adult, it isn't as bad but I still am going to miss Summer. lol So besides all the facts about MN & our Fair, it is fun! And we had fun! We went with my dad, step mom & my little brothers. My kids were overjoyed that they got to spend the day with my brothers. They love them!

We met at my dads house & walked over to the church where we took the bus. It's free & it really gets you there pretty quick. We do that every year. It works grand. The bus we take has the first park & ride spot so we are dropped over literally across the street from the main gates!

The first thing we did when we go there was check out the John Deere stuff. Normally, this wouldn't be something that I would do but my dad needs to buy something there for work. Plus, kids LOVE that kind of crap.

The boys loved it. They wanted to climb on EVERY SINGLE thing there. Why not though? It isn't something that they every get to go on and they are allowed to go on it.

Across the street was Gander Mountain booth and they were givng out these hilarious fish hats! lol

All the kids wanted them but as soon as I put the hat on Karie she wasn't happy. lol Look at the face...and that HAT! hahahahaha How can you not love that? It is so funny!!!!!!

If you aren't from MN or if you haven't even been to the Fair here, it is HUGE. There is a lot of space to cover. My kiddos are little & walking the entire time is pretty rough so they got a little help.

How do you not love that? Check out the Chicken hats too! How cute are those? These hats were a HUGE hit & Kegan pretty much wore his hat the ENTIRE day! They got them at the Golden Plump booth. Another MN Fact, Golden Plump it out of Northern MN. lol

We went on Kegan's favorite thing next! The Space Needle or what it is really called "Space Tower". Pretty sure I have never heard of anyone call it that. I honestly had no idea that it was called the Space Tower until last year. I thought the real name is The Space Needle. lol It is the tallest thing there & you go to the tippy top & get the see the entire Fair AND both Minneapolis & St. Paul.

It is so cool. I love that you can see all of us in the middle. It is a slow ride, anyone can ride it. It is grand. I like to do this ride last, but the kids can't wait that long. The second my kiddos see it, they want to ride it, and it is impossible to miss!

I love how I try to get a cute picture of Kyle & Karie & this is what I end up with! The second however is adorable. Heck, they both are! lol

While we were up there we saw the Twins Booth along with a bounce house. My kiddos love the bounce how. There was also a kid sized Baseball Field, a place to see how fast you throw & a fun photo op! We had to go there.

Of course more piggy back rides & my kids failed attempt at High Fives. I love my kids but they fail hard at giving each other high fives. lol They always end up beating each other. lol

The place was pretty cool. If you are from MN, you know our love for the Twins. Even Tyler sported his Twin tee! Love it!

Of course you know me & I am always looking for photo ops. I saw the family Guy one & I was able to get 3 of the 4 kids in there for a picture.

So funny! I adore that show!!!

The next stop was the Merry Go Round. They love that. I made Kyle go on so that I could get some pictures...of course!

How cute is my family!? My brothers didn't ride on it & my kids loved being able to wave to my brothers while on the ride!

I was a bad mom that day too. My kids ate nothing but junk. Karie also had her first soda. We never have soda in the house. We just don't drink it. We buy it for parties & if it isn't all gone, it stays there until the next party. lol

I enjoy a Root Beer every once in a while. In reality I'd rather have a Root Beer float but it was hot & a Root Beer itself sounded really good. So I let Karie have some, she loved it too! lol

It was time for another ride. This ride, I HATE! It is the sky ride. It isn't scary really, but it is HIGH & goes from one end of the Fair to the other. My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE this ride so I have to suck it up & do it for them!

They spend the 5 minutes looking at everything. I spend about 10 seconds getting a good picture and the rest gripping for dear life on the door handle and looking at my feet. lol I hate this ride.

It was getting late, 5 or so hours in, and the kids were getting really tired. Kegan was on my dads back & just laying there tired.

See the Chicken hat. Still there. lol He loved that thing. I also love the lighting in these pictures. Karie was also tired. She fell asleep.

Right on Kyle's head she passed out. How cute is that! lol However it was SO hot! Kyle didn't want to have this sweaty little kid on his back for the next hour. So I took her.

Forgive my sweaty look, it was hot! lol The first picture is how she is most of the time. The second picture shows just how tired she was. lol It didn't even matter that she tipped backwards she stayed asleep. That only happened then. She normally just cuddles up. I ADORE this carrier. My Mei Tei. I got this when Kegan was a newborn. I have used it so hard the past 5 years. It comes in handy more often than you think. I had both my hands free to eat lots of nummy food!

I failed at taking pictures of all the food we ate & all the kids we did. We had a blast! Good bye Summer! Welcome Fall!

Mini Vacation is just what I needed!

It was about a month ago that my dad invited us up north for their yearly family trip. I didn't know if we could make it work because I am so insanely busy with work. I did everything I could & was able to squeeze two days dry to go! Kyle was orginally supposed to come but with Kegan's birthday party this Sunday & all the work that needed to be done around the he had to stay home.

Early Wednesday morning I drove 3 hours solo with my two kiddos. Armed with snacks, a DVD player, countless movies, water and ear buds for me we ventured north! I do have to give a shout to I Heart Radio and the Dave Ryan In the Morning channel! It saved me! I love listening to music but I love to listen & sing. Not so easy when two little ones are trying to watch Robots. So I plugged in my iPhone & listened to that show all the way up there. It was grand!

10:59am we arrived at beautiful Clamshell Beach Resort! The cabin was small & rustic (don't worry we had running water & electricity) but it was RIGHT ON THE BEACH! You walked out the door & it was pretty much right there! It was so awesome! We took no time to settle in & head out on our first adventure of the trip!

We took a boat ride to "Big Island". Not sure if that is what it is really called, but that is what we called it. It was a short boat ride which was probably a good thing because the wind was crazy! 20MPH! Darn near blew the kiddos off the dock! It was crazy! We tied the boat off to a tree on shore & hiked around.

O rly?! I see no tree!

Piggy back rides were a hit with the kids this week. Pretty sure Karie didn't walk anywhere! She was on Tyler's back the entire time. Tyler is my 10 year old brother if you didn't know. Wyatt is another brother of mine who was there as well. He is 7, his birthday is today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY WYATT! 

The trees were amazingly tall. You can see in the picture on the right of my dad giving Kegan a piggy back ride just how tall they are. Oh, and sun flare how I love you!

After the boat ride & hike we hit up the pool. They had two pools. A kiddie pool & a deeper pool for the big kids. I say big kids because any adult that gets into a pool automatically turns into a big kid!

My brothers had a blast being through up in the air over and over and over again!

The girls didn't swim much. We worked on our color. ;) lol

 

As you can see Karie was none too thrilled we had to leave the pool. lol I adore the first picture with the random beam of light coming down on her insanely cute pouty face. Honestly, how am I supposed to be mad at this face?!

When night fell the kids stayed inside & read books. My kids, like my brothers, love books so it worked out well. I failed to bring books but the boys had plenty. Uncle Tyler, that still makes me lol, was a great book reader & story teller.

Scat Cat was a popular book. I heard those words come out of the kids mouths many many MANY times the past few days!

Thursday was the day I planned to go home. We were having so much fun that we decided to stay another night. We got up & I had to do something with Karie's insane hair so I attempted my first french braid.

Not so bad if I do say so myself. I need to work on it more but it really helped keep her bangs out of her face. If you don't remember a few months ago Karie took scissors to her bangs. 8 months of growing them out were shot! Boo!

While we were waiting for the adults to get ready the kids built a sand castle. I can't lie, I really got into it. The littlest ones helped bring water to the lake for our mote.

It was a nice group effort! It was nice that the resort provided all sorts of sand toys. They had a huge container of every kind of sand castle building thing you could think of and things I wouldn't even think of as well!!

Finally we ventured on another boat ride. This time with the knee board & wake board. My kiddos are too small to do either one but loved watching Tyler, Wyatt & Grandpa John do them!

Tyler went on the knee board first. He is so good at it. Look at that! I could NEVER turn around completely like that!!!!!! He did take some nice diggers though & I totally thought he would be in pain after but he fine! Tough kid!

Next was my dad on the wake board. Now this is impressive. I always tease him that is old, but I could NEVER do this!

It is just crazy! He makes it look so easy but it isn't. I didn't even attempt it this time. I have only gotten up once on this thing once & I didn't feel like making a fool out of myself this time. Maybe next year! lol

After we did that we docked & the kids REALLY wanted to go fishing. They have never done it before. Kyle isn't a fisherman & I don't like to touch fish or take them off the hook. I like to fish, but after I catch it I can't do anything else! lol So with the help of Tyler once again, my first had their first fishing trip. Karie loved it more than Kegan. She even held the fish!

Look that them! How cute?! That is so how I was as a kid. I wasn't afraid to hold the fish or touch it...or whatever. lol Oh to be young & innocent! We then headed to the pool again. The kids swam & my dad & I played horse shoes. I'd never played before. My dad creamed me in the first game, I beat him in the second game & then he beat me by 1 point in the 3rd! Well played!

We got cleaned up for dinner. We decided to go out to dinner to a place about a half hour away. There isn't much in up in that area so it was always to drive to go somewhere.

 

Instead of driving we decided to take the boat. How fun right?! Driving the boat to dinner. Pretty sure that is the coolest mode of transpiration in the summer ever. It was a great ride. A far ride, but everyone loved it!

The place we ate was of course right on the water. Even better was that we could watch the sunset as we ate dinner. It was an amazing sunset. 

I took these right off the Pier at the restaurant. It was so pretty!!! The weather was prefect outside & match this perfect sunset! Then it was the boat ride home.

The kids stood on the boat & watched it for a while. They watched the other boats & we even saw a plane flying around the lake as well. It was beautiful end to the day.

When we got home we had a bonfire. It wasn't long before Kegan was passed out on me. lol Not surprising. If he lays in my lap & I touch his head, he is out! Karie was a little harder to put down but I only had to lay in bed with her for a few minutes before she was out.

I had plans that night. I wanted...NEEDED...to take pictures of the sky. So many people never seen the stars like this. It blows my mind since I have seen them many times. I swear tonight though, it was so much more vivid & beautiful than I remember. The Milky Way was out in full force. I laid on the dock, my dad on boat & we chatted while I took pictures.

It almost looks fake it was so pretty. When you are laying there looking it, you really feel small. It is impossible to lay there & think that we are alone in this universe. It would be a shame if it was all wasted on us!!!

The next day, today, was short lived as we needed to leave around nap time. We made the most of the day. Sang Happy Birthday to Wyatt, had breakfast & went out for another small fishing excursion on the dock.

This time both kids held the fish! Of course we have Tyler the helper! Wyatt was too busy playing with his new birthday presents to venture out with us!

Sadly it was time to leave. We packed out bags, said our goodbyes & headed out. It wasn't anymore than 10 minutes later that the kiddos fell asleep.

 

I say SUCCESS! I can't wait to do this again next year!!!! I took 532 pictures on my camera & 135 on my phone! As you can see many pictures on here were from my iPhone! Hopefully next year Kyle can come along & so he can join in on all the fun!

Sibling Love

While cleaning the kitchen this evening I hear laughs & silly screams coming from the living room. I thought they were just being funny & reading books to each other but I was wrong. I peak around the corner & notice the kids have my laptop open & they were taking pictures with my webcam. I normally don't let them play on this computer & they are only allowed on the desktop but I was very curious to see what these pictures would look like. So I let them play & see what happens. They came out pretty awesome. They didn't want to stop but bedtime was already past so I said they could do it another day.

These two little creatures are amazing. They have so much personality & I am so happy at how amazing they have grown to be! And, of course what would a post about funny pictures be without the funny pictures!

I love them so much!