birthday party day

confession: chaya turned five in june, mom too busy to think of throwing a "kid" birthday party (we acknowledged it with family of course), but felt that since the other girls had their first at five, she too could have one. june passed, july passed, now gibson will be turning seven in august. what is a mother to do? idea: have two different parties on the same day as to only have one day of chaos rather than two. we also decided to have it at a park near our house (easier not to have the mess at home, too) gibson's was before lunch and chaya's party was after lunch. weather: questionable all day - eeks!?.

chaya with her "candy cake" (you would never know that i put that together in five minutes) due to the cupcakes getting "ruined" visually by our crazy weather.

playtime on the playground.

gibson, haley(top), maren, emma

groovy invite

real life candyland game, huge hit with the girls

candy invite for chaya

bingo and groovy door hangers for the older girls

conclusion: gibson's was great (except for the glitch with the cupcakes), the weather stayed fair and all was well. chaya's started off shaky with the emergency run for the cake, tearful guest, and ended with gail force wind, downpour, and even some hail (and a very tearful guest!). very memorable! would i do it again? yes!

family hodge podge

great grandma mary up from arizona for a quick visit out to hutch

air show, hutchinson airport (dedication ceremony for renaming the terminal after a stunt pilot from hutch that died last december) we saw five different planes go up and do stunt diving and spins. extremely cool!

this plane was actually flown by a woman, which we thought was pretty special

this is after the pilot landed, he was doing 360 degree spins and making his stunt smoke go everywhere.

the "chipmunk" plane was my favorite, very small and tight spins while in the sky.

quarry state park in st. cloud, lots of hiking trails with great scenery. we (drew) of course made it educational, too!
rock climbing and scuba diving are also permitted.

drew's head in the middle of this enormous saw blade. i couldn't resist!

one of several quarry lakes

this is the lake where swimming is permitted. however, it has drop-offs as deep as 116ft and besides for the dock we are standing on, it is pretty much cliff jumping/diving. fun to watch, but we didn't feel we were quite prepared for that, so we only dipped our toes.

up north, part 3

here are the final pictures from our week at the cabin.

bedazzeling purses with the girls

frozen t-shirt contest winner

for some reason the shirts were extra frozen and the contest took quite awhile, but still fun!

the gilmore girls

the infamous playground that the kids for some reason could not get enough of

abby and chaya with their glow sticks

getting ready for some tubing

justin and kenya ready for some speed

a little a&w before the big race

that's right, the kids all took part in their first ever turtle races in nisswa! i think they look pretty cool in their race day attire!

getting to know their turtles (actually they have no idea what turtle they end up with)

ready, set, go!
unfortunately, no one in our group won to go on to the semi-finals.
oh well, good memories and we'll be back next year with more skills!

up north, part 2

                  here are more fun pictures from our week at the cabin. however, a bit out of order.

kenya, jake, and justin went out fishing several times, but this was an especially good catch. it was so cute how the boys always wanted kenya to go with them.

kenya with her blue gill.

we had one long rainy day the whole week, but that evening it was beautiful out. so, jon and laura took patty and i for a sunset cruise on the paddle boat

so peaceful

yet another great meal. you can also see how our "condos" were connected by the doorway straight ahead.

rainy day = tie-dying for the kids and i on the front porch. we had to get the shirts ready for the big day!

jon and drew's pyramid and sphinx sand sculptures, so proud.

campfire time!

burning marshmallow accident, ouch!

the big reveal for alex and ella! pretty professional looking if i do say so myself!

time for a fun snack

jon and laura with their treat!

max admiring his pudding palm tree snack.

as you can see the burn did not stop chaya from enjoying her smores.

so long for now...

up north, part 1

the girls and i took off the last week in july with the gilmore and harrison families to shing wako resort on edward lake (just north of brainerd). drew joined us for sunday and part of monday, he continues to have class in st. paul most nights and saturdays. the crew consisted of approximately 20 adults and 9 children. one of the benefits of the week was that there was never a shortage of food and pat and the boys (harrisons) love to cook/grill. here is part of the gang having a "dump dinner".

basically it was a big batch of crab, shrimp, polska, and veggies dumped on the table with all the fixings. the real kicker was we ate it all with our fingers! yummy!!

here are all the kiddos

back row: jake(10), kenya (10), justin (8), gibson (almost 7)

middle: max(4 1/2)

front: chaya (5), ella (4 1/2), alex (4 1/2), abby (4)

another highlight was our beach. super clear and shallow. here we are starting a fun game.

team 1

team 2

i had easter eggs filled with glass beads and then the eggs were put into the lake. the kids had to rush out and pick up only 1 egg at a time and then empty it into their team bucket. easy and the kids loved it. (it also wore them out!) it was nearly a tie 118 to 108.

in the picture above you can see the dock and actually there is even more dock beyond that. believe it or not, the whole way out there was only up to my waist and crystal clear!

chaya and abby with matching bikinis prior to the game

other highlights besides the food and the beach: the kids were entertained with all the frogs, toads, and minnows. (or whatever other creatures they could find) we enjoyed time at the resort playground, water balloons, and meeting new friends! look for more to follow.