grill 'em all

greg talked about wanting an apron for grilling this weekend,

so i made him one!

it was so fun to make!

it turned out just like i had invisioned in my head!!

it's always so great when that happens!

goodbye ben!

ben ehlert is leaving for byu next week so they had a party for him!

we went to ehlerts and got to have a bar b que

and swim in the pool.

olivia and mallory got life jackets on

and swam for the whole 3 1/2 hours we were there!

we had such a great time.

brett decided ben needed to get in the pool,

so brett tried to wrestle him in but ben said

he would jump in with brett!

it was so fun to see them jump in together in their clothes!!

we will miss ben!

he is such a great nephew and cousin!

we love it at the YMCA!

we have been going to the YMCA in elk river since we moved here.

it is fabulous.

they have a great pool, awesome workout center, tons of classes,

an INCREDIBLE kids gym and a SPLASH PARK!!

the splash park is finally open, so we went today.

it was a hit!!

i think we will be there quite a lot this summer! 

duluth part 3: trying to find "the north shore"

well, after a great morning at the waterpark we

set of to find "the north shore".

i guess we need do some more research before we go on our next vacation

because we couldn't find the north shore.

on the way, we did find some really cool docks, an awesome light house tour,

a great rocky shore were we threw rocks in the lake for about an hour,

a cute little gift shop and burlington beach.

it'll do!

what a beautiful place!

we love duluth!

duluth part 2: edge water hotel and resort

this is our view from the hotel!

one word: AWESOME!!

the hotel was amazing.

it had the indoor waterpark, outdoor pool, outdoor playground,

miniture golf course, an arcade and a basketball court!

there were also s'mores provided for the guests that night

and despicable me was playing in a conference room while the kids

got their hair wrapped and airbrush tattoos!

with the deal i got on groupon we also got a free pizza with 4 drinks

AND $10 to the arcade! 

we had such a great time.

we will definitely be going back!

*****

something very strange happened at this hotel....

we had a two room suite.  the kids room and our room.

it was almost 9:30 PM (which is a good 1 1/2 hours late for bedtime),

we got the kids in their jammies, sang some songs, said our prayers

and told them to go to sleep.

we closed the door....

and they went to sleep!!

unbelievable!

duluth part 1: canal park

we went to duluth, mn this weekend.

we had SO MUCH FUN!

the kids were so cute when we came over

a hill into duluth you have a beautiful view of the lake,

they were so excited and wanted to go get in!

                                            little did we know how cold it was going to be!

first thing we went to canal park right down by the lake.

it was awesome.

there was little fountains everywhere they kids could get in.

they were in heaven!

we went down to the water and threw rocks in and played for quite awhile.

it was so cold!

olivia was brave and went pretty far in!

go liv!

the canal had all sorts of boats coming through all the time.

the bridge would go up and down.

kale could have stayed and watched for days!

we rented a bike, kale and mallory were up in front and

brett, olivia and i were in the back.

it was very fun and me and brett got a workout in going up some hills!

as we were returning our bike, we saw this!

and of course we had to go.

the kids, once again, thought they had died and gone to heaven.

liv was just a little happy!

we loved canal park and went back to play the next day too!