Cousin Doey

We 'affectionately' call our cousin Doey - his real name is Joey, but it's a carryover from his childhood, that just sort of stuck. Doey graduated this past spring and is soon heading off to the University of Wisconsin Madison. Doey came over to spend the night with us this past weekend and the kids were very excited to spend time with him.

Doey is very great with the kids and the kids enjoyed every minute of his time at our house. We're already trying to plan a stop in Madison to visit Doey in his new digs.
It was a warm weekend, so we set the pool up and played for awhile. Doey and Drew had fun playing in the water - they'd take turns pouring water over each other's heads. Drew handled that well - I was surprised. They were laughing big time.

So this is how the routine went down. Andrew would say "doey, can I pour water on your head? and Doey would say "sure Drew - go ahead" and Andrew would pour the water on his head, and squeal with delight. Then Doey would pour some on Andrew's head, then Drew would momentarily stop, and we were wondering if he'd cry or laugh - sure enough, he'd wipe his eyes and laugh, then they'd repeat the whole process - over and over and over and over and over - ok you get the picture.

Cailin is still in a phase where she doesn't want to pose for the camera, so we usually get this flat look when she sees the camera come out. Funny, she used to be quite a ham, I'm guessing this phase of non-compliance for the camera is only temporary - hopefully. She has a very cute smile!

Cailin was sort of a little Popsicle by the end of the day - it was now close to 7pm, almost time for tubs (hard to imagine, since she was wet pretty much all day) but a good chance to warm up. So we snuggled on the swing set for a little while before heading in for the day.
And of course, Lion and Panda had to snuggle as well.

Joey or sorry Doey stayed long enough to read the kids their bedtime stories and the kids were sad to have the weekend end as well as sad to have their cousin Doey leave. We will sure miss him when he's away and will look forward to another visit with him soon!

Weekend in Wisconsin

We traveled to Willow River State Park, just outside of Hudson WI for a camping weekend. We hadn't been there before and wanted to try out a new location. This park is very highly recommended so we thought it would be nice to check it out for the weekend.
The campground is located on a river that has a large waterfall on one end (the north side of the park) and a dam on the other end. The dam creates Little Falls Lake, which is a motorized-free lake. It was very quiet in the park with tons of tree cover. Since it's a state park, there is no hunting allowed and there is a lot of wildlife. We saw several dozen deer while we stayed, racoons, squirels, wild turkeys, more deer, tons of birds - etc.

On our first day, we tracked down the park's two playgrounds and tested those out. We played in the lake with our toes. It was only in the high 60s the first day - odd for July, but it was very nice otherwise. Then we drove to a hike in spot for the falls. It's more of a rustic state park, so there is a lot of hiking and non-paved trails, which was fine for us. We hiked down a large hill to get to the bottom of the falls. The falls were magnificient, beautiful! The kids were even impressed.

We also checked out the dam. They have a narrow walkway, not quite big enough for two to pass. But that leads out to a large viewing area. Kind of scary, because you are so high up, but the kids liked it. There were a lot of people fishing, although we forgot our poles, we watched others catch lots of fish.
The kids (below) checking out the water as it came out of the dam.

Lion (of course) had to join us - he was FILTHY by the time we got home, well actually he was filthy before we left, but even more dirty when we got home....

We had campfires and smores and played in our camping site. The site was very nice, lots of tree cover, so you needed some confidence to back a camper in, but we did fine (or I should say, Mike did just fine....)
The kids had a blast. Andrew likes to say "Mommy take my picture.....CHEESE". Whereas Cailin HATES having her picture taken - we have several of her refusing to smile or making the cheesy smiley face. This one, she was agreeable.

We are looking forard to heading back to WI for another trip soon!

4th of July Weekend

We spent the 4th of July weekend camping with our camper at Baylor Regional Park. The sweet thing is that is was very close to home and it's a small park, so it was really nice and clean and had plenty for all of us to do for the five days we were there!

They have two awesome kids playgrounds, a lake, an observatory, plus lots of trails and fishing as well. We brought the bikes and tooled around as well as checked out the surrounding towns. The kids spent a lot of time at the playgrounds as well as riding around a lot. We were sure to bring lots of outside activities to play with around the campsite and Cailin was especially excited to be able to stay up late one night with the grown ups. She wanted to see the bats come out and she did - she loves the fact that her dad doesn't like bats so much, so she had to point them out whenever we did see them. Funny girl!

Masher had to bring puppy and snoopy - of course. Here he brought them to the playground. He thought snoopy would enjoy the slides he said.

We had great weather and lots of fun! We even got to watch the fireworks (after mashers went to bed) from our camping spot above the trees. Pretty sweet!


Cailin went to the playground in her jammies one morning (no shocker I guess). Thankfully everyone (kids and adults) really enjoy our camping trips and love being outdoors!!

Andrew's Birthday

We celebrated Andrew's 3rd birthday - well one of several... He has had several birthdays, we'll try to condense it down..

We went to Ham Lake and met up with our two auntie's, uncles and then our cousins to spend the day swimming and playing. Andrew's big wish this year was to have a pinata. We had one left over from before that we had stored in our garage. We weren't sure if he knew that the pinata would be destroyed afterwards, but he had done at least one pinata at daycare and had seen the candy flying out - so we weren't sure how he'd feel when all was said and done. He had been eyeing the one in the garage and insisted that's what he wanted to do for his birthday. He did love it.

Everyone took turns taking a swing at the pinata - inbetween swimming of course. Andrew was a good sport and let everyone else try too. But he took some hardy swings when it was his turn.

He also loved swimming, which was odd, since last year, he was pretty cautious. He didn't go in too deep, and actually wore his life jacket for a while when he was playing. Cailin went in as much and as far out as we'd let her. She wore her life jacket too and wanted to copy the big kids who were jumping off the end of the dock. We didn't really let her do that, but she jumped off the side of the dock a lot. She is quite the fish and Andrew is building up his courage to be a good fish.

Someone I work with (karen) has a family member that likes to make fancy cakes, and since Andrew is deep into the movie "Cars" and Lightning McQueen - he was able to score us a McQueen cake. Very cool. I had shown a picture of the cake to Andrew before we brought it home and he was just obsessed with it!

This first picture is Andrew staring into the box where the cake was. When we first brought it home, he wanted to eat that soooooooooo much. Had a hard time waiting until it was 'time' to have cake.Here is the cake - that is Cailin's finger trying to grab a taste.. Yummy!

Cailin also got to go on her first boat ride with Uncle Dan and cousin Kayla (see below)and she loved it! Cailin also went fishing for the first time and then of course, caught her first fish. We weren't quick enough to get a shot of that one though. It was a very cute little sunfish (we let it go of course as quickly as possible). Luckily, daddy was willing to remove the fish she caught from the fishing pole. Not my favorite thing I guess. Andrew had received a fishing pole for his birthday and was willing to let Cailin use it and then watched very closely.
It was a very fun day and a great way to kick off the birthday 'season' for masher.

Joey's Graduation Party

Our cousin Joey graduated from Chaska High School and had his graduation party a couple of weekends ago. It was a beautiful day and he had a great turnout. Joey is off to the University of Wisconsin - Madison next year and wanted to do his party in a red and white theme (ala Madison colors). He's very excited.

It was a warm day, but we spent most of it outside playing games, running around, visiting with people, playing on the swingset -having a great time!!

Uncle Sean and Auntie Wanda drove up and spent the night with us. As soon as Andrew woke up (which was at 6:30am) he wanted to go down and give Uncle Sean a 'good morning' hug and kiss. The kids missed their Auntie and Uncle!
The kids loved playing and running around in the back yard.

Cheese Fest

One of the traditions we try to hit each and every year is something called Cheese Fest in Pine Island MN. Mike grew up in Pine Island and the second weekend in June has always been taken over by Cheese Fest since he was a small child. They bring in carnival rides and games, food vendors and have entertainment and games all weekend long. We originally were going to camp down there for the weekend, but ended up needing to cancel due to other weekend engagements that had come up. We spent the entire day on Saturday in Pine island.Cailin was ready to go on all the rides as soon as we arrived. The rides didn't start going until 1pm, so we hit the playground first for a little play time.


Lauren and Cailin on the swings.

Cailin even went on this ride (see above) - it's the kiddie roller coaster, which actually had some speed to it. She had a great time. I'm sure having Lauren with her helped a lot! She was the rule girl. The attendant told the kids they needed to hold on and as soon as the ride got going, one kid a few seats back had her hands up in the air (like most of us do) and Cailin was trying to correct her "you have to hold on, please put your hands down...."

Andrew was more apprehensive about the rides, wanting to watch his big sister first, then maybe hit a ride or two. By the end of the day, he was the first in line and wanted to go 'again mommy!'. We were blessed with lots of free ride tickets through a family friend and so we had an abundance of rides that day.

Mike's cousin, Kelly came down with her three kids and they played on the rides. The youngest, Lauren was willing to go on rides with Cailin (lauren is a year or two older than Cailin). Cailin was in heaven being with Lauren and was very brave to go on all the rides Lauren wanted to go on.
Andrew actually got to pose next to the firetruck (below) that his great grandpa drove along time ago. He also got to climb inside a current fire truck and check it out. He was amazed. He said he wanted to drive one when he gets bigger.



Andrew wiped out at the very end and cracked his head on the ground when he tripped over his feet while running away from me. Cailin scraped her elbows on a ride, so those were the only two injuries. Although Mike and I managed to get quite sunburned, me more than him. I always forget to sunscreen myself since I'm busy lathering up the kids.

They were so tired by the end of the day. We also had cousin Joey's graduation party the next day, so we headed home Saturday night from Pine Island and as soon as we got home, we all crashed.

Camping - part two

We spent four nights at Baker Park in Maple Plain, then headed down to Pine Island to visit Mike's family for the weekend and took the camper. We figured it was already packed, the kids' loot was all tucked safe and sound inside so we'd just keep driving.

We arrived at Grandma and Grandpas and Grandpa had his mustang outside and his John Deere Tractor. We got the camper all set up and then Andrew wanted to take a tractor ride. Cailin and Grandma disappeared to the playground on Cailin's bike. The kids were totally pooped out Saturday night.

Wanda was in town from Milwaukee and Katrine and Tony came up and we all had dinner together. It was also the birthday weekend, as we celebrated Mike and Wanda's birthday. The kids enjoyed 'helping' open presents.

Cailin isn't really captured in any of these pictures because she was off playing, having tea parties, playing on the neighbors swingset, going to the playground - etc etc. Grandma and Cailin disappeared for awhile, off playing.....

We also saw cousin Kelly and her children, which Cailin and Andrew both LOVE to play with the kids!

We had one last visit with Great Grandma Bea as we headed out of town on Sunday. But Andrew was soooooo tired, he actually fell asleep in my arms and slept through the entire visit. Cailin chose to sleep the whole way home while Andrew watched "Cars".

Then, when we got home, it was laundry time! I don't think I've ever seen so much laundry piled in front of the washing machine - yikes!

First Camping Trip of the Season

We ventured out for our first camping trip of the season last week. We were gone almost a whole week, so it was a brave one at that. The kids were pretty excited, or I should say Cailin was super excited. Andrew appeared like he didn't know what we were talking about when we discussed camping and sleeping in the camper and camp fires - etc. But he soon remembered and jumped right into his bed upon arrival to test it out.

We went with our neighbors and friends, Luke, Sarah, Caleb and Dawson. We went to Baker Park Reserve which is part of the Three River's Park District in Maple Plain, MN. It's super close and now with the new Hwy 12 bypass, it's really quick too! The weather was great, cool the first night (needed the heat on) and then pretty warm the following days (needed the A/C). A little bit of rain the last night overnight.

The assorted animals had to join (below) us on our trip as well. They mostly watched but occasionally were dragged to the different destinations....

Since we were there during the week, the campground was pretty empty, but then Friday night, things filled up. We spent time in the lake - Cailin and Caleb are little fish - they loved the water and we had to drag them out kicking. Andrew and Dawson hung out near the shore, getting their feet wet or playing in the sand. We also spent time at their huge playground as well as at our campsites playing with the large quantity of toys and bikes that we had brought. Made it really fun! Nevermind the pictures with the kiddos in their jammies - hey it was vacation right? The kids certainly kept busy. We were all tired by the end of each day.

S'mores were of course a big hit and everyone loved that too. On the last night, we pulled Cailin and Caleb out of bed (since they are the older two)so they could stay up late and sit around the campfire with the adults and they LOVED that. Cailin reported that was her favorite part.
Masher with lots of left over chocolate on his face. After this picture was taken, the chocolate was promptly wiped on mom's sweatshirt. Nice look!