Tag Archives: Maggie

Adventure Week, Day 4

Today we headed to the always engaging Tamarack Nature Center. It’s a fantastic, free, county park that features rocks to climb, caves and tunnels to explore, an extensive stream and sand area (great for building huge dams), and a massive demonstration garden. Although we’ve been many times in the past, this was the first time this summer, and it’s very adventuresome.

Enjoy the pics — click to see big ones.

Adventure Week, Day 3

Today’s adventures were constructed around Sarah and Andrew’s dental adventures. The main excitement was at Nicollet Commons Park in Burnsville, about 20 minutes south of Saint Paul. It’s a free “splash pad” style park, with an extensive set  of pools, waterfalls, and fountains. It’s another new park for us — we read about it in a magazine highlighting local water parks.

Click on a picture to see an immersive slideshow.

Adventure Week

Today is the first day of Adventure Week. This, as everyone knows, is a week when you don’t already have lots of summer plans, so you go on adventures every day. (Yes, I know that I call just about every outing an adventure, but the kids don’t yet roll their eyes at my hyperbole.)

Our adventure today was heading over to Como Town, a little amusement park not far from here. It’s popular, but not mobbed like a real amusement park; this one is aimed at a younger crowd. Griffin is now tall enough for almost all of the rides, and there are lots that work well for Maggie too. And they don’t charge for chaperones if you need to go on a ride with a younger kid. (Lots of places do… grrr… I love paying double for the tea-cup ride.)

The only fail was the Tilt-a-Whirl. Maggie basically screamed like she was dying the whole time, while Griffin howled with glee right next to her, and Sarah and I attempted to not throw up on both of them.  (In retrospect, I wish I’d pulled out my phone for a family selfie.) Maggie recovered quickly, though she may be burdened with a lifelong fear of spinning, lurching hemispheres.

 

Summer Fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s

This weekend we went down to Courtland to celebrate Grandpa Jeff’s birthday and visit with  family friends. But I didn’t take many pictures of all that good stuff (oops). Instead, my camera usually came out when we were outside, playing in the sprinklers, checking out the nascent tree house, and, of course, riding around on the mini-ATV from Uncle Bruce.

As always, click on the pictures for an immersive slide-show.

Home Again

We’re back!

Mileage: 105916 (Trip total: 4750 miles; about 92 hours of driving.)

It was a fantastic trip, but we’re happy to be back home. Some images from our first few days, with perfect summer weather:

Scobie Park

It’s our first day of driving back to Minnesota. It’s been a hard push. We have fewer days to cover the miles this time, and we hope to rendezvous with friends at Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow night. After nine hours of driving, we finally pulled off for dinner in Wendover, at the Nevada/Utah border. Nestled between the casinos and gas stations was an awesome, old-school playground and picnic area. Not only does it have tons of cool playground equipment, but it has freight rail tracks right next to it. The kids had front row seats to a massive train roaring through. Some local kids were celebrating a piñata birthday party and welcomed Griffin and Maggie, playing with them while we got our food organized and then bringing over some cake to share. A glorious end to a long slog. (Technically, we’re still slogging to Salt Lake City as I tap this out, but the kids are asleep and the 100 degree daytime temperatures are behind us.)

If you find yourself in Wendover with kids in the car, skip the slots and chill out at Scobie Park.

Merry-go-round
These old merry-go-rounds were a staple of playgrounds when I was a kid, but now they’re nearly extinct. Griffin needed help figuring out how to use it!
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I have never seen one of these before. It swings. It spins. It teeters. And it has a weird creepy face. Serious fun.
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Maggie loving life.

Addendum:

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Upon our late-night  arrival at an inn, G and M snuggle up for the night.

San Diego 2014

At the end of our California trip we flew from SF to San Diego to spend a few glorious days with our dear friends, Liz and Kevin, and their son, Gabe. (Plus adorable Buddy.) We hung out at the beach, went on leisurely walks around the neighborhood, spent a day at the zoo, and played with Buddy in the yard. Below are photos from many of these adventures. (The zoo photos were hum-drum, so we’ve left them out. It’s a great zoo though; you should go there.)

Kevin, among many other things, is a brilliant photographer. We always treasure the shots he takes on his camera. All of the photos below that are marked “-KM” are Kevin’s. The rest were taken by Sarah or Andrew.

Remember that you can click on a photo to see the set in a full window slide show — they look best big!

Bodega Bay

We were fortunate enough to rent a house in Bodega Bay that would accommodate all of the Roy Boys and their families, and at a time when everyone could make it! It was a sweet time to reconnect with Anthony, Gena, Dave, Nancy, and their kids. The cousins were non-stop playing from the moment we arrived until the moment we left! Highlights included trips to the beach, meals together, and a carnival put on by the kids. We have a lot of photos in this set, mostly of the adorable children. I have a feeling our kids will be talking about this trip for a long time to come!

Bucks Lake, CA

We made it to our Bucks Lake campsite on Friday and stayed through Sunday. We rendezvoused with a group of friends from the Bay Area. It was so great to catch up with old friends, make new friends, eat gourmet camp meals, and sit around the fire. It was a fitting culmination of the camping portion of our trip. Looking forward to a bed by the Pacific when we head to Bodega Bay next!

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One of our new friends was Ella, Noemi and Jen’s dog.
Maggie lounging.
Maggie lounging. This shot, as well as the featured image at the top of this post, are by Katie McCall. See her flickr album for more of her beautiful shots from this camping trip.
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Cool evenings demanded a roaring fire.
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Noam and Ely about to emerge.

The trip has exceeded our expectations in every way, but lest it appear unrealistically idyllic, I provide this evidence of woe (due, I think, to a stubbed toe):

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“But I don’t like wearing my shoes!”