today is moving day.....

...thank goodness it's not our moving day!

Today is a busy day of moving! Paul, Shanna and the kiddos are moving to Pella AND Emiily and Noah are moving to Ankeny! All in the same day! We are feeling lots of emotions today...sad for Paul and Shanna to be moving and excited to have Emily and Noah closer....but mostly we are just happy....happy that everyone is moving to a better situation and happy that no one is really that far away!

Last night Issy and Addie slept over so Paul and Shanna could get some work done.

Happy Moving:)

Foto Friday: Summer Catch Up

Beware...lots of pictures! And by lots I mean an over the top insane amount! Enjoy!

Summerfest Parade

Cece thought the whole sit in the hot sun and chase candy thing was overrated...she went and sat in the shade:)

Feeding the Ducks

Reiman Gardens

Working in the Garden

Flashlight Tag....we go all out!

Bubbles

BBQ

Snapping Beans with Nana

Making Burritos with Jenny and Jill

Decorating the Playhouse

one proud momma

Today we went to the "new" pool, it is only our second time this summer! In order to go on all the cool slides and jump off the diving boards you must first pass a swim test. Ellie decided she wanted to take the swim test today along with her cousin Isabelle. For the swim test, swimmers must swim from one end of the pool to the other (a half lap). I had the girls practice once before they got in line....they both seemed a little nervous and I was nervous their nerves would get the best of them. Guess what? They both PASSED! It was a neat moment because they were both so proud of themselves all smiles as they got of the pool!  Now the fun stuff.... they can go down all the cool slides! First up was the drop slide....a short tunnel slide that drops you out about 5 feet above the water. Shanna and I watched from across the pool....it was so cute! Ellie went first, plopped into the water and swam to the ladder where she waited for Issy. Issy made it down with no problems. Ellie was waiting for her at the edge hands over her mouth probably trying to suppress the giggles. As Issy got out the pool they high fived and headed up to go down again! It is so fun to watch them grow into brave and independent girls willing to try new things!

Meal Planning Monday

Week of Monday July 25th

Meals for this week...
Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
Brats and Roasted Potatoes
Sausage Pizza
Tacos
BLTs (lots of tomatoes getting ready for eatin in the garden!!!)

Always feels good to have a meal plan:)

Family Vacation 2011

This post is a little overdue.....at the end of June we went on vacation. For our vacation we headed to Wild River State Park in Minnesota for a couple nights of camping and then to a hotel around the Mall of America for some shopping and a trip to IKEA.

We took off Wednesday morning loaded down and ready for fun.

Our first stop...Ames. Tim just had to swing by and check out the new scoreboard. The "big pick" (picking up the scoreboard frame and placing in on its legs) had happened the night before or earlier that morning (i don't remember) and he just had to see it! We also grabbed a couple supplies that escaped our many lists.

Dubble Bubble was a very important part of our trip....we went through the entire bag!

Next stop McDonalds and Outlet Mall in Medford, Minnesota. The girls were so excited to get to eat at McDonalds....I guess we don't get out much:) While Tim and the girls burned off some energy in the play place I power shopped the outlet mall. Found some great deals for the girls and myself at the Gap Outlet...always a favorite!

We loaded back into the family trunkster and headed to our campground. When we arrived at our campground we received the bad news. Although we had booked to stay for two nights we most likely would not be able to stay Thursday night because of a the looming Minnesota government shutdown. We were bummed, but quickly got over it. We decided to stay at Wild River one night, pack up in the morning and head to Wisconsin for a night.

Wild River State Park is a beautiful park with secluded private camping spots, nice facilities, lots of hiking, programs for kids, way too many mosquitos, and a great location close to a outlet mall and water park. We did very little research on the campground and were pleasantly surprised. We will be going back!

 The girls made up a rock toss game....they had a lot of fun goofing around!

 Making smores! YUMMY!

Whose smore is the best?!?!?!

Wild River had lots of great hiking and the girls did a great job hiking for over 2 hours!

We hiked to an overlook of the St.Croixx River...there used to be a dam at this spot and it was used in the logging industry (just in case you were wondering) :)

After our hike we finished packing up our camp and headed to a nearby waterpark.

We spent the afternoon at Wild Mountain Waterpark. During the winter months Wild Mountain becomes a ski resort. It was a really fun waterpark it had a fun area for the kids to play, a lazy river, and some really fun water slides. Ellie liked the Black Hole Speed Slide the best...it was a straight drop for 40 feet where the tube went underground and then it shot you out to the end. In all it look less than 8 seconds. Tim and I both went and did not like it as much as she did!

One of the neatest things about this waterpark is you were allowed to bring in your own food and set up a picnic. We had a very hot day and we enjoyed spending the day cooling off at the waterpark.

After a long afternoon of fun we headed to Wisconsin to set up camp. This is when we were interviewed by FOX News Minneapolis. We had had a long, fun, and hot day so being on camera was really last on our list of things to do:)

We stayed at Interstate State Park in Wisconsin. It was a pretty nice campground as well. Ellie was lucky enough to find a four leaf clover!

 Our second night of camping was extremely hot....hotter than we expected! The girls had fun with it and just slept in their underwear.

We got up early the next morning and it was already hot so we had a quick breakfast of pancakes and sausage and headed towards the Twin Cities.

The town by our campground had the most impressive hanging flower baskets! They were just gorgeous and were everywhere! So pretty!

Our first stop was IKEA! I love that store! Then we headed over to the Mall of America. Believe it or not but Tim had never been to Mall of America! We spent Friday afternoon taking it in...the girls really enjoyed the Disney Store where they picked out new Tangled PJs!

Tim booked us an amazing hotel room for the night. We all got a great nights sleep!

We had a wonderful time just being together....it was a reminder of how important it is to get away as a family!