Monday, July 21, 2025

Adventures with the Cousins

While back visiting family, we decided to make a quick trip to Minneapolis with the Kempers and Grandma Jane.  We packed a lot into such a short amount of time, but managed to make lots of life long memories.

We spent a couple of hours at the Mall of America on the day we arrived...



That night, we all rode the train downtown and headed to the Twins baseball game.  



It was a beautiful night and we all had a blast!








The cherry on top is that the Twins won - wahoo!

The following day we headed to Valleyfair to ride some rides (most of us!) and have some fun.  


Ryan was the warrior and the one who took all the big (and some little) kids on the rollercoasters.  The others of us were great spectators!




The kids had a blast at Valleyfair...





Some of them had no fear at all.  Aurora, Autumn and Jalaina rode rides that I couldn't ride even if given a million dollars to do so.


The bumper cars were more my speed...


The trip was action packed and absolutely perfect! I'm so happy we were able to get away for a quick trip together!







Sunday, July 20, 2025

SD Shenanigans...

Time spent with family is time always well spent.  We were able to capitalize on time with family in SD recently and loved every minute of it.  

Ryan's aunt and uncle came from Wyoming to visit while we were there and were thrilled that we got to spent time with them too.  We spent an afternoon walking downtown and doing a bit of shopping.





We got to eat at one of Q's nostalgic restaurants from childhood - a Mongolian grill called HuHot.


We took an afternoon to check out a nearby state park and take in a short (and extremely warm!) hike...




All of us also enjoyed a great BBQ meal together too before we had to say goodbye to Gary and Paula.  It was so great to see them and catch up.  


While in SD, we also got to enjoy some time with the Kempers.  The cousins got quality time together enjoying things like summer s'mores...






Cuddling in the hammocks and hanging out and evening walks...




Deep conversations about golf and grass...


Hanging by the fire...



Some many highlights of time spent with the ones we love and memories made.  
More to come on another adventure soon...!