Connor's visit

The week before Watermelon Day, my cousin Connor came to visit.  The girls love hanging out with Connor, so we're glad he was able to come stay again this year.  We had a lot of fun each day:

Monday
We went to Minnesota's Largest Candy Store in Jordan.  Everyone enjoyed the treat they picked out!  That evening was Abby's first swimming lesson.

Tuesday
It was a really nice, cool day so we went up to Como Zoo.  We saw the Sparky the seal show and enjoyed a picnic at the zoo.  More swimming lessons that night!  Dave came home late that night.

Wednesday
We went to the free movie in Lakeville, "Epic", and met up with our friends, the Clarks.  After lunch, we found out that swimming was cancelled, so we headed down to Rochester a little earlier than planned.  Norah, Dave, and I visited Dave's dad in the hospital, but Abby couldn't because of her bad cough.

Thursday
We stayed in Rochester to visit Dave's dad a little more, and headed back to make it to swimming lessons that evening.

Friday
We met up with the Clarks at "The Works" museum in Bloomington.  The kids had a lot of fun exploring this science/engineering museum.  After lunch, we picnicked at Chutes and Ladders park and played for a bit.  The park was pretty crazy, so we didn't stay too long.  After swimming lessons that night, we headed to Iowa for the weekend.

Swimming lessons

We've spent our evenings for the last three weeks driving to Montgomery for swimming lessons.  The girls have LOVED them, but I'm looking forward to some weeknights at home!  This was Abby's first year that she could do level 1, and she spent two weeks learning several strokes and gaining confidence in the water.  Unfortunately, I missed the last two sessions, but she took her test and passed to level 2 and even jumped off of the diving board (which she had refused to do earlier in the week). 

Norah had a week of "water babies" class and loved being in the water.  Her favorite was circle time when they got to sing songs in the water.  Dave was home the first night and swam with her; otherwise I swam with her and Abby sat on the bench and took some blurry phone pictures.  We celebrated the end of lessons on Friday by eating at a cute little pizza parlor in town.

Watermelon Day

This year's weather was perfect for Watermelon Day down in Stanhope.  We headed down the night before, after Abby's swimming lesson, and stayed at Miriam's.  The girls enjoyed the parade and all of the activities afterward.  Abby's favorite this year was working with Miriam and my dad at the ring toss.  She also enjoyed the swings, and especially the duck pond (with double prizes when her great uncles were working who wouldn't love that?).  Norah loved the airplanes and train and of course the duck pond, too.  We only ended up having watermelon once, but it was delicious!  We left after supper to head back to Miriam's for a movie night.  After church on Sunday, we stayed for a BBQ meal before heading back to Minnesota.

Visiting Dave

Sadly, we have only made it up to visit Dave once this summer, although he has been home every other time he has a day off.  We headed up on a Thursday afternoon, and stayed at a friend's family cabin that night and the next.  On Friday, we met up with Dave at one of the parks he works at, Hill Annex Mine State Park.  It has a small office/museum/gift shop that we checked out, then we took the first tour to the fossil hunting area.  A bus takes you out to a site and you get some time to search for fossils.  The girls had fun digging through the red rock/dirt and finding some snail shells and other treasures.  After the fossil hunt, we had time for a quick picnic lunch before our mine tour.  For the mine tour, you take a bus and see the different machines/buildings and get out a few times for pictures.  Norah took a snooze on the way back on the bus.

On Saturday, we packed up and went first to Schoolcraft State Park and found a campsite and set up our tent.  We then drove up to Dave's main park, Scenic State Park, and saw the building Dave lives in, met his boss and another coworker in the main office, and took a hike on one of the main trails there.  After the hike, we went for a swim at the beach area.

After swimming, we got changed and drove back to Schoolcraft for the night.  We enjoyed some pie iron pizzas for supper, then hiked along the Mississippi River.  We came back to our campfire for s'mores, then just after we put the girls to bed in the tent, it started to rain and storm (we had just taken the rain fly off of the tent because we thought it was going to be a nice night!).  That ended our campfire time...Dave and I were looking forward to just relaxing by the fire, but oh well...  It rained throughout the night, but was a nice morning when we woke up.  We packed up and headed to town for lunch at a pizza place Dave likes.  Hopefully we can make it up to visit Dave again either Labor Day weekend or in September sometime!

Horse camp

During the second week of July, Abby went to horse camp for three days.  It caught her eye in the community education brochure, and we thought it might be something that would help boost her courage and confidence a bit.  She had a blast, and loved all of the activities they had planned (learning how to care for a horse, crafts, snack, games, learning to ride).  On the last day, parents and other guests were invited to come watch the kids demonstrate their riding.  My parents and sister joined Norah and me and we all enjoyed seeing Abby up on her horse, "Bug".