Seattle trip

My sister and I traveled for the second time together to visit my brother and his girlfriend in Seattle.  It's always weird traveling without kids, but nice to be able to watch a movie on the plane or read a book!  We saw some sights in the city, ate some yummy food, took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, watched a baseball game, saw a movie, hung out on the rooftop, and camped in Olympic National Park.

After a night of camping, we spent the day seeing different parts of the park.  The ocean was definitely my favorite--we stopped at Ruby Beach and saw some neat tide pools and enjoyed the scenery.  We also hiked a little bit in the Hoh Rainforest, which was beautiful.  We even came upon some elk grazing along the way.

It's always nice having the chance to see Greg, and a bonus to see the beautiful scenery.  Fun place to visit!

Feed My Starving Children

It's been a few years since our ECFE group has gotten together at Feed My Starving Children, so I was excited when we made plans to do this again.  This time, Norah was even old enough to participate.  The kids did great, and somehow all ended up in the packing area by the end of our time, leaving the adults to juggle multiple tasks.  What a great activity and learning experience for the kids, though.

Afterward, we all gathered at our friend Tiffany's family pool for swimming time and wood-fire pizzas.  This is always such a fun gathering and this time, we even managed to get all of the kids together for a group photo!

Camping at Lake Bemidji State Park

Our camping trip this year took us to Lake Bemidji State Park.  We stopped on the way up to picnic and look around a little bit at Crow Wing State Park.

Wednesday night, we got our tent set up and had hot dogs over the fire.  We also checked out the playground and swimming beach area.  It rained ALL night long, but it was a gentle rain that helped everyone sleep well!

On Thursday, we hiked the bog trail and saw lots of pitcher plants and some flowers along the way.

After lunch, we checked out the visitor's center and then hiked to an overlook point.  On the way, we heard thunder.  When we got to the overlook, it started to rain, then hail.  We quickly made it back to the visitor's center where we waited out the rest of the storm.

There were two more overlook points that we hiked to that evening--nice trails at this park!  Unfortunately, it was too chilly to swim while we were there.

On Friday morning, we packed up and stopped in Bemidji to see the Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues.  Then, we headed to LaSalle Lake SRA for a picnic lunch and a hike.  This park has a beautiful newer picnic shelter and natural play area that the kids loved.  Our hike took us through the prairie and up to an overlook view of the Mississippi River.  It was a warm hike, but there were lots of wild raspberries to stop and eat along the way!

We had a great time camping, so hopefully we can extend next year's trip to 3 nights or longer!

Fair time

Every year, it always seems like a scramble to get projects entered into the fair--this year was no exception!  We spent a full day baking (even Norah did some!) and went through photos, art projects, made Lego projects, and picked vegetables from the garden.  All in all, it was a big success for the girls.  Norah earned a reserve champion ribbon for a pot of flowers, and Abby earned two grand champion ribbons for her Legos and her snickerdoodles.  We took an evening to walk around the fair and check everything out.  It stormed on us, but we took shelter in the kiddie barn until the pig races started.  Dave and Norah went back on Sunday afternoon to pick up their flowers and projects.  Norah earned about $75 and Abby earned about $96.  Both were excited to do some shopping with part of their earnings!