Girls weekend in Duluth

On Saturday Anna and I carpooled up to Duluth to have a girls weekend at Crystal's house and to celebrate her birthday! We got up around lunchtime, had a bite to eat at Crystal's house and then headed out for a hike! We drove up to hike Split Rock and had a beautiful hike! It was just about a 5 mile hike, so it was a perfect loop!

We stopped at Scenic Cafe on our way back for dinner.  We had to wait a little for a table, so we enjoyed a glass of wine on their patio. The food was absolutely delicious! Yum!! After dinner we stopped at the Canal Park Brewery for a beer before heading back to relax and tell stories at Crystal's. It was so much fun....I laughed until I cried and it felt like we were in 7th grade again!  I love these 2 girls so much and it was fun to re-connect! We're going to make an effort to make it a tradition and hopefully next year more girls can come!

Selfie #1

Split Rock

Starting our hike down

Summer kick off party/BBQ at the Bandshell

Nora had her summer kick off party at Kindercare on Friday afternoon and she was excited for us to join her! The party was scheduled for Thursday, but it rained that night so it got moved back to Friday afternoon and it was a beautiful afternoon for a party! Bishop was probably even more excited to go see his buddies and hang out like "old times"!

Catching up with friends!

Nora making pixie dust! :)

 Luke has always wanted to grill out at the Bandshell and we made it happen on Friday night. It was last minute-but we threw it out to the Retzer's and Steffel's and it worked for both of them.....so the kids had a blast playing at the park while the dads grilled up dinner. It was fun for everyone and I hope it works to do it again soon!

Grilling on a beautiful night!

Nora adores Ashton...even if it looks like she's chocking him!

Ice Skating Lessons

We signed the kids up for ice skating lessons and while I'm (very) partial to basketball, I am excited for them to learn to skate and eventually choose what they want to do as they get older. I don't know if I'm quite ready to dive head first into hockey yet....but if it's not now, I've heard it's hard to catch up later, so we'll see where this takes us!

I was quite nervous for Nora as she had NEVER had skates on her in her life and I didn't know how it would go for her (or if she would even get on the ice). They both are in the same class from 4:30-5, but they are separated into different groups, which is great. They both did great for their first lesson and I was proud of both of them. Nora listened to her teachers and tried everything they asked of her. She took a couple hard falls and there were some tears. :( The good news is she got back up and tried again.

Bishop was walking on his skates from one side of the rink to the other and seemed to make progress during his first lesson. He seemed to really be enjoying it.

The lesson went super fast and they both survived! 

Ready for skating!

Excited to get on the ice!

Making his way across the rink

She made it to the other side of the rink (with help from a teacher) 

Working on balancing

First day at Summer Power at the YMCA

Monday was Bishop's first day at the YMCA Summer Power program. Since it was his first day, both Luke and I went with to drop him off. We dropped Nora off first and she was very sad.....she just looked out the window at the 3 of us getting back in the car and the tears started flowing for this mama! :( 

Bishop had a handful of emotions himself. He was worried that all the other kids would be friends with each other and he wouldn't have any friends to play with/meet. He was very quiet at drop off and was reluctant to let us go. However, he sat down at the coloring table and zoned in on coloring. I was happy he found something he could do and not worry about finding other kids to connect with right away. He goes on a field trip every day and when we picked him up his first thing he told us was.....

"we went on the freeway and we didn't wear seatbelts!" The bus ride was a highlight! :)

Both seem to be adjusting well to the new routine. Nora wants to go to "kindergarten" too (she thinks he's in kindergarten), especially because she wants to pack her own lunch! She seems to be enjoying having Kindercare as "her" school now. I think this will be a really good transition for both of them before the real Kindergarten starts in August.

At drop off

So happy to see smiles at pick up!

Bishop's last day at Kindercare

We made the decision to have Bishop attend the YMCA Summer Power camp this summer as a last hurrah before Kindergarten. He started at Kindercare on June 1st, 2010 when he was just shy of 4 months old. He has been there ever since, so it was a very emotional last day for this mama, along with many of the teachers and center director. I was worried about the transition for Nora as well, as they are so close and although they are in different classes, they are able to see each other a lot during their days, as they go outside together. 

Bishop grew so much in his 5 years at Kindercare....he definitely kept a few teachers on their toes and caused some extra stress for others. However, he built some amazing friendships with his classmates and teachers and we will miss them all. I remember some tears of my own out of frustration and worry after picking him up while he was in the toddler room. It's amazing to see how much he's grown and matured in the past 3 years! 

I pulled a few pictures of Bishop throughout his years at Kinderacare. There is one teacher who has been there longer than Bishop and that is Ms. Allie. She's grown up with both Bishop and Nora in multiple classrooms and has always been so supportive of them. We are so thankful for the care and guidance of both Bishop and Nora throughout the years!

Bishop's first birthday! Eating lunch at Kindercare!

Bishop and Ms. Courtney-2 years old

Bishop-Star of the Week-3 years old!

Nora, Ms. Janelle and Bishop-4 years old

Bishop and Gabe

Best buds!

Ms. Allie

Ms. Anita

Ms. Molly

Henry Kruger, Bishop and Rasahd

Big class hug goodbye!

Camping at Gooseberry Falls

We try to get out camping one weekend each summer and knowing how fast the summers fill up and fly by we decided to jump on an open weekend in June and head up to Gooseberry Falls for the weekend. We went up Thursday and spent the night in a hotel in Duluth as we didn't have a reservation for a campsite and we wanted to make sure we got a "walk in" site on Friday morning.

We ate at Fitger's on Thursday night and checked into our hotel. The kids absolutely love staying in hotels! They love jumping on the beds and running around the room. It's pretty funny....but they get all wound up whenever we stay in hotels! We didn't get back to the hotel until a little later (not super late, but just not enough time to go swimming) so we tried to relax and then we headed to bed.

Friday morning we enjoyed the continental breakfast and stopped to pick up a coffee and pair of socks (Luke forgot hiking socks) before heading to Gooseberry. We arrived in plenty of time to get a "walk in site" and it was a beautiful morning! We set up camp, had a little lunch and then set out for a hike to the falls.

Our tent this year!!

Hiking to Gooseberry Falls

So happy to be riding!

Checking out the falls a little closer!

While we were out on our hike we left a small ziploc bag of garbage at our campsite....big mistake! We came back to garbage all over our campsite.....and our soft sided cooler was pecked at and the zipper was broken...so we drove to Two Harbors to pick up some ice and a couple styrofoam coolers. It was a pretty chilly day so we stopped at Castle Danger Brewery to relax and warm up a bit. The kids were excited for their treat (sour gummy worms). After that we headed back to the campsite for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

We had brats for dinner on Friday night, along with some pasta. The kids had fun coloring, running around the campsite and making smores. It got really cold that evening. We set out for an evening hike after dinner to burn some energy before dinner--and it was freezing by the lake! I'm glad we had hats and mittens packed!

Castle Danger Brewery

Drawing in their new books. Bishop could have drawn forever!

Our evening hike to the lake! It was COLD!

It was a cold night in our tent, but everyone got some sleep (I had a really hard time falling asleep and both kids woke up cold in the middle of the night...but easily warmed up when we put them back IN their sleeping bags). Sleeping while camping is always tough!

Saturday we decided to hike to Fifth Falls--about a mile or two up from Gooseberry Falls. It was a warmer hike and we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch on the rocks when we got there. The kids seemed especially happy on this hike!

After the hike we drove up to Split Rock Lighthouse and checked out the Lighthouse. It was really cool and windy so we didn't stay too long. We headed back to the campsite to hang out for the afternoon/evening. Bishop was really into looking for agates, so we spent some time by the lake looking for agates. He did find a few really cool (and real) agates......and he later unfortunately threw one into Lake Superior by accident.

Saturday evening it started to rain. There was rain in the forecast and thankfully it held off late enough for us to eat dinner and then retreat to the tent for the night. The kids laughed a lot as they wrestled in the tent! We packed everything up so we would be ready to take off on Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning we packed up the tents and sleeping bags and headed to Betty's Pies for breakfast. Then we stopped in Duluth and walked around in Canal Park for awhile before heading home.

Breakfast on Saturday morning! Fruit Loops and hot chololate

My big hiker!

Best friends!

Photo courtesy of Bishop (he took about 25 of these

 

Making smores at the campsite

Staying warm by the fire!

Hanging out in Canal Park

The kids had so much fun camping! They always seem to really bond when we go camping....and I heard things like "You're my best friend and I will never ever ever call you stupid or bad words again"! :) I just wish that lasted a little bit longer than it did! :)  Camping is always an adventure--and 40 degrees in June wasn't necessarily in our plans, but we survived, had a great time and will know to wait until later in the summer to camp on the North Shore next time!