It's the end of boating this year. We are sad, but happy to have the oppotunity to go!
Here is Colton "making out" with his favorite candy, Reese Peanut Butter Cup...
The water was pretty dang cold. Of course the boys wanted to jump in to try it...Here is what happened..
Can we say COLD!
It was a fun trip to wrap up the summer.
After boating we came home and had a fire, roasted marshmallows and relaxed before the first day of school...
Colton has ventured out and made his first brownies...
Mixing them.
Pouring it in the pan.
Putting in the oven to cook
and.... voila! Delicious Brownies!! Good job bud...
We woke up this morning (about 4am) to a very large bang/snap! Aaron looked out the window but it was still to dark to see. A while later he got up again and went downstairs. That is when I heard, "Oh my Gosh!"
This is what we saw.
Yep that's right a HUGE tree in our yard, fell over into the neighbors yard. It actually sits right in the corner behind our fence.
You can see all the tree branches and brush that is in our yard blown all over the place.
This is down the street. This was around 6am.
This is the front yard.
Here is our tree that also fell on the powerlines in our neighbors yard.
This was our neighbors (the other side of us) back yard. Luckily it missed their house!
At one point we saw a news person taking video of our tree. I told the kids, "let's go out there and pretend to be cleaning and maybe we will be on T.V. I got more than I bargained for. He wanted to interview me. I looked terrible!!! Oh well... I was on the news later that evening.
Aaron and I had to stay home from work so we could figure out what to do. We had no power and we didn't know when we would. This was a major storm that took out almost the whole town.
When the kids came home from school we decided to go clean up the park behind us.
Here are the guys working on city guys trying to get a tree unhooked on a live wire! It was a little intense watching.
Here they took down some of the old and put some new up.
Finally the tree is almost gone.
We were w/out power for 3 1/2 days. Lot's of candles, flashlights, and games. It was actually a fun bonding time for our family. However we were thankful when our power was restored. It got a little chilly at night.
Thankfully no one was hurt and all was well in a few days.
Our last day we all gathered to listen to some speakers from work. They also announed the winner of bowling from the night before. Hmmmm wonder who it could be.. AARON!!!
Here is the Trophy he won.
After we checked out of the hotel we decided to tour Red Wing a little bit.
This was my favorite Boot we found.
We went to ck out the famous largest boot!
Size 638 1/2!!
We found this cute little Cafe to eat at.
We headed home after our tummies were full. It was a fun get away for us as a couple. We had a great time!!
We got up and listened to a great motivational speaker.
She is Robyn Benincasa.
Robyn Benincasa is recognized as one of the most consistent and most decorated adventure racers in the world. Her top adventure race accomplishments include first place in the following: Raid Gauloises, Ecuador 1998; Eco-Challenge, Borneo 2000; Balance Bar 24 Hour National Championship 2002; and Patagonia Expedition Race 2004. Benincasa is captain of Team Salomon/Eco-Internet, to date the most successful team in the sport of Adventure Racing, and became the first American to win the Raid Gauloises (Ecuador 1998).
This is from her Bio.
"While consistently achieving top sales in her day job, Robyn completed six Ironman races, with two podium finishes. Then the adventure race bug bit.
In her 15-year career as a professional adventure racer, Robyn Benincasa has competed in close to 40 expedition-length events - gnarly, multiday, multisport killers such as Primal Quest and Eco-Challenge. She has biked through jungles in Borneo, climbed Himalayan giants in Nepal, trekked across lava fields in Fiji, rafted rapids in Chile - and racked up multiple world championship titles along the way. In her spare time, Robyn, is a full-time firefighter in San Diego, on the nation's first all-female crew."
What is pretty cool is that she knows my Step-Brother Eric. He is a fire fighter in San Diego as well.
Afterwards we did a team activity. We had to paint a piece of a picture. Basically we were given a corner of a full picture. After we painted it we had to bring all four pieces together. (without knowing what others had painted) Our team won!!! We were the closet to matching the picture. It was really hard because the pic was very small and as you can see what we painted on was huge. Ours is the one with the trunk (bottom right). First time I ever painted in my life. It was a lot of fun!!
We checked out the gift shop in the casino and I had to take this picture.
You might ask why??... Well earlier that day Laurie had asked me if I had a safety pin. I didn't. Well then I did find one for her! haha..
We had some time in the afternoon before our night activity. We drove into Red Wing and went to The Pottery. It's a little shopping center with a Pottery Museum in it.
I had to have my fortune told.
This was in the Museum.
Red Wing is where the famous Red Wing shoes are made. There are big boots all over town. They are all painted different.
Here is Laurie and Ben.
It was so stinkin' hot that we decided to head back to the cool casino.
For the evening it was a Alice in Wonderland theme.
All the tables had different hats on them.
This was ours.
Of course Aaron had to try it on.
Chuck, one of my co-workers husband, had to try on all the hats. Here are just a few.
We got this delicious cake. Everyone got different ones for their tables for dessert.
Then we had a magic show. This guy was not only good but funny. It was a a blast!
Tony (my friends husband) got called up to help. He is in the white T-Shirt.
He juggled an electric knife, bowling ball and blow torch!
Then he did a 3-D show. (our eyes are creepy) ha!
After all of that we did moonlight bowling. For every strike you got they donated $50 and for every spare it was $25.
Laurie and I got a strike!
This was the final score. Notice the 257!!! That was Aaron's score. Crazy!!! Mine was a lousy 91. ha! Oh well it was so fun!!
It was a great ending to a super GREAT day!!
It's time again for my work annual conference!! Whoop Whoop!!
This year they took us to Treasure Island in Red Wing, MN. It's a casino.
The first night was a Las Vegas theme. They had all these amazing food areas set up. They represented differnent hotels in Vegas.
There was some entertainment and Elvis!!
These girls were amazing. They had such strength pulling themselves up by their arms and legs in these scarf things. (not sure what they are called)
I got a kiss from Elvis! hehe.. He gave each of us a sash and a kiss on the cheek.
After the show they gave each of us "$4000" to play poker. We played Texas Hold 'em. It was SO fun. We had a blast. We ended up with "$9000"!! To bad it wasn't real money. haha!
It was good food and fun all wrapped up together.
Beth went to a 2 week summer school this summer. Aaron had the opportunity to go see Beth in a play at school and have some fun time with her at the park.
She loved having Daddy come visit her at school!!
Finally Cody gets to bring a friend, Justin!!
Yes that is Beth that you see in the background. She actually got in the water and swam around.. Again nothing short of a miracle that she is in there.. ha!
I think they had more fun swimming in the water than tubing this time.
You are going to hear a lot about us boating. It's the one thing we do all summer long...
Colton brought his friend Mason this time.
Cody found a huge log in the water. So we had him pick it up so we could take it to the side.
Aaron took the boat for a spin to see how fast it would go if there was no extra weight.
While we were waiting for Aaron the kids were jumping off of the dock.
Mason got a little beat up on a couple of runs. But he did great. The kids had a blast!
