Anniversaries, Birthdays, and Holidays with Visitors!

Quick Re-Cap of the last month or so...The above flowers (so beautiful!!) were a part of the many surprises Jared gave me on our anniversary. 9 big ones for us. Man! Anyway, he was very sweet and had the flowers for me in the morning (which the kids had helped him pick out, so they LOVED this little secret). Then, when he came home from work, he surprised me with a night out to a Greek restaurant (YUM!!) and a movie, and had even arranged a babysitter!! I was so surprised, and it was a great day! Love you, Babe!

The next pictures are from a cute little museum we went to with some friends...they spent most of their time with these awesome blocks building away. Such teamwork!







The next pictures are from our fun Labor Day weekend. Jared's parents flew out to spend the weekend, so we tried to do all of the Twin Cities in just a few days and had a great time! They were very good sports about all the running around, and I seemed to be the only one that kept wanting to get some food at some point. Call me crazy, but the food is always the best part, right? Anyway, this is the state capital we toured around after we had already toured a historic mansion (I didn't take any pix in there). There were several memorials on the grounds and we were all quite impressed.



But Sara was bored, so she confiscated the camera and took this...



We all loved this WWII gun that was from a ship in Pearl Harbor if I was paying attention, and I don't guarantee that I was!


We also took them to Minnehaha Falls, which we've had fun visiting a few times.


And, of course, the Mall of America!!



The next day after church, we went to show them some more of the downtown, and had a good time watching this lock on the river. Now Jared wants to go through in his float tube. Hmm.






And Sara took the camera again. I guess she told Grandpa to smile, so he did, and she said, "Not like that!" What tact! Grandpa thought it was pretty funny, though! The kids had such a ball chatting their ears off, and Jared and had fun letting them ride with G and G. Our ride was so quiet! :o)

We ended the whirlwind trip taking them canoeing on Monday, and I didn't dare take my camera--have you met my husband? I thought we'd be in the drink for sure, but we actually didn't tip. Anyway, I think we all had a fun time, even though it started to drizzle about half way through and then really rained right as we were finishing, so that was quite, uh, memorable, which is code for cold! But it was fun anyway! Thanks for coming out, Mom and Dad!

So the next pictures are from John's big day--my baby is 6! We gave him a scooter, soccer stuff, an R/C car, and Sara picked a new bat for him. He still won't brave the scooter and bike too often, but we're working on it.

His other big surprise was to get picked up from school by Dad and taken to the Mall of America to ride the rides! We hadn't done any before, and they rode all but one that they wouldn't let him on. Now this, he really did brave! He loved all of it. After they had been there a while, Sara and I wanted to come check it out, so we took a few shots...


Yes, this is them...



And the goods from G and G Morton...books and a dinosaur quiz game that they both totally aced! Even though he's not so into dinosaurs anymore, they still both know a ton of dino-trivia. Cute!


And this is the poster he made for the school's "Be the One to Stop Bullying" contest. How cute is this?

And for my big 3-0, I wanted to go downtown to the Foshay Tower observation deck, which used to be the tallest building in the area for a long time. Anyway, it was so fun, but a little unnerving even though it was only 30 something stories. I also wanted to go to Punch Pizza, which is HEAVEN, so that was just a perfect day! John and Sara wanted to get flowers for me, so I've been so spoiled by flowers lately! Oh, and they had to buy a new vase, because I dropped the other beautiful crystal one when I cleaned it out from the anniversary flowers. That was very sad (and painful--I got several small cuts on my hands and one pretty big gash!), so I'm paranoid now! Anyway, here are the pictures:

The Foshay Tower is modeled after the Washington Monument...






And now, finally to John's birthday party! There were lots of cute pictures, but with lots of little kidlets in them, so I'll have to check with Moms about posting them or edit them out. Anyway, here is one of the pictures John drew to use as a decoration. Seriously, he drew this! By himself. We went with a Star Wars theme, which he is just diving into and loving, so it's been kind of fun.

We had Jedi training, and they had to race little Star Wars skateboards (the current McD toy) down these rain gutters, because Jedis have to be fast. We did three legged races and bean bag tosses, because they have to work together! Then we also did light saber training and shoot the storm trooper. So funny! I definitely need to edit more pix so I can post them!

And we had corn dogs because they look like light sabers. And we got cool popsicles (again, think Light Sabers) instead of cake, so we had to put the candles in the corn dog!



So, that gets things pretty much up to date! Anyone still reading this? :o)