family

A collection of 387 posts

family

we bought a boat!

This may not be the biggest surprise in the world for those of you who have known us for awhile.  However, it's been a long time coming and after a lot of time refitting her to support our family for an extended cruise - we're almost ready to go! 0:

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happy valentines day

Braden and I celebrated Valentine's Day a day early with a fancy wine dinner with some friends. Some of these dishes sounded kind of gross, but everything was delicious. Our favorites were the 3rd and 4th courses. It was a good thing we did because after that everything went downhill.

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tubing

Remember when I said Olivia has become fearless? Last year she wouldn't tube at all. Today she went the full 2 hours... and didn't want to leave when our time was up.

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great wolf lodge

The girls didn't have school Thursday and Friday, so when our friends asked if we wanted to spend a night at Great Wolf Lodge we figured why not. This is one of those places that every time we go we say we're never going again... but after a couple years

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daddy daughter dance

Olivia has been looking forward to tonight for weeks. The daddy daughter dance! The dance was fairy themed, so she wore her wings... and a crown, of course. Braden said Olivia usually does a little dancing, but she really just likes to do the crafts.

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reptile show

Who knew we would be the people attending a reptile show? But here we are... I was expecting this to be like any other expo. We'd walk around, look at stuff and that was it. I didn't realize just about every vendor booth would be offering to let the girls

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out and about

We've been spending a lot of time at home with Emma not feeling well. Now that she's feeling better (not 100% yet... but way better than she was) I was itching to get out of the house this weekend. On Saturday we ended up at REI. We have a huge

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sledding

We got a lot of snow yesterday, but at least it was warm enough for us to get outside and enjoy it... and by warm I mean over 30 degrees! It was perfect sledding weather. Our neighbor friends have the neighborhood sledding hill in their backyard, so we headed over

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winter break: day 12

Clean up day. It was time for Olivia's birthday decorations to come down. They were winter themed and she begged to keep them up until the New Years party, but after almost a month of being up it was time. Christmas decorations also came down.

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winter break: day 10

New Years Eve! Last year we had two other families over to ring in 2022. The girls had the best time staying up until 2 AM, so they've been begging for us to do it again. We made arrangements with our friends a month ago, but with the way our

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winter break: day 9

I can't remember the last time Emma took a nap. She's taken at least one a day since the day after Christmas. Since we're still just hanging around the house I decided today was the day to take the lint catcher off the dryer. I've been wanting to clean that

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winter break: day 8

We've been taking it easy, but really needed to get out of the house. No one had any stomach issues for over 24 hours, so we thought the grocery store would be a safe outing. Turns out we weren't in the clear yet. Emma ended up getting sick in the

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winter break: day 6

Sometimes plans don't go the way you want... Monday night I think I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. Emma didn't sleep at all and was up all night running to the bathroom. Olivia slept through everything, but Braden and I did not. We tried to make the most of

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winter break: day 5

We always take the bus to Duluth over Memorial Day weekend. Last year we decided we wanted to check it out during the winter. Braden ended up taking this week off, so we decided to take a 3 day trip up to Duluth again during the girls winter break. This

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merry christmas (winter break: day 4)

Last night before bed Emma told me she was getting me up at 7:30 AM. Sure enough... both girls came running into our room right at 7:30 AM ready to start the day.

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winter break: day 1

Yesterday we got lots of snow. The pretty, powdery, sparkly stuff. But today... no blizzard. It was a very, very cold, sunny day. How cold...? It was make icicles on your eyebrow cold. Since I thought there was a blizzard coming we had play dates and baking planned for today.

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spa day

What do you do after the crazy day we had yesterday? You have a spa day. The Snowtopia Spa treatments included manicures, pedicures, make up, massages and tattoos. Even Braden got some spa time with the girls...

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what a day

I've been mentally preparing for this day for weeks. It started with Olivia's last basketball game of the season. I'm so glad she tried basketball. She really had fun doing it... and she's pretty good. We had to leave the basketball game at halftime to get to our next event.

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throwback thursday (december 8, 2021)

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happy thanksgiving

We loved spending Thanksgiving in Wisconsin Dells last year, so why not do it again? This time we surprised the girls with the trip... and we brought some friends along. The last time we came the girls really wanted to drive the go carts, but Emma isn't old enough and

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state semi-finals

Our town's high school football team played in the state semi-finals last night at US Bank Stadium (where the MN Vikings play). We had decided earlier in the week we would wait to go see them in the championship game, but just about everyone we know was going to the

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severs

Sever's is one of my favorite fall traditions. Corn pits, corn maze, petting zoo, pumpkin blaster, mini donuts... plus so much more. I love all of it. I've been wanting to go here just about every nice weekend for months, but we've been so busy we decided we'd just skip

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family photos

I always dread family photos. Figuring out the outfits is the worst part, but it is the only way we get some amazing family photos every year.

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busy saturday

I've been preparing for this Saturday morning all week... Turns out it wasn't as bad as I thought. Olivia and I got to her photos at the elementary school 15 minutes early and they were able to take them right away. Then we met up with Braden and Emma next

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throwback thursday (october 13, 2021)