Freezing Fun Time

Three years later and we got the kids out for another sledding adventure. I just may have learned my lesson to take an opportunity and make it happen. The past two years when the sledding conditions were ideal, we were not able to go for some reason. Then there are times where it is toooooo cold and times where there wasn’t enough snow or the snow would be too hard. Well we decided that none of that would stop us this year and went out on a day that it was freezing cold and while there was enough snow it was rock hard. That didn’t ruin any of our fun though. The hill was big and fast. The freezing cold temps caught up to us pretty much the same time that our legs were too tired for anymore hill work.

The only downside to the adventure was the hard snow had us leaving with a few less sleds. That price was worth it for a little winter fun. And what better to come home to after freezing your buns off outside? Hot chocolate of course! Cohen enjoyed a couple more sips this time (maybe it was the extra marshmallows in it) and Brynna’s sweet tooth must have tricked her into liking it more too. Well Sevea you can see for yourself how much she didn’t like it.

Together time

After 14 years of marriage and just shy of 20 years together, I’m very thankful that Troy and I have still made one on one time a priority in our relationship. We continued with the Troy plans a day for our anniversary tradition again this year. We rushed out the door after dropping off the kids to get to Minneapolis for a bus beer tour that Troy booked. We quickly checked into our hotel room and made our way in time to hop on the bus. It was such a fun tour since the guide was full of knowledge and love for craft beer. We learned a lot while visiting new to us breweries. The group of men on our tour were also really great to hang out with. The biggest thing we learned on this anniversary outing was the importance of food. The rush out the door meant no lunch. We did end up eating but the combo of tasty beer and less food made for an early night. Yet it was still an amazing time. Something I most definitely will still look forward to next year, just have a feeling more food will be planned out ;)

I didn’t have to wait for our next anniversary for more quality time together. In November Troy and I were supposed to run a destination Ragnar in Napa Valley, CA. The area was experiencing wildfires at the time so the race was cancelled. We decided to still take the weekend and do something together. We are really horrible at traveling solo. As much as I like planning I am the worst travel planner. I get overwhelmed and just don’t get into the planning. Troy loves doing all the research but isn’t good at timelines and making concrete plans. We both just go into things all willy nilly (no food and lots of beer for anniversary!!) All of our traveling is usually with other people, which we don’t mind. Yet we felt like we needed to step out of that comfort zone. First trip solo was a simple trip to Duluth. I got recommendations and we made a really loose plan of what we could do. Baby steps people! The one thing we didn’t plan for was snow in November during our commute. We seriously considered turning back home because you know how horrible the first snow fall is in MN (everyone acts like they’ve never seen or driven in the stuff before!) We made it safe to our hotel even if it caused a little extra anxiety. We were in luck though. We literally walked like 5 steps out of the hotel and brewery was there to help relieve that “anxiety”. We did a bunch of walking that weekend trying to soak in some of the town by foot. We browsed shops including a trip to the mall, enjoyed  some food and drinks, and just spent time relaxing together. We are the worst at making decisions (we joke if we divorced it would be over having to decide where to go out to eat) so the trip was very chill and we managed to make many decisions that weekend even if it was just simple where to eat or walk to or what to drink. One place we did visit that Troy scoped out before the trip was a Speakeasy. It was a really fun environment and we enjoyed some different cocktails. Totally recommend checking it out if you’re in the area. This trip confirmed for us that although we’d prefer traveling with others, we find a lot of fun just being in each other’s company. So we’ll definitely keep making efforts to travel just us. Maybe next time we’ll actually come up with more of a plan.

It’s not good-bye

Doing daycare I always know that at some point each kid will move on from needing my care. Thankfully this normally happens when they are transitioning to school. It makes it easier yet it is never easy. This fall one of my first families moved on. To make this transition easier on all of us, my gift to them was a sleepover for the two kids with us. It was perfect. We had a great time and it helped all of us to remember its not good-bye, it is just see you later.

Fire and Ice Festival

The kids really love watching American Ninja Warrior on t.v. There are some local-ish gyms where you can go to practice on equipment but only Sevea meets the age requirement. So we just haven’t made a point to go for just her. Well they were in luck because all three of them got to try it out when we went to the Chaska Fire and Ice Festival in late July.

The course wasn’t real big but they still loved it. It was definitely a challenge but so fun to see them get to try out stunts they get so excited to watch others do.
And if you couldn’t tell by their outfit choices swimming was next.

What a fun afternoon we had and we look forward to next year!