We've made it back from the land of "yah, sure you bet'cha!"
We left Friday night, Aug 24th and drove to North Dakota where we stayed that next night. In the morning we drove into northern Minnesota to the town of Nisswa where we met up with Rod's mom, Carolyn and Rod's sister, Ramona and her son, Ronnie.
We stayed at "The Grand Lodge" in a cabin for four days/three nights. It had four bedrooms, had a kitchen, a pool table, and a foosball table. Since it was a resort, we got to do some fun things like: sign the kids up for kids club and take a pontoon boat out fishing. That was one of my highlight moments. I love being out on a boat! They also had a pool with a great waterslide right at the resort. So they kids did a lot of swimming. I think the kids swam almost everyday we were on vacation! At night, we played cards with the family. They taught me how to play Rummy 500. I won, of course :) This was a great time to reminsce about days gone by. I learned alot about Rod as a kid sitting at the table with his mom and sister at night. Things like who had a crush on him growing up and who he had a crush in on Kindergarten. I learned alot about Ramona and the fact that in the little towns of Milan and Montevideo.. that growing up there wasn't much else to do for the teenagers but drinking.. and that they could get a beer for I think it was .90. One night we had a campfire and roasted hotdogs and marshmellows.
We left the resort we went to Bloomington about 3 hours south. This is where we stayed for three nights at a Mariott. (It also had a pool!) We had sort of a relaxing day.
The day after we headed for the Minnesota State Fair. It's sort of a Pilgrammage, actually. This is where we met up with Rod's dad, Harland and his "friend" Linda. The MN state fair is It's not like our state fair. Everyone has great pride (to a point that's pretty cheesy) in their fair. Thousands of people go everyday. It's crazy. We don't go on weekends.. But what we do go for is family time and food. They have fun stuff for the kids to do like the Home Depot building area.. where the kids build something. Each of the kids came home the project they made. There's a parade.
But I think what Minnesotans really take pride in at their fair is their food. And boy is it good! I think you can get everything but ice cream deep fried on stick. And they have their famous Cheese Curds. Which I make fun of every year. I really had a good laugh at myself this time because I actually LIKED the cheese curds. Cough, cough, I guess they've grown on me. It used to be something that we got because Rod enjoyed it in his childhood. Yah, now I like them too. But boy, the price of them has increased since we were there last! I guess there's something going on with the price of cheese. They were $5 for a basket.
I recently lost my cell phone (before this trip) that had numbers and pictures etc on it. And that was not a fun experience for me. So when we were there at the Fair and we lost Josiah's backpack, I thought that there would be no chance of getting it back! After looking, we called lost and found, and someone had turned it in. I was so thankful. there was so much in that bag (everyone's stuff) that it really upset me that we had misplaced it. I couldn't believe that someone actually took the time to turn it in. I will definately pay that one forward!
The day after the fair went went to the Mall of America to go to Camp Snoopy. I guess they recently changed the name to "the park" at mall of america, because Nickolodeon bought the rights to it. But the locals still call it "Camp Snoopy". Ramona can get discounted arm bands through her work.. so that was really nice! Normally, it's just our family that goes to camp snoopy. But this time, our family, Ramona and Ronnie, Carolyn, Harland and Linda also came. It was so great to have everyone there! If we wanted to go on a big ride, someone took Julia. If Ramona didn't want to ride, we took Ronnie. That was a fun bonding day.
We rode from the time we got there until closing (except for a family dinner at Famous Daves, a great BBQ restaurant). Julia loves "horsies" so we ended the day on the carousel... I think we rode it 5 or 6 times right before closing. We didn't think there would be enough there for her to do, but at age 2, she LOVES rides. There was NO way we could have not let her ride, because she just enjoyed it too much! There's this one ride, the timberland twister, that's like a teacup ride on steroids (well a rollercoaster). It has to be my favorite. Josiah loves it when I go on stuff like that because I always Scream.. and he thinks that IS SO FUNNNY!
The next day we went back to the Mall and looked around a bit and went to Lego Land. We stayed at the mall a few hours and then headed to Mona's. It was about another 3 hours away.
We stayed 2.5 days at Monas. Saturday night Rod, Ramona, Carolyn and Harland played Buck (a complicated game that Jay and Faith would love). They must have stayed up til 3 am playing. Rod and Ramona had the best time.. they played against their parents. You would have thought those two were serious card players! They were so serious about beating their parents (but still weren't able to). Sunday we had a family get together. the adults played Buck. I think I got the jist of it, but they are all so competetive that I wouldn't dare play! We saw Aunts and Uncles and Cousins. It was a great time to catch up with everyone. Rod's cousin Stacey, who lives on the east coast was home, so we were able to see her too.
When at Mona's we stay at Mona's. And she's such a gracious host. She's really taught me alot about how to host people. It's really a gift that she has. She has a three bedroom place in a quad-plex that is really quite nice. It's big enough to where it doesn't feel particularly crowded.
But what I like best about it is, that when you get up in the morning you see them and when you head to bed at night you can say goodnight. And those moments, particularly at those times of the day.. are times that are talkable moments.. the moments where you say things that need to be said or things you want to say or things you should say. In those times, when things are settled down after a long day, it seems we learn the most about each other...
Overall it was a great trip. It was fun and we spend quality time with the family. Rod's brother, Paul and his wife, Debi, weren't able to come up this time.. So we missed seeing them. And we have a lot to be thankful for. The trip went well, the car ran fine, the A/C ran exceptionally well, the kids got along, the kids got along with Ronnie, Josiah's turned in back pack, Rod had time with his mom, time with his sister and some time with his dad, and we didn't have any doctor related health issues and we didn't even lose anything! Woohoo! Thanks Lord for another safely returned trip home!
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