Girls Day

Dad was heading out of town, so we had a girls day today. We started out with a quick trip to a fun park before the heat wave set in, but only lasted 30 minutes before melting. We attempted a geocache there, too, but it's a tricky one, and we didn't have the stamina to look for long.

So, as it hit 90F, we brainstormed fun things to do that involved air conditioning. Hey - let's go get Jr. Princess's ears pierced!

Before (nervous excitement)...

After... Ta Dah!

She said it hurt, but she was super tough!

We also went to Borders to get their free books for being good summer readers, went out to lunch, cruised though the pet store (always a dangerous time for this Mom trying to avoid pets...), found some cute school shoes, and ended at B&N so Jr. Princess could finally spend her birthday gift card from Auntie and Uncle. She found lots of great books, until right before leaving we spotted stuffed Piggy and Gerald friends from her current favorite books. So, we definitely HAD to have them (and therefore had to re shelf all the books except for a Phineas and Ferb book). We are looking forward to acting out tonight's bedtime reading.



The rest of the day involved relaxing time at home, and definitely not going outside! We were planning on making pudgie pies for dinner (because it was so much fun camping), but we all decided that a fire pit was not going to be fun tonight, so we called in the sandwich maker. (OK - not quite the same ambiance, but still delicious), while watching So You Think You Can Dance.

Man - that was a lot of girl activites! I'm guessing if I was out of town, M&M Dad's itinerary would have been a little different :)

Happy Birthday Auntie

The girls made a special message for you Auntie - we hope you're enjoying your special day!

(Don't you love how Jr. Princess chooses to wear her headband :) )

Day #3 - Chillaxin' down the river

After two days with lots of hiking and activities, Day #3 was a planned slow canoeing down the St. Croix River. M&M Dad was twitching to do the longer route, but we overruled him for the shorter, relaxing version to make sure our first family canoe trip was positive. I still remember the time M&M Dad and I went, and right after we past the first pick-up point, it started raining with a strong wind in the face. It ceased to be fun, and became man vs. nature to finish that canoe trip. I also remember when Grandma L got fishing hooks under her fingernails from some freak life jacket incident when I was a kid... Maybe I have a canoe trip curse...

So we packed a fun lunch and off we went. The girls LOVED getting to paddle, and we made it the whole way without losing one down the river. Somewhere mid-route, Starshine thought she made up the word Chillax, to describe the theme of our third day. I assured her that Auntie, and other children of the eighties, would remember Chillax. We had so much fun giggling about it, we used it at least 100 times that day.

Afterwards we did a bit of hiking,

and then it was time for the drive home to really Chillax on Sunday (while I did 9 loads of laundry).

Oh - and public apology to the kids for accusing them of possibly losing my water bottle. I am completely responsible for losing my newly won water bottle on the canoe trip. Sorry Melissa!

Day #2 - Waterpark fun

On Friday, we went over to Wild Mountain for a fun day of alpine sliding,

(Where the chair lift up is a fun ride, too!)

go karts

and waterslides.

We have done this for 3 straight years, and the kids are still super in love with the place. I'm sure we'll be back next year - but we'll have to remember to pack the Dramamine for M&M Dad.

We had dinner at a fun 50's themed drive-in, went for a quick walk by the river, went swimming at the hotel (14 trips down the water slide apparently was not enough water fun for one day), and then crashed in our room to watch a movie.

Family Fun Weekend - Day #1

This was our annual Minnesota Family Fun Weekend, and boy did we have fun. Thursday was day #1 - camping! Yes - you read that right - camping. I'm not sure if M&M Dad is trying to slowly break down my camping protests by starting out with a "pseudo camping" trip, but it may be working.
He found a place nearby that had camper cabins - yeah no tents, potential middle of the night animal issues (Starshine had a lot of concerns about his), or problems with rain!


The girls were super excited about the bunk beds...

We made a fun dinner of pudgy-pies, and after dinner discovered that Jr. Princess is by far the family's best marshmallow toaster. All of hers turned out perfectly golden brown and delicious. Who knew she could be so patient :)


The park also has GPS units you could check out to go geocahing. This was a huge hit with the girls, and made long nature walks a lot more fun. We may have to look into buying our own.

The only bad part of this whole trip was the mosquitoes. Deep Woods Off was no match for the zillions of them. And poor Jr. Princess looked like she had some sort horrid rash by the time we left, because her poor little skin overreacts to bug bites. Thank goodness I remembered the anti-itch cream!

This photo pretty much sums up how much my cuties enjoyed our first camping trip - I have a feeling we will be doing this again!

Fun in the Mail

Last week I left a comment on my BFF from college's blog for her 3rd bloggerversary, http://howell5.blogspot.com/2010/07/3-year-bloggerversary-giveaway.html and she pulled my entry out of a hat to win a prize. Yeah - who doesn't love to win a prize? The girls were super excited when they heard it involved Jelly Bellys..

So this weekend my box arrived, full with a cute Paul Dean serving bowl, water bottle, lotion, candle and Jelly Bellys - yum. I tried to serve our dinner of ravioli in the cute bowl the first night, but it you could barely see it because it only filled the bowl about 1/3 of the way. So last night we made popcorn so I could make a big enough "dish" for a photo...

(And no, Paula, I didn't add a stick of butter :).)

Thanks Melissa! I have decreed to the family that "thou shalt not use Mom's new water bottle," so hopefully I'll get to enjoy it for a few weeks before somebody breaks, wrecks or loses it :) Starshine has been inspired and wants to have her own giveaway. Maybe I'll get that organized after our upcoming fun family trip.

Oh, and since the girls got so much candy at this weekend's party, I'm hoping they'll forget about the Jelly Bellys I now have hidden in the cupboard!

Community Fun

We love our local community's weekend festival. So much, in fact, that when we're scheduling our family long weekend vacation, we make sure they don't overlap. And here's why...

Saturday morning starts with a parade, which always involves lots of candy, Bakers Square giving out pie gift cards, and the local florist handing roses to Moms - awesome. We even had a flash back to our youth with a marching band with Steppers - cool. Here are the girls ready for their haul with their bags...

After a quick lunch out of the hot sun, we head to the park for all the activities. Open house at the fire station...

...which includes a huge, fire hose assisted slip n slide. This year only M&M Dad and Jr. Princess gave it a go. It is not for the faint of heart. It's cold, the spray is hard, there are skin injuries, and there's always some little kid crying (not ours this time!).

Late afternoon involves fun demonstrations, like this Tae Kwon Do one where Starshine was brave enough (with lots of prodding from us) to go on stage.

There are also super jumps. K-9 dog demos, and this year, they had dock dogs competing by the lake. This was cool because there were dogs everywhere!

Mind you all of this was free, which is why I don't understand when people are paying for all the carnival rides and other activities. We were tired and ready to get out of the sun long before we had exhausted all of our fun free activities.

We chilled out at home for awhile before heading out for some late night fireworks fun. I surprised the girls with glow in the dark necklaces while we waited. It's kind of a tough park to see fireworks from because of the trees, so M&M Dad noted next time that we should watch from the freeway overpass. Hmmm - not very festive. I think he was just hoping for an easy exit.

And the best part, according to Jr. Princess??? Well, not going to bed until almost 11 of course! (She's posing by her clock)

Sunday is definitely going to involve some lounging around the house!

Super fabulous hair

The girls' daycare had an American Idol party day on Thursday. I thought this meant a karaoke-type fun day with lots of singing. I was wrong. Imagine my surprise when I picked them up and they had these FABULOUS hair dos!

Normally I make them take a bath and wash this stuff out before they get it all over the sheets, but I was easily swayed to let them keep it for one more day. The only downside is there is glitter EVERYWHERE! Though in a house of girls, that is not something we aren't used to :).

A little bit of everything this weekend

On Saturday, Jr. Princess got her very first play date at our house (though she has been enjoying playing with Starshine's friends for years). She was so excited, that she was flying around the house getting things neat and organized in anticipation. They had a fun few hours of slip and slide (it was flaming hot), water balloon induced giggles, dress up, and who knows what kind of fun hiding out in her room.


Later that evening we were all trying to relax and unwind from the fun when it was time for the traditional family trip under the stairs as tornado weather blew through...Last year it was a lot easier because Starshine slept the whole time and had no memory of it. http://shoreviewstories.blogspot.com/2009/08/eventful-saturday.html
This time the poor thing was totally worried the whole time. Jr. Princess, on the other hand, enjoyed staying up way past her bed time thoroughly! She thought it was a great opportunity to use her glow stick.

Today while relaxing before our family outing to the nearby lake, Starshine was super excited to pull out her loose lower tooth. That's five teeth gone in the last few weeks - she'll be drinking though a straw soon! Oh by the way, Grandma L won the tooth pool. OK, she won by default because NO ONE ELSE ENTERED, but she was actually only a few days off on her guess.


Finally, file this one under "I don't know how kids come up with this stuff..." Jr. Princess and Starshine performed a concert that included Starshine playing the piano WHILE Princess decked her out in various dress-up accessories. We'll call it performance art?

We're taking this show on the road

This year Starshine finally became proficient in hula hooping, with a few pointer from me on how to move your hips (it's really not in a circle like one might think).

Jr. Princess, in true "I may be the 2nd child, but I will do everything my sister does" spirit, decided she would learn, too!

M&M Dad even gave it a try. And after the girls and I were done hysterically laughing at his pathetic 1st attempts (seriously, I think the hoop fell straight down only barely touching him), even he managed some real hula hooping. He wouldn't let me videotape him, so you'll have to take my word on it.

So, call me the Yoda of hula hooping... "feel the force young Jr. Princess..." Anybody else need to learn??