Bouncing Away from the To Do List

The cousins came last weekend and the Vs were more than happy to show Nate, Ben, and Uncle Kyle the ins and outs - or ups and downs - of the trampoline. The gang spent all morning on Saturday jumping with their cousins (and Auntie Tracey had her camera ... photo credit to her on all of these!). Then we went to a birthday party. With a bounce house. And they spent four more hours jumping. Sometimes, you pay for fun the next day ...

On Sunday, they jumped in the trampoline after another birthday party. On Monday, I was out with friends, so dad took them outside to ... jump in the trampoline. Tuesday was National Night Out and our neighborhood had our annual block party. At one point, we looked around and realized that the adults were having the party in the road. But all the neighborhood children were partying in our backyard! Likely at least a few were on the trampoline.

Thursday night, we were going to go school shopping. But ... trampoline. And then our buddy Jack came over and needed to jump too. We tabled the shopping for the night and focused on bouncing Jack around.

Today was beautiful out. Instead of doing responsible things like getting groceries or going school shopping, Mike popped up the pool and filled the water table. The gang alternated between the two water areas. And the trampoline. Of course. Even Mike and I got in on the pool fun. Although I didn't get in on the fun to quite the depth that Mike did!

If there is a question on why we aren't getting anything responsible done these day ... don't bug us. We're probably on the trampoline.

The Art of Birthday-ing

I just wrapped up a two week long birthday celebration with a girls' night out courtesy of my college roommates. I partied it up this year as I turned ... well ... I haven't decided how old I'm going to be yet ...

Birthday proper found me bringing my favorite cake (that Q helped me bake) to work. I got really busy with meetings and ended up eating a piece of cake for lunch. Which I followed up with a popcorn chaser (because popcorn Friday). Then we had pizza for dinner. And on Saturday, my dad got an ice cream cake for us to celebrate. We'll go ahead and say this is not The Year of Kale.

On Saturday, my parents, sister, Fiona, and I went to Beauty and the Beast at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre (Mike says our group was "four beauties and a beast"). It was Fiona's second play with us and she was super excited. Until she decided that it might be scary. I spent the first 20 minutes of the play trying to extract her face from my armpit. But once she stopped being ridiculous and watched the play, she loved it. Our sensitive girl feels all the feels. At the end of the first act, she exclaimed loudly, "He's [the Beast] not scary, he's sad!" And then when Gaston and the Beast fought near the end, the tears were rolling down her face. Quickly replaced by wonder when the Beast transformed. Auntie was exhausted just watching Bugs!

The most memorable part of the day was when the play ended and we walked to the door. There was a torrential downpour outside - and a very very long line of cars to drive up to the door for pick up. So I grabbed Bugs, ignored the dissension from Grandma and Auntie, and started running to the car. You guys, we were SO wet! It was so funny and totally worth the downpour dash.

Then this last week, Mom made another trip down and she, Em, and I went to Maks and Val On Tour ... which makes sense to anyone who watches Dancing with the Stars. Against all odds (and rush hour traffic), we pulled into the parking garage at the same time! We had enough time for a lovely dinner together and then took the short walk to the State Theater. It was so much fun - with such great company. I thought Em was going to die when they pulled someone from the audience to dance with Maks and that person got a double Chmerkovskiy kiss. I'm pretty sure I could do at least seven of the moves they did on stage - so I'm basically on deck as a back up dancer!

It's August 1 and Quinn has informed me that it is now her birthday month! The birthday crown has officially been passed.

Jumpoline

Somewhere, Mike's teenage self is alternating between seat drops and belly flops. You see, teenage Mike was ever so jealous of all his friends who had trampolines. And, as of Sunday, not teenage Mike has made the dreams of his three not yet teens come true. We are the proud owners of a trampoline ... or, as Declan calls it, a jumpoline.

At the end of last week, our neighbor Tony called over the fence to ask if we were interested in his trampoline as he was getting ready to sell it. We wandered over there with the kids to test it out and watched them bounce around like crazy people. We probably should have known right then that we would buy it ... but we decided to ruminate on it for a few days before we reached the rather inevitable conclusion.

The trampoline now lives in the backyard and the kids are obsessed. We have to lean a ladder against it for them to get up (short people problems) - and thank goodness that it has the netting, or we would be down one Q (brave middle child reality)! They've been jumping pretty much constantly since we got it. Fiona has mastered the seat drop (drop to butt and back up to feet) and Quinn can jump crazy high. Declan is practicing his bunny hops and feeling braver. They love it when Mike or I (or both) come in and bounce them around. We were all jumping on Monday night and poor Yogi was so jealous; he wanted in too!

Hopefully they still enjoy it when the newness wears off. For now, I'll listen to Mike's thirty-something self groan a little bit. Because when you alternate seat drops and belly flops in real life, you feel it!

Camping Trip Extracurriculars

While we were camping with the grandparents, we were lucky enough to get to share some of their favorite activities with them! It's the best to watch our kids and parents bond over shared interests - and for our gang to learn more about their grandparents.

Gpa V brought two wheelers and the girls were so very excited to ride. Dec took quite a while to warm up to riding one. He really liked wearing his helmet, but he thought they were too loud. Eventually Mike got him to sit on it - and then he wanted to go on a ride (or two). Quinn was our master rider; she was constantly asking Mike or Grandpa to take her. The long ride on the groomed trails was her favorite - although she wished she had seen a deer!

Quinn ready to ride

Finally feeling brave

Ready for the big trails

Fiona really enjoyed playing with Gma and Gpa's dog Coco (poor Coco is probably still sleeping after F played with her non-stop for two days). And she loved riding Gma's horse Brook and meeting the other horse, Angel (who is not quite ready for young riders). She was very engaged in watching the care of the horses and couldn't wait to help Grandpa! Quinn was also very interested in watching the horses; but they were a little too wild for her to want to ride. She did head down to the fence to help give Brook a treat and stood there watching the horses play, soaking it all in, as Quinn does.

Happy rider

Helping with the hay

Q checking out the horses

Second Annual Wisconsin Camping Trip

Group picture

We did our second camping adventure of the summer last weekend and returned home with about 10 extra pounds of dirt and 20 pounds of laundry. So it was incredibly successful! We recreated our first ever camping trip from last summer - except we went to a different campground and didn't spend our nights listening to the train. We liked that better! So much better. This year, we camped in Gordon, Wisconsin, at a really nice little campground - that included an ice cream shop!

Riding the tractor

We drove up Friday morning. The kids were uncharacteristically accommodating and good in the car. It was so lovely! We were the first ones from our group at the campground ... and within 30 seconds of getting there, Fiona had charmed the owner into giving her a ride on his tractor. Gpa V was not far behind us and we got to work setting up camp. The kids and I wandered down to the playground and found the sand trucks that Mike had packed. After dinner, we decided to walk right across the dirt road from our site ... to the ice cream shop. It was a delicious way to end our first day.

The girls and the puppies

On Saturday, we tested out the four-wheelers that Gpa brought and did a lot of playing in the morning. After lunch, we drove into Solon Springs to Gma and Gpa N's to let Fiona ride Grandma's horse. The other two were not interested in riding, but Fiona was really excited to be on Brook. She even helped Grandpa haul some hay over to the horse area. And both Fiona and Quinn fed Brook an apple. After the horses, we decided to go to the beach for a little while (after we ran back to the campsite to get the sand toys and life jackets we had forgotten). It was a fun, relaxing way to spend the afternoon.

When you are just done camping ...

Mike's buddy Luke and his family (three girls) joined us for dinner and then we joined them at Luke's family cabin that was only 10 minutes away. We went swimming and sat around the fire with s'mores. Mike and Luke have been friends forever ... and due to a story involving two eight-year-olds, a couple horses, and a broken arm, Mike has been waiting 28 years to get to the cabin! 

Sunday morning, we got out on the wheelers a couple more times while we broke camp. We left a little later than anticipated and it was right at lunch time. The gang was so tired that we let D get his car nap first and then pulled off into a big parking lot to eat lunch in the camper about halfway home. The kids thought it was pretty funny that we were eating in the camper during the drive.  

We got home in time to unload, make dinner, bathe everyone, and start tackling the laundry. We had such a good time with Grandpa, Grandpa, and Grandma and are already looking forward to our camping trip with them next summer!