Vacation Recap

WARNING: This post will be long and full of piles of pictures! We took our annual family vacation last week. This year we decided to head north and cross over the border into Minnesota. Here is our obligatory beginning of vacation everyone stuffed in the van picture.

Aaron took the first leg of driving, so I got to be the picture taker. 

My favorite husband. David's my favorite son and Aaron's my favorite husband. 

Letting Keilah take a turn driving. This is how the girls kept her occupied at each campsite as we would tear down and pack things up. She loves to drive. 

Our first and most important stop on Day 1 was in Decorah, Iowa, where I went to college. We stopped at the Whippy Dip for our first day's allotment of ice cream. 

Eating our ice cream by the Upper Iowa River. 

We stopped at nearby Dunning's Springs in Decorah for some hiking and cooling off in the ice cold water. 

Keilah was terrified by the noise of the falls and clung to whichever parent was closest and refused to be put down. 

We invested in a large 12 person tent for our family camping trips. The thing is huge. This picture doesn't do it justice. We can easily stand up in it. It can be partitioned off into three little rooms. 

Relaxing by the fire and waiting for it to die down so we can cook our supper 

I brought along a whole bunch of glow sticks for the girls to play with when it got dark. Cheap and easy fun. A little too much fun. We had to take Keilah's away from her after 10:30 that night as she was still very happily wandering around the huge tent playing with the glow sticks. We learned that we couldn't put her in the tent and hope she'd fall asleep. I had to take her to Aaron and my "room" and lie down with her until she fell asleep each night. 

Day Two took us to Minneapolis as we had decided to take the kids to the Lego store in the Mall of America. I forgot to bring my camera into the store. They were all in heaven as they were completely surrounded by legos. We let them each fill a small tub at the pick-a-brick wall and we couldn't have had happier kids when they heard the news. We also went to a candy store and bought candy for everyone. We left there as soon as we could since Aaron and I aren't big on shopping and the entire place was very overwhelming. We took a stroll through the Sculpture Gardens. 

Beeping the nose of the statue guy. 

Keilah kept kissing her reflection here. It was adorable. 

We spent the night at the house of one of my good friends from high school. It was so much fun to hang out and relax (and not camp!) and enjoy their company. The following morning, we went to a nearby lake with them to canoe in designated infested water. 

Keilah was very much against wearing her "coat" and fussed and whined and cried until we got in the boats. 

She cried so much that it was very concerning to her little buddy Justus. Keilah is about three months younger than him and they enjoyed playing together. 

We had five in each canoe. David stayed behind at first while we rowed to a playground area and dropped off the younger kids and me to play in the lake while they went back for David. 

After leaving our friends, we wandered around looking for things to do. We made sure to complete the only item on our agenda for all vacations: Eat ice cream everyday. 

Day Four: We spent the day in Lanesboro, MN and rented bikes to ride on the Root River bike trails. It was great fun. Abby was on a little tag-along bike behind Aaron, and I pulled Keilah in a trailer. David and Ana each got their own bikes. David rode ahead and had fun exploring the trail. We would give him a time limit of riding out 20-30 minutes and then come back and check in with us, as the rest of us were a little slower paced.  

We stopped at a little pie shop and each enjoyed a piece of pie for a pre-lunch snack Keilah enjoyed her trailer ride after she screamed at first about being put in it. But once she realized it was a glorified stroller, she settled right down and took a little nap. All of our water bottles and snacks were stashed in the trailer with her, so she enjoyed that very much. 

Aaron and Abby on their bike. Abby loved it very much being able to ride with Dad and not have to do all the pedaling by herself. 

Day Five took us back through Decorah where it happened to be Nordic Fest that day. We spent the morning wandering all the food stalls and splitting one of pretty much everything we found. There were some interesting Nordic foods that some of us enjoyed and some us did not. Then we came upon the gem of the day - men dressed up as Vikings and showing battle stances and having little duals with one another. 

We stayed and watched them for quite some time. 

After that, we ate more food, Keilah had a meltdown since it was well past naptime and then we started for home. We ended the night at our house watching a movie together and eating our last ice cream for the trip. 

All in all, it was an extremely relaxing vacation full of plenty of rest and plenty of fun.