Vacation: Grandpa Jim & Grandma Linda's

We spent the weekend in Lakeville, visiting and swimming. Jax did a little swimming in the big pool, but REALLY loved the little pool. And the hose that Grandpa used to fill it. He checked out the new deck with Grandma Linda, played in the pools, had some serious conversations with Grandpa Jim and helped him with laundry, and had lots of fun. On Saturday night, Jaxon stayed home with Grandpa and Grandma so we could go out to dinner with Joe and Anna. We went to Dave and Buster's, which is why the photos of Josh and Joe look like we were at Chuck E. Cheese or something. So much fun!

Vacation: Minnesota Zoo

We took Jaxon to the zoo for the first time - it was a lot of fun. He loved looking at the animals, tried petting a shark (that's what the photo is with him and Josh reaching into a black puddle...there's a shark in there somewhere), discovered the mist sprayers, and went crazy in their fountains. Anywhere there was water in the zoo, he really wanted to get closer to the water. He was pretty mad that Josh wouldn't let him swim with the sharks when they were touching the water!

We brought along his swimsuit so he could play in the outdoor fountains but underestimated how much he would love them. We spent an hour walking from fountain to fountain and standing in the rain that falls in that area. Josh and I are in agreement that we have never seen him smile and laugh and have so much fun as he did in those fountains. How happy he was made it one of my favorite parts of our vacation.

Vacation: Turtle Racing in Perham

When I was younger, my family used to go to a town near the cabin to race turtles. Josh thought I was nuts when I told him I wanted to take Jaxon turtle racing, but I think he had fun. Way back in the day, it used to be you could show up and pick a turtle out of a bucket and race your turtle. We showed up 30 minutes before races were supposed to start for registration (a fancy way of saying that you're given a colored sticker with a number on it, I guess). By the time we got there, the line of people wanting to race turtles was down the block and around the corner! Our turtle was #179 and they announced that after about 30 minutes of racing there were over 300 people "registered" to race that day! Jax enjoyed watching the turtles, and tried to grab one that came near where we were sitting, but did NOT want to touch his turtle when it came time. Our turtle didn't win, his GPS must not have been working or something because instead of going straight he turned and took off for the other side of the ring.

Vacation: Picnic At Phelps Mill

On what worked out to be a perfect day for it, we went to Phelps Mill for a picnic. Jax crawled and walked all over the place, ran off with our stroller a few times, watched the fish and turtles in the river, and shared his food with daddy. After lunch, we checked out the mill (all 3 floors, which I did not realize you could do) and by the time we loaded Jax into his carseat and started the blazer to go back to the cabin, he was out cold.

Vacation: Mini Golf and Golfing

True to his word, Josh went golfing every morning of his vacation and a few afternoons also. We tagged along one day, and Jax thought it was pretty entertaining. There was no yelling, which I'm sure the other golfers appreciated. ;)

We also went mini golfing in Battle Lake one afternoon. The lady that runs it was nice enough to give Jaxon a ball of his own to play with, though he was more interested in putting rocks on the green carpet and dropping our balls into the cup for us. He did putt with a little help from daddy on the 18th hole, but didn't win a free game.

Vacation: Lake

Over the week that we were on vacation, I took a LOT (nearly 500) of photos and I think the best way to recap it for you is to divide it into separate blog entries. Our week was so much fun and it was really nice to spend that time as a family. Videos are still not uploading unless I let them sit for 4 hours and so I can't share those yet, which makes me sad.

Our time at the cabin was spent either on the beach and sitting at the edge of the lake splashing, crawling through the backyard and exploring, or scaling the furniture inside the cabin. (There was some toilet paper unrolling too, as you can see.)

We took Jax for a paddle boat ride one day and then he decided he would be a better driver and so we let him drive on the beach ;) The photo of him standing on the couch makes us laugh because of how he had to stand to yell. He would crawl up there, touch the picture on the wall and then stick his belly out and yell til he ran out of oxygen, get down and then do it all over again. There is a couple families of ducks that spent a good part of the day swimming around at the end of the dock and waddling around the beach. One afternoon, the mama duck came by the end of the dock (making sure she kept her distance from the boys) and started quacking at them. Both Josh and Jax quacked back and carried on a fairly long conversation with the duck ~ after that, when a duck would come around, Jax would quack.

Fair!

Bree and I took Jaxon, Rohin, Scarlet, and Tristan to the fair on Wednesday afternoon to see the dinosaurs and the "moos", like Scarlet calls them. Jax was pretty fascinated by the dinosaurs, which surprised me. I didn't figure he'd go for actually sitting on the dinosaur to have his picture taken and I really didn't want to have to be in the picture too, so we cheated and just took one in front of the fence. We ate some french fries, checked out some chickens, quacked at some ducks, watched some baby chicks hatch, and the big kids milked a fake cow. The weather was perfect for a short trip to the fair and so we were there til the stroller kids were nearly passed out and the big kids had walked til they thought their legs might fall off. So much fun!