Food, Fire and Camping Fun!

We had a fun time this weekend with some great friends and family! John cooked up some AWESOME beef brisket, BBQ wings, potato boats, hamburger stuffed tostitos, grilled pineapple, grilled asparagus, baked potato's... he just kept pulling it off the grill :-)

Thank you again Hun for all that you did!!

We ate for the majority of the time :-) After setting up the tent, we attempted a bonfire, but we were overtaken by the plastic smell coming from the near by burning trash barrel (bad timing on that one). So we all went back inside and visited while consuming more food and goodies :-)

Thank you again Beth, Rachel and Charity for bringing the yummy food and bars!!

Oh yes, and we decided to throw our old broken toilet seat to burn on the abandoned bonfire... is that redneck or what!? Haha...

Rachel, Sadie and I never attempted sleeping in the tent... But, John, Andy, Dan and Beth did! Andy woke up to a "symphony" of snoring at 3:00 AM and made a bed for himself on the living room floor next to Rachel who was on the couch :-)

I added a collection of pictures that show some of the highlights!

It was a lot of excitement and as always Sadie put herself right in the middle of it!!

White Water State Park

This morning Lynn, Micah, Malachi and Sadie and I ventured out to White Water State Park, it's about a half-hour away from Rochester. It was Sadie and I's first time there. The scenery was beautiful! We started out by hiking UP the trail which brought us alongside the river and then on top of the bluff! After working up a sweat, we got the kids changed and let them loose to play at the swimming beach! After swimming and playing in the sand, we had a picnic lunch!

One of the most precious memories was when Micah told Sadie, "I love you, so, so much Sadie" and then proceeded to hold her hand as they walked across the bridge :-) How blessed Sadie is to have such a genuine friend :-)

With all that said... we had a GREAT time! Thanks Lynn for planning this outdoor all-around very fun play date!

John's Brisket

John's first bbq of a beef brisket. It tasted good too :-)

Sadie was helping me out when the brisket was done. It took 12 1/2 hours to cook it and it weighed about 11.5 pounds. I sliced up some of the brisket and took pics. I put sauce on after the pics, but never took another picture since I was busy eating. :-)











-John-

Backyard Adventures

Tonight, Sadie and I played outside while Daddy relaxed in the house after a long day. Here are some fun shots of Sadie enjoying her bubbles, the flowers (weeds) and her slide!! She always reminds me to stop and enjoy the little things...

Another great weekend in the cities...

This past Friday we drove up to my parent's house after John got off work.

Saturday, John and I (along with many others) helped our friends Nate and Leslie move into their beautiful new 5 bedroom and 4 bathroom Home in Otsego. It was a smooth move and we had fun visiting them!

While John and I were out this Saturday, my parents took Sadie along with them to visit (and meet for the first time) my cousins in Duluth. Sadie had a blast playing with several of her young cousins, including Reagan, who is also 3 - these two girls had fun playing in the hammock with the boys!!

Saturday afternoon John and I met up with Andy and Rachel! The four of us thoroughly enjoyed China Star together!! We had hoped to go out on the pontoon boat (at Rachel's Mom's house - she lives on a lake) but we could not get the boat past the end of the dock with the wind and mucky water... it was unusually windy, so we couldn't paddle the boat out of the bay... and the water in the bay (near the dock) is about 6 feet of quick-sand like muck with about a foot of water on top, so we couldn't put the motor down in the water without gumming up the propellers...

[sigh]

So, we decided to nominate Andy to go rescue the fishing boat that had drifted into the cat tails after the rope snapped (which was connecting it to the dock). First, Andy got suited up in painfully-grippy-rubber waders and tried wading to the boat, but the muck almost swallowed him whole, so, John helped him get back on the dock. Plan B: float out to the boat in a floaty chair, grab the boat and have John pull him back to the dock with a rope! This was a success!! We didn't accomplish all that we had set out to... but we made some great memories!! And Andy was very brave to venture into the mucky-critter-living waters!

Saturday evening we made campfire style pies over a bonfire at Andy and Rachel's. We enjoyed a full day of excitement with the Blocks!

Sunday, we visited with my parents in the morning and ate at Culver's! Then later we had a yummy steak dinner with John's family in the afternoon!

It was a fun, full weekend!

Our Cabin Trip (Day 4)

Day Four included two fishing trips! The first was not successful (all John caught was a large weed), but very relaxing and scenic for John and my Grandpa... they spent a few hours combing the lake for northerns, and came home empty handed! The second fishing trip was in the evening. My Grandparent's, Parent's, and John, Sadie and I ALL road in the boat - Yes, we exceeded the boats total weight limit!! Ha ha! John, and my Grandpa and I fished! We came home with 21 sunfish, and that was with throwing the small ones back!

During the day, John, Sadie and I had lunch and ice cream at 'The Big Dipper' Cafe in Hackensack, and then we walked around by Birch lake and played on the playground!

Sadie enjoyed the chocolate pudding after dinner as you can see! And Great-Grandpa and Sadie had fun coloring in her Mickey Mouse coloring book using all different colors to make "silly colored mice"! What a priceless moment!

We are SO thankful to have a place like this to enjoy our family and nature!! Sadie is already creating many special memories at the cabin! Hopefully we can make a trip back this Fall...

Next on the agenda: Baby Lauren's Arrival!!

I'm 32 weeks pregnant, going on 33!!

Our Cabin Trip (Day 3)

On this day we all went shopping in Walker, MN which is a tourist town on Leach Lake. We also got ice cream! In the evening John, Sadie and I went to the beach to play!

Our Cabin Trip (Day 2)

The fun continues... Sadie watched her favorite cartoon, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at the cabin! And I snapped some nature pictures... Grandpa and my Dad installed an AIR CONDITIONER!!! To do this they cut a hole in the side of the house!!! What a difference it made to finally have A/C in the cabin!

We also went to the lake where (my brother and his wife) Ryan and Alisha went swimming!! Sadie had fun splashing around in the water with Alisha and Ryan, while John and I watched from the shore :-)

In the evening my Grandpa took Ryan, Alisha, John, Sadie and me out on the boat for a ride. Sadie got to help Grandpa steer the boat, that was very fun :-)