July and August Recap!

I have no excuse for not updating this little blog in such a long time.  We have done a few fun things to end out the summer 2016.  Let's recap, shall we?

Valleyfair!  Near the end of July, my family, my sister's family, my mom and Randy all headed to Shakopee for a weekend of fun at Valleyfair!  Unfortunately, Saturday had tons of rain and storms, so we waited to head to the park until Sunday.  Saturday, we had a fun lunch, ran through parking lots in downpours to do a bit of shopping, and then spent the afternoon swimming at the hotel!  

Jay's birthday on July 31 - we had a fun breakfast at Cracker Barrel!!

And Ella helped bake a cupcake cake (from scratch) for Jay's birthday celebration!  It turned out super cute and she was SO proud of the frosting - which she did all by herself.  

 

Ella will be dancing in the Just for Kix program this year instead of the studio, so we are excited to try the new program and see how it goes!  She LOVES to watch the dance teams in our area, so her and I headed to the Rosemount summer festival (Leprechaun Days) to watch the Rosemount High School Irishettes perform. 

And afterwards, we walked around the festival grounds and Ella got to try out the firefighter equipment!

 

  

Lots of time at the parks in our area this summer....

 

And scootering around the neighborhood!

Summer selfies!

 HA!

And Ella had another visit from the tooth fairy!  She lost the lower right incisor on August 11.

This time we captured the picture the next morning so she isn't wearing PJs!! 

We have had a busy and fun summer!

Weekending...

We are enjoying the summer!  A few things from our past few weekends....

We hit up a new splash pad in nearby Rosemount to cool off last weekend!

Of course we enjoyed some ice cream...and Ella insisted I take her picture sitting on this cow bench.  What a dork!

I finally painted Ella's bathroom!  From a boring tan to a soft grey.  We are still getting the decor finalized....plans include pink towels and a pink shower curtain!

 BEFORE

AFTER

I will say that I have never (ever) painted a room before.  I wanted to do this project by myself.  I'm happy with how it turned out and feel like painting isn't that much work, but it's a total pain in the butt!  HA! 

To celebrate my hard work, Ella and I got pedicures.  :)

 Isn't her chair the cutest?  She LOVED it!

Jay and I had a date night!  We hired Sophie to watch Ella and we headed to St. Paul.  We had dinner at The Nook.  Delish.  We'd heard lots of good things about it, and I'm sure you've seen them on a Food show once or twice.  I opted for a basic cheeseburger and it was amazing.  Jay got a fancy burger which he said was good also, but the highlight of his plate was the crinkle cut sweet potato fries - YES PLEASE!  The Nook is a small joint so I felt like a weirdo taking pictures, but I did snap this one....just to remind myself of it! 

Afterwards, we were stuffed, but headed to Izzy's Ice Cream shop for dessert.  Our choices were a bit underwhelming, but it was still fun and the weather was perfect to sit outside and enjoy.  Except, apparently I'm still trying to figure out how to take a selfie!

 HA!  I've looked at this one on my phone a good number of times and keep laughing!  I was trying to figure out where I was supposed to tap my finger to get the phone to take the picture.  I'm awesome.

See, I figured it out.  HA!

Summer Happenings!

We have been having a fun-filled summer so far!  It seems impossible that the 4th of July is already upon us, but it sure is!  Happy 4th!  God Bless America!

Here are some snapshots from our summer....

 Haircut!

 Dylan's Graduation Party (it was SO HOT!)

Puppet Wagon!

Shopping with Annabella (the baby) ....

Tea parties in the backyard...

Ginormous burritos from our favorite Mexican restaurant!

And Ella's favorite - cheese quesadillas!

The 4th of July weekend has been busy....beach day at Lake Marion...

A visit to DQ....where we all enjoyed the new Peanut Butter Monster Cookie blizzards~YUM!

Canterbury Park....

 (Ella's pick:  Princess Gina; Jay's pick: Empress Wildcat; Sara's pick: Grandma Connie)  HA!  

Grandma Connie came in last place...

We went to Canterbury for the evening to watch the horse races, hang out and then watch fireworks.  We left before the Park fireworks though (I am pretty sure just about the entire city of Shakopee was in attendance, both in the stands and the huge amount of cars lining the roads and lots near the Park).  We were able to watch the ValleyFair fireworks before the Park fireworks even started, so we convinced Ella that we saw some good ones and took off early!!  When we got home, we were treated to a show right in our neighborhood, so that was perfect!